Emotional Ties part 2

In my teen years I used to suffer from dizzy spells and blackouts. I don’t think I ever actually fainted, but I definitely came close. One day it was the worst incident ever, I was at church and I came out of the ladies and it was like my vision disappeared and I couldn’t see a thing in front of me. I started feeling the walls because I knew I was really close to the exit and as I walked outside I thought I heard someone say my name.

I stopped because I could see a little bit, but not in a normal way. It was like those old photo negatives that you get that reverse the colours, but instead of that, instead of seeing shapes I could only see the outline of those shapes and the colours inside were missing. I could see the outline of a tree in front of me but not the green of the leaves. I headed towards the tree and plunked myself down under it, and closed my eyes. I felt really heavy and lethargic and weak. I thought I might be dying. The first thing I was aware of though, was my sisters voice, “You look dead.”

Then Mum & my aunty arrived & dragged me off the ground and helped me up to the car, took me home and forced a spoonful of sugar into my mouth. I nearly choked on it, so they gave me some water too, but within a few minutes I started coming around and then they gave me some proper food.

My impression was that the belief I had taken on at this time was that I was going to die and sugar saved my life (hence my addiction to it). When I pondered on what the truth might be, what I came up with was that food is nourishing, sugar is not. Since then I haven’t had any compulsion to eat sugar or chocolate, which is astounding to me. I started eating a chocolate bar the other day and put it down after one mouthful, which never happens. I’m totally blown away by the change in me after one small event.

Emotional Ties

Over the last few days I’ve had a hankering to write, which is quite unusual because I haven’t had that feeling for a long time. Usually when I do write something its because I’ve forced myself to do so after a long time of thinking about it and not actually doing it. But that’s changed, something has changed within me and I’m not sure what it is exactly.

Yesterday I fasted, for two reasons. One was for help for a friend who is going through a rough patch at the moment, and the other was for me to be able to find out my emotional connection to food. My friend reckoned that’s what she did and that enabled her to lose masses of weight and stopped her eating compulsively. Most people eat compulsively, so I don’t feel bad about it, but it is something that I would like to change about myself because I never used to do that.

It’s a bit of a long story though, I should go back and figure out what I actually want to say about it. Til next time.

Spiritual Lessons

I was at the library looking for a book recommended to me by one of my friends, "You can heal your life" by Louise Hay. All the copies were out, so i had to reserve one. I ended up picking up two other books from the same author, one Im currently reading which is different peoples spiritual lessons that they have learnt, either from their own experiences or stories that other people have told them. I was amazed at the authors recounting her own horrific childhood experiences. It seems that she really did take the bitter pill of her own childhood and turn it into something beautiful which has helped many other people.

The other book of hers i grabbed was daily meditations. In the front it said to close your eyes, open to a page and that will be the thing you need for that day. It amazed me because I did it and it talked about cleaning up your house, getting rid of old clothes and yuck food from your fridge. That morning before getting to the library I had gone through my clothes and taken out some things and put in a bag to drop off at the clothes bin, and I had cleaned my stuff out of the fridge a few days before when I was shifting house. Every day since then I've opened that little book and been surprised and delighted by the messages that its given me, which usually feel totally pertinent to what I've been experiencing that day.

Sydney Day

Arrived at 9am yesterday and it took over an hour to get through customs, which was surprising because last time it barely took 15mins. There were so so many people all queued up at the airport and a lot of grumpy stuff members. It was a lot different than other times I've landed in sydney. We got the train into the city and got set up at our hostel, crashed out for a bit and then went to Paddys Market for some awesome cheap fruit and veg. My friend got a new Iphone cover and a cute ozzie carrybag. Then we got the train up north a bit and met my friend at her school so we could go catch up. We ended up getting a hot choc at a bar where there were a huge group of irish and welsh supporters about to watch the game, it was a bit scary sitting there in the middle of them screaming at the tv. Then we went to Sushi Train, a restaurant I was looking forward to going to see. They have a little moving belt that they put the food on and you just choose which dishes you want to try, then pay for it at the end. It was so much fun. Then we went shopping at Myers and all tried on the same beautiful dress, unfortunately it didn't fit any of the three of us. We got dropped off at the hostel and intended to just lie down for a minute, I woke up 3hrs later and my friend woke up 12hrs later. Considering we'd only had minimal sleep the night before it was great. I felt so much better in the morning.

Today we went to see General Conference, then got the free bus around town, rung people at home and had a delicious dinner. It was great. Tomorrow we're going to Luna Park, this revived 1930s amusement park, I'm looking forward to it.

Sydney

At the airport, waiting for our flight to board, its been delayed so will be here a while. I'm so glad we arrived when we did though, because a huge group of people arrived straight after us and checkin took quite a while, I hate standing in queues.

Will be over there for a week with my flatmate, doing all kinds of touristy things, will hopefully do an opera house tour, go up the top of Sydney tower, and finally go to Luna Park (we seem to drive past it every other time I"ve been to sydney and I've always thought I'd really like to go, just have never had a chance yet).

Also hoping to catch up with friends while I'm there, should be good.

Forget Me Not

Last week was the Relief Society General Broadcast, and I really liked Elder Uchtdorfs talk about 5 things we shouldn’t forget. He talked about the Forget me not flower and how much it meant to him, and what lessons we, as women, could take away from it.

1. Forget not to be patient with yourself
God knows we’re not perfect, nor those people we think are perfect. Comparing yourself to others will make you miserable. Celebrate your own good efforts.

2. Forget not that there are good sacrifices & there are foolish sacrifices
Staying up to look after a sick child is a good thing, staying up to sew 30 handouts for your Relief Society lesson is not

3. Forget not to be happy now
In the movie Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka the chocolate genius hides 5 golden tickets in his chocolate bars, with the promise that those who obtain the tickets will win a lifetime supply of chocolate and a private tour of his factory. People become obsessed with getting the tickets, to the point that chocolate, which used to be such a joy, is now a disappointment. We shouldn’t put happiness on hold while waiting for a specific event, eg marriage.

4. Forget not the “Why” of the gospel
Why we do stuff is important. Not to feel obliged, but “why” motivation sparks an eternal fire in people that will cause them to do what they need to.

5. Forget not that the Lord knows and loves you
What is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of Man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honour. You are closer to heaven than you suppose.

Going Dairy Free

So the last week has definitely proved to me something that I have known for a while but have been in denial about. I am totally lactose intolerant and can’t have dairy at all unless I want to have heinous repercussions which I won’t go into detail about here. Even yoghurt, which supposedly doesn’t affect people the same way because the lactose is meant to have been broken down by bacteria, still causes a reaction in me.

According to the blood type diet, A blood types (which I am) shouldn’t have any dairy and hardly any meat, definitely no red meat, only certain types of fish and poultry. I looked at it and thought well that sucks, and forgot about it.

I think I can attribute the richness of NZ dairy foods to my sudden weight gain after I got home off my mission. In Switzerland I ate hardly any dairy, well that’s not true, there was a lot of cheese, a small amount of milk, and heaps of chocolate. But I almost never touched icecream, cream or yoghurt and I think those 3 things are the items that cause me the most problems, they’re also the hardest things to find dairy free replacements for.

Rice, soy or almond milk is quite easy to come by, I can make dairy free chocolate myself (and have been for the last week or so – so delicious!). But I’ve never seen dairy free yoghurt yet. There is such a thing as dairy free ice cream, I haven’t tried it yet, but someone told me it has no taste.

I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to do this thing, but I just know I have to figure out a way to cut dairy out of my life, at least 90% of the time. I think its where most of my coughs, colds and flu symptoms are coming from.

Detoxing & the Spirit

So I had a realization a few days ago about the reason why I love detoxing so much (despite people around me & their detrimental comments). I was talking to my flatmate who recently completely 7 days on the Lemon diet aka Master Cleanse where you pretty much just have drinks containing maple syrup, cayenne pepper & lemon juice for the whole time. You’re also allowed herbal tea whenever you want. She said that she noticed during the cleanse how calm & peaceful she felt, things didn’t bug her like they normally would.

That got me thinking along the same lines – I usually also feel really light, peaceful and spiritual whenever I’m doing a cleanse. Its as though eating only natural wholefoods and getting rid of toxins out of my system (usually in the first 3 days which are always the most painful) makes me feel more in tune with the spirit or with higher energies. It was especially noticeable after the two weeks when I went back to eating normal food. I was driving home and somebody on the road did something that annoyed me and I started yelling at them in my car (probably they couldn’t hear me, but it did make me feel better) and I realized that I hadn’t gotten road ragey like that for the whole time I was doing the cleanse.

So aside from the health and weight loss benefits of eating whole foods and detoxing, there are definitely spiritual elements to the whole thing, which makes me think of the promises for those who follow principles of health and wellbeing contained at the end of the Word of Wisdom, Doctrine & Covenants 89 – And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures, and shall run and not be weary and shall walk and not faint.

Goal Setting

It seems like a gargantuan goal for me, given my current state of non-fitness, but I really want to do it. I have set a goal for myself to do the Tongariro Crossing this summer. 19.4kms of steep mountain to conquer. One of the girls at work did it earlier this year and her description of the walk totally cracked me up.

“You start off at the carpark and its really flat, so it lulls you into a sense of false security for the first while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its flat again for a while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its pretty much straight down the other side.”

I had a look at the Doc website, and her description was quite apt. The first set of stairs is apparently called the Devils staircase. My boss ran the crossing in 2 or 3hrs, but I am nowhere near his fitness level. (Hes over 60, so shame on me). Its meant to take fit people 6-8hrs. My friend lives not too far from the start of the crossing, so she said she’ll drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon.

People have died on the walk, with snow and poor visibility issues in winter, so that’s why I’m leaving it til summer, hopefully it will be warm and I won’t have any issues with it. I do need to get some proper walking boots though. I also think I need to start including more stairs and hills in my regular walks around the neighbourhood.

Smoothies, Soups & Salads

So for the next 4 weeks I have decided to embark on a wholefoods diet and also do a spring herbal detox cleanse, in yet another effort to rid my system of toxins and lose weight. I seem to attempt detoxes on a regular basis, but rarely ever last as long as I intend to, usually at the 3 day mark I smell something diabolically delicious & throw in the towel. On day 2 (I started last Saturday) my aunty bought me over two amazingly decorated cupcakes which I couldn’t bear to throw out nor eat. So I came to a compromise, I tasted the icing on both, ok well if I’m being honest I ate all the chocolate icing on one, tasted the almond icing on the other, tried a small amount of each cupcake and threw the rest out.

But yesterday I was super good. I got invited to dinner at my auntys (she is a brilliant cook) and I thought about skipping the invitation but I also wanted to see my sisters new car, she was also going to be there, so I made myself some food & took it with me. It worked amazingly well.

So the cleanse I’m doing is called Brett Elliots Ultimate Herbal Detox which goes for 10-14 days, you take herbal pills morning & night and can only eat or drink smoothies, soups, salads, herbal teas and juices. Basically you can only eat fruits, vegetables and herbs, with a little bit of olive oil with salads. Last time I did it (in January) it did make me feel a lot better, unfortunately as soon as I ended I went on a road trip where I undid all the good results from the detox. So I’m hoping that this time it will work out a lot better.

I’ve had a cold/flu since last Thursday which hasn’t been fun either, I’ve been coughing almost non stop and generally feeling like crap, I had a headache for 3 days straight which thankfully has gone now, I’m only just starting to feel a bit better today so hopefully things can only improve from here on.

Crash and die

Last night my external hard drive accidentally fell on the ground and smashed something on the inside because it is no longer recognized by the computer & it makes a clicking noise which my brother in law says is the kiss of death.
Everything was on there, photos, documents, music, digital pages I'd been working on for my scrapbook. All the photos older than 2yrs are on cd as well, but none of the recent stuff was. Thank goodness for facebook, at least some things are on there, but a lot of it wasn't, I'm so gutted. Also last week my sister took my hard drive & was loading stuff onto her hard drive for about an hour. I emailed a couple of data recovery places, but their fees were around $5-800, which, for a hard drive that only cost $100, seems rather exorbitant. But i guess its the memories which are important. I don't know if i want to pay that much just to retrieve photos though. I have learnt my lesson though - always back stuff up, and never trust Maxtor USB hard drives, they can't be made very well if they break that easily.

Weather Cancellations

I planned a trip to Dunedin this week, I had booked both my accomodation & my flights. Unfortunately just as I was getting organized to pack, the weather packed in down there (snow & blustery gales). I was a bit worried about getting stranded down there as I only had four days off work, so on sunday I cancelled my accomodation. Sunday night I'd already decided it wasn't worth it to go down & my trip would have to be postponed til another time. Monday 5:30am one of my workmates rung me to tell me that my second flight (down to Dunedin) had been cancelled, the airport was closed due to snow and ice on the tarmac, which is fair enough from their point of view. So its a good thing I already had decided that I wasn't going down. I still want to go another time, just maybe when its summer & theres less chance of a cancelled flight.

Travel High

I made a quick trip to Sydney a couple of weeks ago, and already a sense of wanderlust has begun to pervade my entire being. I just got back from a trip and I already want to go somewhere again. Granted next week I'm going to wellington for 2 nights, and then my next planned trip after that is to the Abel Tasman national park at the beginning of september, but everytime I travel, I have this feeling of wanting to travel more. Its like i just can't get enough of it.

My flatmate just got back last week from a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia last week (it sounded awesome, hot weather, beautiful beaches) and my sister got back from the Gold Coast just a few days ago. I personally have had enough of the gold coast for my lifetime, i don't know how people can love it so much, i liked the theme parks but that was about it.

Then in november i have requested a month of work so that i can travel to my hearts content (pending having enough saved), ideally i would like to spend 1 week in asia, preferably Hong Kong and one week on a beautiful island, I'm thinking Tahiti or Fiji and then the rest of the time on a nice beach in NZ, it should be getting hot by then.

I think really, for me, its all about the anticipation. I get so much enjoyment out of planning trips, that once it arrives, its almost an anticlimax, and then by the time its over, i'm already trying to think of ways to get that momentum going again.

Past Memories

My phone has died, and I have lost all my phone numbers. Strangely when I changed my SIM card into a borrowed phone it had a heap of numbers I haven’t seen in about 5 years, since I got my previous phone, ones from 2006. A lot of the names I didn’t recognize, or they seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite place who the people were.

At that time I was living in Tauranga, and I was the Stake YSA rep, so its quite possible that a lot of them were YSA who I don’t really remember anymore, most of whom I haven’t seen in years.

My late aunty and stepfather’s phone numbers were also on there, that made me sad. Goodness knows how many people I will have forgotten in another five years.

A couple of days ago I checked in two lovely ladies, whose names and faces looked very familiar, but I couldn’t quite place them. But they both had the same first name. I took a chance and asked them “Do you know Amanda*?”

They both looked at each other and looked at me again, “Yes we do.”
“Which one of you made her wedding dress?”
“I did.”
“And which one of you runs a Backpackers hostel?”

The other one put up her hand. I remember going with Amanda for one of her wedding dress fittings, I took a couple of pictures of her dress on my phone, and also one of a tiny rainbow that was on the wall, I’m thinking it was light streaming through the stained glass window that caused it.

Last night I had a dream with more than one person from my past, I think I must have been thinking about them just before I drifted off to sleep. It’s a bit bizarre though, how all these things are just coming back to me now. Maybe I need to make a better effort to record the things I’m doing now, so they won’t just end up as vague memories in the future.

* Name changed for privacy reasons

Seek and maybe you'll find

I can’t believe I finally found the answer. And all that time it was right under my nose. Looking and looking, and finding erroneous results and all the time wondering what was going on, there must be something more to this.

Coming across people who “couldn’t see the forest for the trees” looking for one little detail and missing the whole complex context of nature that was there.

Granted, my search did bring me into contact with lovely people I would never have met otherwise, and I did pick up some wonderful pieces of information. But it was hard to pull it all into a congruent whole.

I was rereading an old journal entry I’d written about a year ago recently, where I'd had an epiphany and drawn a massive conclusion about my own wellbeing based on a few things that I had read in a book, things which were being contradicted at the same time by something else a friend had given me in another book. It was all very confusing and frustrating.

And now (finally) I have the answer in my hands, a recommendation from a friend. Its just so logical and yet hard to believe – and yet it must be true. I trust the author implicitly and I don’t even know him. But his refutation of other things I’ve read is absolutely brilliant.

And next time I will get to the point of what this is all about. (Once I finish reading his book).

Small Miracles

Last week was stake conference. I went to the Saturday evening session and I took a lot of notes but I’m not sure how much I mentally absorbed. Only two things really stood out to me and that was from the final speaker Elder Neilson. He said fear is the opposite of faith, and we need to move forward with faith and not be too concerned with whats going on. Earthquakes and tsunamis are the Lords way of testifying that He is coming back.

But what really got me was a story that he shared and the experience I had both before and after conference. That morning my sister had wanted to go garage saleing and I ended up tagging along. I initially wasn’t too keen on the idea as I wanted to go to the Tamahere Farmers market, but I did end up getting some stuff I really liked, really cheap. As we were driving around looking for signs we saw one for a place called Derby St. I didn’t know where that was, but I saw this girl on the side of the road who I recognized from Institute even though I didn’t know her name. I asked her, but she didn’t know, so we kept going and found it in the end.

That night Elder Neilson shared a story about people who pray for others to receive help, even though they themselves could just offer the help that those people need eg a family leaving church discovering they have a flat tyre and need a jack, and someone else, instead of offering their jack, take them inside, pray about the situation, ring the bishop to come help them and then go outside and leave.

After church the girl I’d seen that morning came and said Hi and that she had just moved to Hamz and didn’t really know her way around yet. Then she went away outside to call her ride.

When I walked outside and saw her she had a puzzled upset look on her face, and I remembered the story and had this strong feeling like I should go check if she had a ride home. And guess what? She didn’t. Her ride was asleep and wasn’t answering her phone. And then it just seemed like everything had fallen into place, as though designed by some divine hand of providence that was looking out for her – the fact I’d run into her that morning, the fact they had shared that story and that she’d come up and met me after the conference.

What made it seem even better was that I was about to go visit my friend at her house and this girl lived on the way there. It just seemed so perfectly lined up that I was blown away. The stuff going on in Christchurch, Japan and issues in the middle east are just so dejecting and I find it hard to not focus on all the negativity, but when something good like that happens, a small miracle, it just picks me up and makes things seem more worthwhile.

What I need

On the phone to a friend overseas the other day and she was telling me about a counselling course she'd done over the weekend. It was very interesting. She called it an 'element based idealogy.' The human being made up of four parts, each connected with an element, mental-air, physical-earth, emotional-water, spiritual-fire (a transformative element).

She said if something is wrong with any of these it creates an imbalance in the body. To fix it you find out what each part needs. They had done an exercise where they sat on the ground (to centre themselves) took several deep breaths, cleared their minds and asked "What does my physical self need?" then drawn the first image that came to mind.

It sounded intriguing, so i got her to talk me through it. The first image that came to my mind was water rippling above my head, like i was lying on the floor of a pool looking up. It seemed so blurry and not understandable that at first i disregarded it, but then drew it anyway.

She said "Now ask what that is telling you that you need."
I thought about the rocking sensation of moving water and thought relaxation could be the answer. My next thought was of a bath. I told her that. She said well go give your body what it needs. She said if i did that exercise at any other time I would probably come up with a different answer.

I meant to also ask my mental, emotional and spiritual selves what they needed, but then I got reading this book instead.

Funny that a lot of the books I've been reading lately have been about people on spiritual journeys - Brida by Paulo Coelho, Dan Browns the Lost Symbol and one i came across at Whitcoulls the other day.

I subsequently discovered my local library had a copy - the Life Codes by Patty Harpenau. This latest one is amazing, it is blowing me away and i'm only halfway through it. I seriously think its one of the best inspirational books I've ever come across - and I've read a lot of motivational mumbo jumbo in my life time. No doubt future blog posts will be dedicated to the things I am reading in this book.

Puzzling

For the past 3 weeks, a puzzle has completely enveloped all of my free time. Of all things, a puzzle. I have never been particularly interested in puzzles, except when somebody else is working on one. But this puzzle was different. There was a prize attached at the end of it.

At the end of last year for our Christmas presents, instead of giving us a glorious lounge pass like they have for the past 2 years, we were given a puzzle to complete. Once we have finished said puzzle, taken a photo and sent it in to the puzzle people, they will then send us out that glorious and much desired present – a VIP lounge pass to use sometime during the year.

At work some people worked on the puzzle together and photographed themselves and sent it in. I thought that was a great idea until I looked at my photo and hated the thought of sending it in, having, in my mind, cheated.

So I decided to finish it myself. I haven’t done a puzzle since I was a kid, so I figured this would give me a real sense of achievement like I’d actually accomplished something for once, instead of petering out part way through.

I finished 2 mornings ago. I was so proud of myself. The photo is taken and I just need to email it in and I will soon have a lovely lounge pass heading my way. I’m so proud

Travel Bug

So since I have leave this week and most of next week, i was originally planning to go somewhere awesome like Hong Kong, however, since I've been told that attempting standby staff travel to asia in January is a complete waste of time, I rearranged my planning to include a road trip around the north island. Along with my flatmate Tash. I really like that she's game to do anything. Also shes a school teacher, so she has the best holidays in the world.

We're starting our trip by heading off to Napier via Taupo, staying in Hawkes bay for a few days - go to Splash Planet, Te Mata Peak and the Rush Munro icecream gardens, then to Palmerston North to see what thats like, down to Wellington/Porirua for a few days - go see Te Papa, Zealandia and the Weta workshop in Miramar and catch up with our old flatmate. Then back up the north island stopping at Taupo, going to see the geothermal wonders of Rotorua, up to the beach and waterfalls of Tauranga, then heading home some time next week.

I'm really excited about it. I love planning trips and going on trips and looking for places to enjoy on the way.

Day 15

Yesterday I finished all my herbal capsules in the morning, and in the evening I started taking my probiotics. Apparently now my gut needs to be repopulated by hordes of good bacteria in order to destroy all the bad bacteria that may still be remaining.

I was hard out wanting some chocolate by evening time, so clearly the detox hasn't helped my cravings, but I resisted by telling myself i had to keep up the healthy food aspect until after I'd gotten my final weight and measurements.

So over the course of the last 2 weeks, I have lost an amazing 6kgs, as well as about 12 inches. I'm very pleased. I texted my sister, who is about to start her own detox, and she asked me to help her achieve the same. I think competition is a good motivator for me, but i don't know if its the same for her. All I know is, the longer i can avoid junk food and chocolate, the better off I will be.

Day 13

Today was awesome. After work I ended up going out with my flatmate to this little known water hole out the back of Mount Pirongia. There was a swing rope out over the water, and heaps of shade on one end, and a leaky dam made of boulders at the other end (good on whoever made that. Maybe a farmer?).

We were there most of the afternoon, until some drunk guys showed up with a ladder and started climbing up trees and jumping off into the water. They could have easily died, and sort of killed our buzz. I'm not sure who they were trying to show off to. Hopefully they were only there coz it was a saturday, its much nicer when we had the place to ourselves.

I didn't really feel much like eating today, it was weird.

Day 12

Today I went to catch up with my chiropractor. Technically, she doesn't do that much cracking of my back, she does something with a fancy name like neurophysiology (?) usually I just call it muscle testing. It involves muscle testing anyway. She pulls my arm and then taps different points around my head and torso that are apparently linked to particular organs.

She said my stomach was having issues, so was my small intestine, not surprising considering all the work that they've been doing over the last 2 weeks. She also did some fancy move to close the valve between my small and large intestine. Last time it was blocked. Now it refuses to close. Go figure.

The end is in sight! I'm very pleased.

Day 11

Only 4 more days to go! Last night my cousin had her 8th birthday and baptism. My nephew attempted to upstage the whole event, he kept going up to the podium and asking when it was his turn to speak. Afterwards they had a supper, and I was relieved to see that some nice person had brought some fruit and fruit kebabs – they were all delicious!

My sister who is planning to start her detox today with a 4 day fast, was piling up the chocolate cake and lollies on her plate. It reminded me of the way a starving person will stuff themselves with food in the belief that there will be no more tomorrow. I warned her that if she’s fasting all those toxins are going to be streaming back through her blood stream tomorrow but I don’t think she was listening to me. And my aunty told me to stop being disgusting.

I’ve noticed that since I’ve only been living on fruit and vegetables, I actually feel more full on a lot less food. And I haven’t been craving anything for the last couple of days like I normally would do every day of my life.

Day 10

I had really sore painful muscles up the back of my legs yesterday. I couldn’t figure out why, because I hadn’t done any strenuous lifting or activity at all.

One of the testimonials for this cleanse said that they had had really tight leg muscles up the back of their legs which had rectified itself during the cleanse. Apparently the quads and calf muscles are intrinsically linked to the bowel system but I’m not sure how.

So I figure maybe the soreness was my body removing lactic acid from those muscles in order to remove it from my body, at least that’s what I’m hoping. Today my legs feel a lot better. I went for a walk for an hour this morning and I didn’t have any tightness in my legs.

I went out shopping today and it was great. I was trying on shirts that almost made me look really skinny. And then I realized what it was – my waist is coming back! Its awesome, I’m very pleased.

Day 9

I went and weighed and measured myself today. I was quite pleased with the results, as my waist and hip measurements have both gone down considerably, as well as my weight, however I’m not sure if this is just a temporary thing and my weight might go up again in a few days when I’m back on a normal diet. I really hope not but it’s a possibility.

My friend Tracy did a 40 day fast a few months ago, and I now hear that this other person I know is into day 30 of completing his own one. I went onto you tube last week and found a woman who had done 3 consecutive 40 day fasts one after the other. I think she was jewish. She said she was doing the fast for God. She was 31yrs old, the mother of 7 children and her youngest one was 6wks old.

I thought she looked markedly improved after the first 40 days (I skipped from day 1 to day 40 to day 80 to day 120) and disgustingly skeletal after the 120th. And on top of that she broke her fast with steak, which is one of the stupidest things you can do, taking the hardest thing to digest into your body after its been without food for 4 months. She got a lot of flak for that.

I think it would be a good idea to start a fast after doing a detox cleanse like mine, since a lot of the toxins would already be removed from the body so there wouldn’t be so much headachiness and fatigue in the beginning. But I’m not sure if that’s a feasible idea since I’m going on a road trip in a week and its going to be difficult to stick to my plan of eating healthy the whole time.

New Years Eve

For new years eve last night, my flatmates all decided to drive up to Auckland to attempt to gate crash this YSA conference new years eve dance that none of us were registered for. I didn’t want to go at all, because I was completely exhausted from my detox. I had planned the first two days of herb taking to be the days that I was off work because I knew I would have low energy, which I did. Those two days just happened to be the 31st Dec and 1st Jan.

However owing to group pressure and threats that I would be kidnapped if I didn’t agree to go, I threw some fruit and nuts in my bag and slept all the way to Auckland. When I work up we were driving towards Wellesley Street in the city and it was 11:45pm and the place was completely packed. There were crazy drivers and pedestrians everywhere. All I really wanted to do was see the Sky Tower fireworks, so I was glad we were in the city, but the girls were trying to find the dance location and didn’t care so much about the fireworks.

We ended up at Auckland Girls Grammar school but we couldn’t find a park so we drove up and parked in some pay and display carpark where this group of guys were all getting hammered and headed down towards the school. As I went down this hill I could hear a popping noise and knew that the fireworks had started and new years had arrived!

Awesome fireworks, they went on for what seemed like ages. There were also some huge starburst fireworks starting from somewhere lower down, apparently there was something going on in the harbour as well. We found some Christian people having a dance at the school, but not the YSA and we walked down this huge hill on Howe St before Jazz checked her iphone and discovered that the dance was at Auckland Grammar School not Auckland Girls Grammar.

I thought it was hilarious and didn’t want to go to the dance at all, but the girls still wanted to go. And Jo who hurt her foot and is still walking around with a moon boot can’t walk too easily so the girls found her a supermarket trolley that was just sitting there and decided to push her back up this massive hill. But they were laughing so hard they couldn’t really push. I tried to help but I couldn’t do much, I was too tired. We got her up the hill in the end and then found our way to the correct school.

We could tell it was the correct school coz there were security guys sitting at every entrance. It was about 1am by this stage, so I’m not sure if they let us in coz they couldn’t be bothered or because Jazz went up to everybody and asked where we had to go to to register. Then when we got up to where you actually did have to register, she marched up to the chairman guy and told him some stuff and next thing I knew we were heading down the hill to this field covered in massive bright balloons and a laser light display shooting up onto the rock cliff above our heads.

We were only there for an hour but it was actually really fun, surprisingly. And my flatmates seemed to think there were lots of hot guys there, but I didn’t notice, probably because I was overtired by that stage. I slept all the way home and didn’t wake up till midday today.

Day 6

The creator of the “Ultimate herbal detox” is a kiwi and a naturopath, Brett Elliott. Apparently he and his wife live in Tauranga. I watched a you tube video of him making a salad which I decided to try yesterday, and it is now my new favourite salad.

The base is made of mesclun leaves, tomato, and avocado, with lightly sautéed flat mushrooms. For the dressing you mix up some chopped up garlic, a dollop of probiotic unsweetened yoghurt, juice of one lemon, some olive oil and a bit of oregano, mixed together then poured over the salad then tossed into it. So delicious.

The sauce reminds me of “sauce blanche” the white kebab sauce that I used to always ask for when I had kebabs on my mission. Actually I think it probably is the same thing and maybe that’s why I love it so much, because it reminds me of the French food I had on my mission.