Detox has been going really well! A week ago I ordered all the fruits, veggies, nuts, legumes, hummus, tempeh, and tofu I would need. I was so excited to get all these healthy foods into my fridge and pantry.

For the first five days, I just ate & drank whole foods, elliminating refined sugar, alchohol, dairy, meat (no prob - I'm alreay vegetarian), and white flour. Most importantly, and I noticed this during the kickoff of our transformer, I kept my portion size to roughly two fists (twice the size of a stomach). This has been essential in normalizing healthy portions and is often the hardest part of my relationship with food. In the past, I especially have found this challenging in the evenings when I'm feeling lonely or anxious. During the first five days on whole foods, I kept up my workouts thanks in large part to my housemate joining me at the gym for two 6am workouts. I also got back to a yoga class which really helped balance out the lifting and cardio I was doing at the gym.

For the next three days, I moved into juice fasting. I didn't realize how much I had missed this since I haven't done it for a whole year! Kale, swiss chard, spinach, celery, cucumbers, carrots, beets, and, of course, some sweetening with pineapple, apples, grapes, and some limes and lemons for "brightening" up the juices. When I go into juicing, I automatically have to increase my water consumption. I also always make sure to decrease my work and my social life as much as possible so that I can really allow my body as much ease as possible. I did have a performance on Friday night, but yesterday I went to an all-day silent meditation retreat and today just took my time to do laundry and some light cleaning & enjoyable reading. I'm thrilled to be going into day 4 of my juicing since I've seen how the first 2-3 days feel a bit ooky (as if my kidneys are getting rid of prehistoric funk) and then are followed by almost superhuman clarity, brightness, and serenity. The biggest challenge of these days ahead are to 1. not get too attached to this wonderful phase, and 2. to not get wrapped up in the dread of this great phase ending. 

Once I'm done with the juicing, I'm looking foward to keeping my water intake up and moving slowly back to whole foods, staying with healthier food choices, and going back to my workouts. This community and forum has really helped me take a very long perspective on losing excess weight and having a balanced relationship with food and exercise. It's amazing to think that six months is a long perspective, but compared with my previous "quick fix" attitudes aiming to fix my body instead of enjoy and slowly shift my habits, this is definitely an expanded view. I'm even looking forward to the maintenance phase and keeping community after this challenge is over. It's going to be essential to reinforce and support these great habits I'm putting in place.