Category: Detox Journey

When Can You Call It the Home Stretch?

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

mac&cheese-genieI take my last HCG shot a week from tomorrow. After that it’s two more days of the super-low-calorie food regimen while the remaining hormone works its way out of my system, and then it’s three more weeks of a different food regime — larger quantities, adding fats and oils back in, but still avoiding sugars and starches.

So by one perspective, there’s still a long way to go. And yet, it also senses like enough of an accomplishment to be nearing the end of this initial six-week stretch that I’m kind of thinking of myself as being in the home stretch. At least, on some sort of home stretch.

And at this point, I am ready to reach the first finish line. Because, however fine my physical body is doing on this regime, the emotional body is currently a little worse for wear. All these little daggers of frustration adding up.*

  1. There was an upsetting happening yesterday afternoon, and the emotional craving to self-sooth with comfort food was as strong as it has been since this HCG journey began.  (I distracted myself from the craving with a footbath and a funny movie.)
  2. We let the food stores run very low in expectation of doing our grocery shopping today after church choir — only the last apple in the house turned out to have gone spoiled. So I didn’t have my usual apple on hand for today’s breakfast, which totally threw my morning off to a challenging start.
  3. Mr. Mezzo and I did our grocery shopping together, and as we walked into the aisle to pick up his loaf of bread and English muffins, I couldn’t help myself from lamenting, “I miss bread.” (Bought some spring tulips instead.)
  4. I’ve started reading up on the next phase of dietary restrictions, which are very clear in suggesting that the first week or so after HCG it is best to stay within the same limited list of allowed foods (lean proteins, plus certain veggies and fruits) and just increase one’s portions. Meanwhile, I’m obsessing over something I saw on GMA about shirataki noodles and how I could use those as a way to do “macaroni and cheese” within the new (and looser) restrictions. And I do think the shirataki mac & cheese would obey the letter of the new dietary laws, but it sure isn’t in the spirit of what’s recommended for this upcoming phase.

This is always the mental pattern that I most hated about times I would try to diet or “get myself in shape” by “eating right”: the part where my attempts to eat healthy burgeon into a full-blown food obsession. Ugh.

I was in a detox class yesterday where the teacher talked really eloquently about the ways it can sometimes be unhelpful to approach detoxing through the lens of “eating the right things” in order to prevent the ingestion of toxicity. Instead, it could be possible to acknowledge the fact that one’s system has already ingested some decades’ worth of environmental, energetic, and yes, food-borne toxins, and thus place a stronger emphasis on ridding the system from that accumulation.

I’m holding this teaching very close to my heart today as I try to imagine my remaining weeks in the current and future phases of the HCG experience. I aspire to get back to that more balanced perspective on things.

But right now, I’m feeling a bit on the edge of a precipice. Feeling the grip, the gravitational pull of that food obsession. Thinking about food all the time, maintaining routines and rituals as a way to stay on track (see: today’s upset re: the spoiled apple). Chafing against the restrictions, trying to figure out every clever trick I can to stay just a hair’s breadth within the rules (see: my shirataki noodle obsession), tempted now and again to just say “fuck it” and eat a whole package of Kraft macaroni & cheese with a microwave popcorn and Ben & Jerry’s chaser.

I’m still holding within the boundaries of the protocol. But if this is really meant to be a detox journey for me, then the way any possible other insights have been swept away by all the food obsession hits me as just a tiny bit problematic. Okay, hugely problematic.

But it’s all I got tonight.

* Phrasing inspired by Henry Rollins, Airport Hell: “That’s two minutes of time I don’t get for myself. It’s like he’s murdering me — just a little. Like he’s murdering me with a very tiny knife.”

———-

Image credit: http://bingeeatingtherapy.com/2013/11/15/friday-a-help-obsessed-food/

 

receiving

Not Just Ridding, but Receiving

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-AcceptanceLeave a comment

It was a full day of bodywork sessions — colon hydrotherapy, oxygen chamber, magnesium wrap, the “heart bed,” and some sauna time. As we were going over today’s schedule last night, my coach said we had a choice about what to do during the day’s first session: the sauna or a raindrop kinesi session.

A card pull on the question pointed me towards the sauna, and as I shared that result with my coach, I told her how the result didn’t surprise me at all. “I love the raindrop and it was great to get one last weekend. But the tone of last weekend was more about taking in care and getting off to a good start with the HCG, while this weekend is more like I’m in it now, so let’s get this shit out!”

And there is some of that tone on things. After all, that quite literally is what a colonic is for, as well as the footbaths (which have been uber-yucky in a great way) and the sauna.

receivingBut midday today I started contemplating how in parallel to the “get this shit out!” movement, this weekend is still — just like last one — deeply about the process of taking in care and nurturance.

The signs have interwoven throughout the sessions. Yesterday, I was part of a castor oil sandwich, and the first observation the practitioner made at the end of the session was how much of the oil I had absorbed into me. That theme continued through today’s sessions with the magnesium aloe mix from the wrap, and even with all the water my body absorbed during the colonic session. So at a very obvious, physiological level, my system is still drinking in lots of nutrients.

And that’s also functioning on an energetic level, with the numerous gestures of care and caretaking that I am experiencing. Everything from Mr. Mezzo’s generosity in giving me rides to the airport, to letting one of the center staff members help rinse and dry my feet after one of these uber-yucky footbaths.

Now I’ve written a little bit before about how I see the HCG journey as one about taking in nurturance. But the reality is that a lot of my focus in these first few weeks of the process has been about the discipline of the movement and about the notion of toxicity leaving my system.

This weekend’s juxtapositions have me thinking a little more deeply about how clearing out the toxicity isn’t about purifying my “dirtied” being. It’s a means of allowing more space for good nutrients (literally and metaphorically) to come into my system, and to nurture the authentic flowering of my true nature.

(Full disclosure: seeing the value of that true nature is still a place where I feel my limitations, but I will leave that exploration for another night. Right now: bedtime.)

———-

Image credit: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/the-art-of-receiving/

stick figure planting a flag on a mountaintop

Claiming the Choosing

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

So the guidance I’m getting is to try and push on for the full six week experience of HCG, and to meet the places of fear and programming that are arising right now, rather than to flee from them. After all, it’s precisely this old programming, these areas of emotional and energetic residue, that I’m trying to detox during this journey.

That holds a lot of truth for me, so I’ll be trying for the six weeks.

stick figure planting a flag on a mountaintopI am aware, as I make this proclamation, that I am watching myself very carefully to distinct between a tone of full maturity in choosing this path, versus the child-tone of “I’m going the full six weeks because they told me to.”

It’s delicate and nuanced ground, because I absolutely want to honor and acknowledge the fact that I am receiving guidance in this. I mean, that’s why I’m working with these folks, because I have trust for them — their wisdom, their care, their listening, their compassion, their hearts. So it feels disrespectful not to acknowledge the part of this process that is about receiving care, nurturance, support — and yes, even advice — from the people down here at the center.

But there’s also a world of difference between putting a parental projection on the center and actively, maturely choosing to follow their advice.

In the first scenario, I’ve created a positionality where, if this next phase of the HCG journey gets tougher*, then I could possibly turn towards blaming the center for that difficulty. Directing anger and resentment towards them for “making me suffer” like this. Taking a source of nurturance and pushing it so hard through my internal filters around the assumption of non-nurturance that I mangle it through a sausage-grinder.

Needless to say, that isn’t a scenario I want to enact and experience.

Instead, I’m trying to hang onto the one inside me that is actively choosing this journey. The mature one that can reassure the anxiety fragments but hold the vision and momentum for moving forward. Yes, it’s scary, and I/we can get help and support in the fear — but we’re going forward because it’s well past time to claim the energetic space to live full-out and on-mission.

I’ve got her on board, for sure. The strength and ease of my access to this inner explorer is a little more on-and-off than I’d prefer, but even if she’s a little more background some moments than others, at least she’s present.

And so on we go…

* Which I do kinda feel is possible (likely?) considering the pieces I’m beginning to hit around body size, attractiveness, and the cultural patterns around reducing women to the place of sexual object.

———-

Image credit: http://jarredh.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/time-to-change-my-goal/

justice scales

Leaving on a Jet Plane

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Don't you want to be thin?, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

So I’m heading back down to the detox center tomorrow morning for a mid-HCG check-in. I’ll have a chance to do some physical care & detox methods that either aren’t available to me at home (oxygen chamber, magnesium wrap), or that I just plain haven’t been taking the time to do (the perennially popular foot bath).

justice scalesWe’ll also consult to determine whether I’ll stay on HCG for a 4-week or a 6-week course.

Either length of time is customary for an HCG experience, so at that level, it’s a free choice. I started out assuming that I’d go the full six weeks, but now I’m not sure what I want.

Reasons to go the distance. If I set myself a task, I might as well go full out. The desire to feel as if I fully committed to the process rather than doing it half-assed. The mathematical expectation that staying longer on HCG will give my body more of a chance to burn off more old toxins. The worry that folks will be disappointed in me if I “chicken out early.”

Reasons to stop at four weeks. Part of me is getting tired of the dietary restrictions. HCG comes packaged in vials that contain four weeks’ dose and it expires, so if I go six full weeks, I’ll be letting a half a vial “go to waste,” when instead I could take a couple months off and then do four more weeks later. I’m already feeling a little weird in a smaller body, so the idea of pausing and acclimating before proceeding feels kind of tempting.

I’ll be curious to see how this all shakes out. What my advisors will hear and recommend to me, whether I’ll hear a clearer piece of guidance within myself. If nothing else, I’m glad I heard the question clearly within myself, so even if I stay with the original pan of six weeks, I’ll be doing it from a place of conscious choice and awake-ness.

———-

Image credit: http://robertjustinronald.edublogs.org/2013/05/17/chapter-5/justice-scales/

wood-slice-walkway

Going with the Flow and Against the Grain

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wood-slice-walkwaySome time last week, I posted about having tickets to see Pentatonix this weekend. Considering how much I love the group, I’ve been struck, as the week has worn on, by my emotions about this upcoming event. Because instead of feeling excited or looking forward to the concert, I was feeling much more a sense of exhaustion and obligation.

There’s a lot else going on right now. Three big proposals all due next week: I’m responsible for writing two of them, and also for wrangling a lot of the extra docs in all three proposal packages. And, of course, it’s tax season, so Mr. Mezzo and I need to give attention there. Plus the usual routine of unpacking and laundry and groceries & cooking — all of which I’m well behind on due to my detox weekend out of town and last weekend’s energy crash.

With all of that on my plate, the idea of a trip into Boston’s House of Blues was definitely carrying a whole lot of pressure around it. The time that it would take. The anxiety of navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood and location. The difficulty of being someplace with food and drink I’m not currently allowed to eat, and knowing I’ll have to go hungry because I can’t figure out how to bring my own dinner along into that setting and past the door guard.

I want the feeling of going to a concert to be a happy step out of the routine, rather than another hoop to jump through. But if I was going to be fearlessly honest with myself, “another hoop to jump through” is exactly how it was feeling.

So Mr. and I have decided to take the concert off of our weekend agenda.

I feel some guilt about having wasted the money — we bought the tickets a couple months ago. And we’ve decided to back out so last-minute that there’s no way to resell anything on Stubhub or the like. So those dollars are just gone.

And I’m also aware that this decision goes against much of the conventional wisdom about how to bring self-care into one’s life and how to prioritize fun and joy in the midst of life’s many responsibilities.

But a big part of the self-care I’m learning during this detox journey is about listening to my body and discerning what is (and isn’t) in true alignment with my system. And, for whatever reason, this planned excursion wasn’t feeling in alignment for me. So I want to practice moving with the flow of my own instincts, even if that leads me to choices that seem illogical or counter-intuitive to someone else.

And this way I know I’ve got a good chance of getting to bed at a reasonable hour for all of the next three nights. Which, considering all my early mornings this past week, is a source of joy all unto itself.

———-

Image credit: http://www.katyelliott.com/blog/2009/03/wood-slice-walkway-inspiration.html

apple corer and slicer

When Apples Attack

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of Study3 Comments

Obviously, I took last night off from blogging — choir rehearsal may make this a common practice on Wednesday night.  The effect last night was exacerbated by rehearsal being part of a trifecta that included staying late at work (barely enough time to have dinner and get to rehearsal), and an early-morning training today (so my post-rehearsal routine needed to be a pretty direct trajectory to bedtime).

And I’ll admit I haven’t been entirely sure what else to write about my HCG journey these past couple days. Things have been kind of in a decent routine, actually. Didn’t feel like much to say.

But then there are days where the routine gets a little shaken up.

apple corer and slicerSo here’s what my mornings have looked like. After rolling out of bed and having that sleepy-eyed date with the scale, I’ve set myself up with my daily packet of Blessed Herbs. Now, the usual instructions are to mix the packet with some apple juice, but apple and other fruit juices are verboten on the HCG protocol, so I’ve been putting half an apple, some water, and the Blessed Herbs packet into the Vitamix to make my own mini-detoxifying breakfast “smoothie.” Then I’ve bagged up the other 4 apple slices from the corer and taken them to the office for a mid-morning snack.

All in all, a pretty elegant and effective way to start the days.

Until this morning when this happened:

broken apple corer embedded in appleI don’t know what it was about this particular organic pink lady apple, but the corer wasn’t moving smoothly through it. Clearly, it was not going gentle into this good night, but still I figured it was going to come down to the laws of physics: edge and metal sure to win against soft, fruity organic matter.

Obviously, I miscalculated.

So we’re out one snazzy red corer and I have a cut on the side of both thumbs. (It wasn’t exactly like I had my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, but that’s a close enough description to give you a sense of the injuries.) I know I shouldn’t complain overmuch — the cuts aren’t really that big, and I’ll keep them cleaned and bandaged to make sure they heal okay.

Still, right now they honestly do hurt. And you’re encouraged to stay away from all unessential medications while on HCG, so I’m testing my endurance to see if I can gut through this without taking any aspirin.

And I am so curious about what sort of message there may be for me in this event. I know: it’s a little precious to be always looking for messages in things, and it’s not like I’m expecting all of life’s messages to me to be something hugely portentous or anything. But I’m at a stage in my consciousness work that whenever something really unexpected occurs, I do tend to give it a bit of a closer look to see if that surprising moment is here to show me an internal belief, or an external pattern…. or (in this case) something else I can’t quite put a finger on.

———-

Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_corer

Data Points

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Don't you want to be thin?, Fat is Just an Adjective, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance1 Comment

The doctor’s office that prescribed my HCG gave me a booklet to help me track all kinds of things. Portions of food, my water intake, supplements, ketosis level — and, yes, a daily weigh-in.

I’ll admit, I toyed with the notion of skipping that last piece. Ultimately I decided I wanted to respect the protocol in every possible detail. Including weigh-ins: even if I have all kinds of associations between morning weigh-ins and the evils of the diet industry, I’m willing to take on this task in the context of tracking my weight as one among a set of data points.

02.scale_So I dragged the scale out of the basement* and threw it into the bathroom, where it and I have been having a daily, emotionally-guarded, one-on-one.

As I expected, this detox process has meant that my numbers on the scale have been going down, a little bit each day. And, as uncomfortable as it is to admit, there’s been part of me enjoying that trajectory. I spent so many years being brainwashed around the value of skinny** that I know there’s part of me that can still fall into that old model of thinking.

Aside from that, there’s been some concrete benefits. Some of my slacks had started getting a bit tight in the past few months, and even though I would have been 100% willing and unashamed to buy a larger size if need be, I can’t deny that I’m glad not to have to spend the money and to instead be feeling more physically comfortable in my current wardrobe.

I was having a similar issue with my wedding rings feeling a tiny bit tight and uncomfortable, and it’s especially nice for those to be back to fitting better.

Anyhow, today, I had my morning date with the scale and the numbers were exactly the same as they were yesterday.

This is entirely unsurprising. All the information about HCG — even from a weight-loss perspective — talks about the inevitability that some days your weight will “plateau” instead of being lower than the day before. I kinda think the diet guides make a really big deal out of this possibility just so someone doing HCG for the purpose of weight loss won’t freak out when this occurs.

But it was fascinating to witness myself when this moment occurred. In an instant, I could recall all the old tricks I would have used, back in the obsessive-dieting days, to make the scale move in a good direction. Maybe I should weigh myself starkers, or try again after another trip to the toilet.

Or maybe not.

For all that I was able to recall the ways a “plateau day” would have thrown the old diet-obsessed Sherri for a loop, perhaps the most surprising thing about this morning was really how little emotional charge today’s date with the scale held for me. I saw the numbers, saw all the possibilities for being negatively impacted emotionally, and just felt fine.

Almost like my weight is just another data point for me.

* And why did I even still have a scale? For the always-important job of checking to make sure my luggage is under the airplane weight limit.

** Oh who am I kidding? From a cultural messages standpoint, I’m still being brainwashed about the value of skinny. We all are.

———-

Image credit: http://simplykierste.com/2013/01/fit-friday-with-erica-the-scale-friend-or-foe.html (And yes, this was a very deliberate choice…)

Taking this Show On the Road

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

wheelsWell, the wheels kinda fell off the cart today. I had all sorts of ambitions — laundry, unpacking, Coursera, neatening up & getting organized, Epsom bath, and lots of precooking for the week ahead. And some of that got accomplished, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped.

After however-many days of self-neglect, I did decide to put the Epsom bath first on the priority list, and the bath segued into a nap — which is part of why my schedule got so off-course. After all of that, I did manage some unpacking and it will be easy-peasy to do a load of laundry tonight. So: partial success.

What concerns me most is that I haven’t done any cooking with all the food and spices I bought yesterday.

The challenge of taking the HCG regimen through the work week was greatly aided by all the food I’d been able to prepare with my coaches over the weekend. It only made sense to set myself similarly up for success during the coming week with a similar cooking spree, but I have completely dropped the ball.

And the funny thing is that this week, pre-cooking and pre-planning are even more important than they were last week. Because this week, I’m heading out of the familiar spaces of home and office.

I have two different AM networking/training events during the work week, and then Mr. Mezzo and I have concert tickets for Saturday night. Of course, there’s going to be “forbidden” food and drink at all these locales: I’m sure both networking breakfast buffets are going to be all about the bagels and Danishes currently off my list of allowables, and I think the concert venue is one of those “two drink minimum” kinds of places.*

So it would very much behoove me to make some preparations to help me get through these events. Instead, I’m having to look at the question of why, knowing this, I let my lazy child run the show and create a circumstance where I’ve stressed myself out in this fashion.

At least there’s a little more time left in the evening, so I guess I’m going to go do at least some cooking, so I can partially dig myself out of this hole.

* For the record, the tickets were bought many months ago, before I knew I’d be making the commitment to the HCG program. I’m not that much of a masochist.

———-

Image credit: https://theplastichippo.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/preparing-for-oblivion/

Breadcrumbs

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Health at Every Size, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head4 Comments

I know there’s a certain irony to titling a post “breadcrumbs” when I’m in the midst of this no-carbs diet. But nevertheless, it seemed like the most fitting title for a collection of small observations: none of them significant enough to warrant a full post, but still pieces of the HCG experience I want to document.

———-

lane bryant starry nightI’m wondering if the hormone is making me a little bit more susceptible to the cold than I used to be. All this winter, I’ve been sleeping in my pajama pants and a tank top, because it gets too hot under the covers in my long-sleeved pajama top.

Unexpectedly, since I returned from the detox center, I’ve needed to keep the long-sleeved pajama top on if I didn’t want to be too cold to sleep. Go figure.

———-

This protocol does require a certain comfort level with medical-type tasks & procedures. Or at least, if you don’t have that comfort level going into things, the experience might just lead you to be more blasé about such things than you were before.

In addition to the almost-daily hormone shots, there’s a weekly B-12 shot. (I say “almost” daily because you do take one day off a week from the HCG. Of course, for me, my “day off” coincides with B-12 day, so my life is in an easy one-shot-a-day pattern.) Now, the needle size of the syringe is very small, so there’s little in the way of discomfort. Nonetheless, doing the injections has certainly been an acquired skill for me.

I’ve never been needle-phobic: I had so many inoculations as a kid when we moved to S. America that there was no choice but to get used to them. But all those inoculations left me in a place where I was used to needles but I didn’t much like them. So it’s been an interesting progression, having my mild dislike of injections segue into a real matter-of-fact attitude around them.

And then there’s the morning “pee-stick” to track whether your body is still in ketosis or not.

———-

Even with everything I’ve been looking at around my food cravings and my emotional hunger, I wonder if the thing that is most strongly going to tempt me to stray from the program is my desire for lip balm. I haven’t found a single one that doesn’t contain some sort of oil, and going through this last phase of winter without being able to tend to my poor dry lips ain’t no picnic.

Come on, spring!

———-

Between sautéing everything in lemon juice and eating lots of fresh citrus for my after-dinner treats, I have become aware of exactly how excruciatingly painful fresh lemon or grapefruit juice can be on the nail-bed and cuticle wounds of a chronic, hard-core nail-biter. (Raising hand.)

This has not yet inspired me to stop said habit, but I remain eternally hopeful.

———-

(If there’s any topic here that warrants further exploration in its own post, on another day, this would be it.)

I’ve been really noticing some of my limitations around self-care.

In addition to the more “hard-core” detox movements I have going on with the HCG and the Blessed Herbs packet I’m taking every morning, my coaches at the center encouraged me to layer in some other varieties of detoxing that would be gentler, and would help care for my system while these two more demanding processes were underway.

Foot baths, Epsom baths, castor packs, kinesi — all kinds of options, and I haven’t done any of them. Even today, with a whole day off from work, I was so busy with house-cleaning and grocery shopping and the dump run that I didn’t do any of these things to care for myself. Too many other “more important” things that I “ought” to prioritize higher than soaking in the bathtub “like a lazy person.”

At least I’ve managed to keep the sleep levels decent.

———-

Image credit: http://www.sonsiliving.com/blog/cathys-shopping-cart-cart-13-new-years-eve-favorites

Sliding Into Home

On By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

Even though I tried to be careful in planning my re-entry from the detox “kickoff” trip, I gotta say that I am exhausted here at the end of the (abbreviated) work week. I’m also having another day where the bodily effects of the detox are in my awareness as mild aches and, more than than that, just a general logy feeling.

So right now, I’m contemplating between two options:

  1. Taking an Epsom & baking soda detox bath before going to bed; or
  2. Just going straight to bed and leaving the bath for tomorrow

You will notice that “blogging” does not hold a prominent  place on my tentative agenda for the evening, which is why I’m writing this brief “why I’m not posting” post.

In apologies for my slackerness, here’s a video from Pentatonix:

(Tickets to see them next Saturday! Yay!!)