Water Fasting w/ Lemon – Healing Journey Day 5

Journal:
Today was my final day of water fasting, but I did it with a twist: I added the slices of one lemon to my water. Why would I do this? I figured it would be a good transition between water fasting to juice feasting while also giving extra motivation the final day of no eating with a beautiful taste. Lemons also have the most minimal calories so it is almost like I’m consuming nothing anyways.

Let me tell you, that first taste of lemon water was absolutely divine! I have never had better tasting lemon water. It was so satisfying and just simply amazing.

When I woke up this morning, I actually felt like a fairly normal human being for once! I cannot describe how nice it was to wake up not feeling absolutely worn out and tired already. I actually slept off and on all night, waking up every couple of hours. I was expecting to be extremely tired this morning. However, my stomach was not burning and didn’t start burning until later though much milder than the previous day. My limbs were not cold even though I didn’t have the heater on and I was not as tired as I thought I would be; I was fairly wide awake. It was honestly the most amazing feeling after days of not feeling good at all. I hadn’t had any lemon water by this point so I’m not sure why the change happened, but I will honestly say that I have never been so thankful to feel good.

So as mentioned, the stomach burning did happen shortly after I got out of bed. It wasn’t near as bad as before, but still something noticeable. Honestly, it was so mild I barely noticed it throughout the day. But in the very first part of the morning, not only did my stomach begin to burn a little (again probably from my body metabolizing fat stores), but I felt a little weak walking around. What fixed that? The blessed lemon water. Again, I cannot tell you what the little flavour and tiny calories of lemon in my water is doing for my body. I did not even squeeze the lemon into it. I simply sliced up a lemon, put it in my water bottle, and kept refilling with water as I ran out. I feel more stable and stronger when I walk though I can still tell I’m looking for opportunities to sit when possible and my energy is not back to where it should be. Still, the improvement is huge!

I got through my work day fairly well, though once again, about half way through the day, I was still looking for any opportunity to sit down and limit my walking. Of course, as the day went on, the lemon began to lose its strength of flavour. But something is still better than nothing!

After I got home, I had energy enough to actually sit upstairs and have a conversation with my housemates which was awesome. I did end up coming downstairs to my part of the house and decided just to lay down and watch some YouTube. Partly to rest my body, and partly because it was a hot day and I wanted to wait for the heat to die down before I ran any errands. I probably laid down for about an hour watching YouTube videos and then somehow fell asleep.

I did not feel so good when I woke up. My stomach was hurting again and almost felt like my stomach muscles were cinching just not to the level of being “pinched”. It was a dull but constant pain and not a sharp pain. I got a touch of the same acid reflux/heartburn feeling that I had yesterday and though I tried to use the washroom with the same proper posture I used yesterday, there was no success. My energy literally felt like it was drained from my body while I slept although I continued to drink lemon water after I woke up.

I made myself get changed for the gym and made it out to my car. I was taking many deep breaths for the rest of the night. I had to go to the store to buy a cable to tie my dog outside as he chewed through his soft leash and there are gaps in the fence that he can easily fit through. The cable is 15 feet long and he’s a miniature dachshund so that is tons of room for him to go through almost the whole backyard. But after I was done going through the store, I felt winded and awful. Still, I made myself drive to the gym.

After I got to the gym parking lot, I knew I had to make a choice. I could either force myself to go in and do a small cardio workout and risk the chance of feeling even worse than I did, or just go home and see if I could sleep it off. I decided to go home and try to sleep it off.

I think today has truly been the weakest and most uncomfortable I have felt yet. It is not pleasant though I think it is so weird how good I felt in the morning to how awful I felt towards the evening.

At this point, I’m kind of nervous about how my body will react to the introduction of juice tomorrow. I am excited that it’s the closest to “food” that I will have consumed in 6 days, but at the same time, with the way I feel, I’m not sure what my body’s reaction will be. I only pray that it is a good reaction and that it will help my energy come back.

In total, though it felt like I drank more, I only had about 2L of water today. I did savour the lemon flavour.

Review of Symptoms:
Acne is noticeably better today. No new pimples again and instead of being a brighter red, they are starting to pale-down. That is something to celebrate. Stomach burning has gone down significantly becoming almost unnoticeable. Waking up feeling refreshed and “normal” was a treat. Sleep was lacking as I woke up every couple hours throughout the night. Something odd that I noticed was the veins in my hands are much more visible. I have pale skin to begin with, but I can see many more veins than usual. Stomach cramping in the evening. Energy zapped in the evening.

Weight at the end of the day = 180.8 lbs (down 1.8 lbs in 24 hours, down a total of 8 lbs in 96 hours)

Total Calories = ~15-20 calories

Not Sure How We’re Supposed To Live?

Now I know many of you are from either the States where you have to pay for health services, or from other countries of which I’m highly uneducated of how your health systems work, but here in Canada, we are known for our free health care. This has both been a good thing and a bad thing because waiting times are usually outrageous.

Recently, the province I live in, Alberta, has had a budget renewal. Due to the price of the Canadian dollar summiting so low, and the price of oil dropping off, our economy has done little but crash and leaving us in a current 5 billion dollar deficit.

So what does the government decide to do amongst other things? Start charging us for health care. Now keep in mind, I understand that others will look at us and say things like, “We’ve always had to pay for it. So stop whining about it.” But what I’m asking you to remember is that Alberta is one of the most expensive places to live. Just because gas prices and things have gone down, living costs have far increased past wages in the past many years. You can come here to make money, but you also come to lose money.

Aside from that, you have to remember that health care was one less thing we had to budget. Yes, we still have to pay for the dentist, chiropractors, and medical needs of that line. But this is the direct access to a doctor that will now cost us.

I wouldn’t even be complaining if we had to pay something like 10-20 dollars a month for health care as I feel that is a good introduction to the paying of health care. But they are going to ask us to pay $1000 per year for health care. Combine that with the fact I’m almost getting 60% of my net pay already by the time they take out taxes, and the fact that I just barely am over the limit of which you have to start paying for health care (people under a net income of 50,000 do not have to pay), I’m not sure where it is going to come from right now. Maybe if I didn’t have so many taxes taken out, I would find this easier to accept. But when my account is pretty much dry by the middle of the month simply paying bills, and I’m living off 100% of my husband for the second half already, and we’re barely making it month to month as it is, how am I supposed to come up with a possible $2000 for the both of us?

On top of all of this, there are many refugees and immigrants from various countries that are somehow able to live in Canada getting $24,000+ per year from the government just to sit home and take English classes. Yet my husband and I are in debt because he was unable to do anything for 2 years and has been working for less than a year. Aside from all of the many dollars we have had to pay to Immigration, I can’t seem to catch a break.

The worst part of all of this is that my husband has not been “home” to see his family in almost 2 years. The government did not allow him to leave the country, and only in a few months will be his first time to leave. So we had plans of trying to save up some money to drive down and see his family, finally.

This whole fee thing would probably be even less of a deal if it weren’t for the fact this budget is supposed to go into effect THIS JULY. So somehow, I may be $1000 or $2000 out (our entire trip if not more) just for health care and my husband not able to see his family, his grandpa that is sick and his brother who he wasn’t even able to travel to see during his surgeries last summer?

My head can’t even wrap around this right now. I don’t even know what to do. It seems like the world keeps demanding money, specifically the government, but our wages don’t rise, and instead we get less and less to live from. I don’t know how I’m going to do this…

Week 2 Day 7

I woke up today feeling so much better. I slept in, and didn’t even bother starting to eat until noon. I could still feel the negative effects of eating so much sugar last night, just not quite as uncomfortably full.

I had my meals way more in check today and felt so much better. I made it back to the gym and finished my workout from the day before with much better energy and also completed 25 minutes of cardio on the stationary bike.

My husband and I decided to have a date night. We decided to go to a movie. As usual, we got a #1 combo that comes with a pop choice (we got diet coke), popcorn (no butter), and two candy choices: peanut butter M&Ms for my husband, and a fat free candy that I could have some of.

Now I know diet coke is not the greatest choice. I am against aspartame. But when I know I’m in a situation where I’m bound to slip, it’s better to make a safer choice than not. I also know popcorn, even with no butter, is not a very friendly food (when it comes from the theatre). But I already knew ahead of time I could only have a little, so it is much easier to stay within range without that yummy butter. I also already know that candy, especially after yesterday’s episode, was a terrible idea. But I also knew that again, I could smell my husband eating it, and it was better to plan ahead with something I could have some of without killing my diet. And yes, above all it would have been best to not buy anything, but I refuse to force my husband into doing what I’m doing if he doesn’t want to. So did I really make the worst decisions? In my mind, no. And it’s ok if you do not agree. I may come to a point where I can watch him eat other things and not feel tempted to eat the same things, but that day was not today and so I did what I could.

I did learn something from this whole experience, and that was that watching tv with too much food on your plate is a horrible decision. Do you know how easy it would have been to mindlessly keep eating that popcorn? My husband nudged me a little to remind me of my limit. I do so appreciate he supports me. But it really did hit me how easy it would have been to be tranced by the movie and not even notice how much I was eating.

HUGE fitness tip: Portion your food and don’t eat while watching tv!

Turn on Your Autopilot!

Do you know the feeling of having to do something but having no motivation to do it? It could be something as simple as doing the dishes or laundry. You know you have to do it, but you just don’t want to. Or going to the gym. You know you should, it would be better for you. But you’re just so tired, you just can’t.

I get this way sometimes. Especially if I haven’t been sleeping the best, and have had a stressful week. Sometimes when my husband picks me up from school, I’m just so tired and so worn out that I fall asleep as soon as I sit in the car and he starts driving. During this time, he’s very quiet, but he doesn’t take me home like I’ve arranged with him ahead of time not to. He knows to keep driving towards the gym.

When we get there, he wakes me up, and it’s at that moment I’m usually still exhausted, barely know what’s really going on except I’m at the gym. I don’t give myself time to think, I turn on “autopilot”. My body knows to grab my bags, walk towards the door, sign-in, change and go workout. If I had given myself time to think of it, I could easily talk my way out of it. But in order to get what I need to have done, I keep my brain on “autopilot” and my body knows what to do.

There are times that I must look like a zombie to the other people. I can be on a machine or lifting weights and barely feel awake still. I’m sure my constant yawning and droopy eyes are enough to tell anyone how tired I am. But it’s the ability to stop thinking and use my “autopilot” that gets me through it.

If there’s something that you need to get done, do it before you think of it. If you work out in the mornings, put your workout clothes at the bottom of the bed so you don’t have to think about it, you just put the clothes on and you’re already halfway there. Do what it takes so your body knows what it needs to do but you don’t give yourself enough time to think about it and talk yourself out of it. Turn on your autopilot. Your body will know what to do, especially if it’s already done the same thing before. Our brains often limit us in our energy and things that we think we are capable of doing. Sometimes turning off your brain is the only way your body can truly show you what it’s capable of.

One of those days when you’re feeling drained but you know you have a lot to do, turn on your autopilot and get it done! You may just be amazed!

Those “Annoying” Slow Drivers

You all know what I’m talking about, especially if you live in a city. Those are the people on the highways and on the roads that just seem to poke along, way under the speed limit. Now, if you go along with the rest of society, you will find these people annoying. You probably think that they don’t care about everyone else, that they don’t understand how people are running late and need to get places quickly. I used to think this way too. I used to, until this year.

This year I realized that time goes by too quickly. We spend way too much of our time rushing to do this, running to do that. We run late, we go to bed exhausted, we wake up to begin our day tired from the day before. Why are we always in a rush? Why are we always finding ourselves with a deficit in time to accomplish the things we want to do or even need to do?

I was part of a conversation yesterday where the other person stated something they had read. We are ADDICTED to being busy. We feel accomplished when we’ve been busy, even if we didn’t really accomplish much of anything. It’s a feeling of busyness that actually helps us feel more important, more needed. Now, I don’t know about you, but I had never thought about that before. It is true that I feel like I accomplish a lot in a day because I’m constantly involved in doing things, both big and small. And yet, when I really stepped back and took a moment to look over my many lists of things to do and accomplish, I noticed there are some things that have literally been on my lists for over a month! Not that I haven’t done anything at all for these things, but I’ve actually never been able to accomplish the entire task! Talk about shock!

It’s true. We are addicted to being busy. I hate to say this, but I think I had become so addicted that even when I have a few moments to sit and be still, I’m not actually being still. I’m constantly thinking of how to build my two businesses better, what I need to prepare for upcoming school days, what might happen to my family’s future. At times this can be a good thing; they are good things to think about. But they are detrimental when I no longer know how to be able to enjoy “time off”. It’s so hard for me to get settled to enjoy something that has nothing to do with any type of work. I’d almost be scared to know what I’d actually do on a “vacation”.

So back to these slow drivers. As of this year, I admire them. They know how to slow down life. They know how to just relax and enjoy the moment. They know how to avoid being in a rush. I admire that. I wish and hope to work towards being able to slow down as they do and just enjoy the moments around me.

Next time you see a slow driver, make a mental note. It’s a reminder to SLOW DOWN, live life a little. Have some fun. Enjoy the moments that God has presented you. You have one life to live, so live it well. Don’t yell at those drivers or honk your horn. Instead, take a deep breath and realize there’s more to life than living in the fast lane. Sometimes you just need to go slow.