About Consistency and The End of the Cleanse

On Consistency
I made a decision last week to post regularly on Mondays and Thursdays. I posted said decision, telling my readers they could count on me for those regular posts. Then I promptly didn't follow through.

There is an element of this that has to do with my "ENFP-ness:" as soon is it's a commitment, something I'm supposed to do, then it's no longer fun, the creative energy no longer flows, and I struggle to follow through. But I don't think that's really the case this time. At least, it's not a big enough issue to have overpowered my desire to write regularly.

Honestly, I have so many things I want to write about here, I often have trouble deciding which topic to go with on a given day.

This time it wasn't about a lack of follow through. It was about the last days of the cleanse being really intense.

I'll get to that in a minute, but first I want to finish my thoughts on consistency. Penelope Trunk posted about the value of consistency in personal decisions today. I've been thinking about that issue a lot lately - for people like me who have a lot of interests and, therefore, a lot of commitments, you have to really make an effort to be a dependable person. When you overbook yourself, it's easy to become unreliable, or just reliably late and unprepared.

Just last night I was thinking that I'd like to make each one of my commitments feel like it/they are my priority when I am working with them. That means being on time with everything and always following through. Moreover, you have to be fully present with whoever and wherever you are. If you make it to a meeting on time but show up flustered, under prepared, or act like you're just dropping in before running off to the next thing, that person/group won't feel like they're the priority, nor that they can count on you. Even if in the grand scheme of things they're not at the top of your list, they should be #1 during the time that you spend with them.

I find Ascension helpful in these circumstances, as using the techniques is calming, grounding, and focusing. If I'm running in the door, thinking of all the other things I need to be doing, I can use them to help me become fully present where I am.

The End of the Cleanse
I do plan to be more consistent with the blog posts. I want to be a good, reliable writer. So I intend to work on my consistency there.

But my missing posts this past week were more due to the end of the cleanse, as I said before.

Last week Tuesday and Wednesday were the apple fasting days. They were easier than I expected; I was craving something salty by the end, but otherwise eating apples for two days was alright. I didn't have an abundance of energy, but I didn't get too tired, either.

Wednesday night was the grand finale with the drinking of the "liver cocktail;" 1/2 cup of equal parts lemon juice and olive oil. I'd gone to Vom Fass and bought an expensive olive oil I liked the taste of (this one was rosemary infused) to make it a little easier. The taste was fine, though the consistency (no pun intended) was a little gross. Mostly the way it felt as it glopped into my mostly empty stomach was unpleasant.

As directed, I went to bed right away. I want to encourage people to do the cleanse, and overall it was much easier than it sounded from the onset. But I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty terrible most of the night. Which is not to say that everyone who tries this would - One of the women in the class said she didn't feel anything. I, however, was obviously detoxing a lot out of my liver.

The olive oil cocktail is meant to flush any junk that has built up in the liver and gallbladder out. In my case, that was about 30 liver stones. (Not as bad as you think - liver stones don't pass - or hurt - the way kidney stones do.)Guess I needed the cleanse.

I felt okay by around noon on Thursday and went to work. I was worn out - my body had done a lot of work - but no more grossness. Friday I was still kind of tired and low-key, but by Saturday I was back to normal.

So now I'm done with the entire 60-day cleanse. I am equal parts glad that I did it and glad that it is over. The next step is to break the cleanse, by slowly adding in some of the foods we haven't been eating, and paying attention to how our bodies respond.

Of course, I won't go back to eating everything. Refined sugars and carbs are to always be avoided (or at least, extremely limited). I'm going to try to mostly stick with food combining rules. Ultimately, the goal is to find a balance between health and the enjoyment of food. It means regularly eating healthy, thoughtfully chosen foods and only allowing the occasional indulgence. When it comes to choosing healthy foods, it's all about consistency.



I have my final consultation with Dr. Katy on Thursday morning. Look for more information and reflections on the cleanse then!