twenty pounds later,

Ah. It hardly seems like yesterday that three weeks ago I embarked on the Master Cleanse for the second time in my life. The first time was shorter with more amazing results (twelve days! 25 lbs?!), but this cleanse has had it's quiet revolutions. It's length alone is a feat. As of today, I have gone without solid food, cigarettes, alcohol and my most favorite, espresso, for twenty-one days. I have enough supplies to complete another two days and then I will begin the process of slowly introducing food back into my world.

Of course it would be hard not to compare the feelings I've had this time to the feelings I had last time. I have been very lonely whereas before I lived with Eric and his friends and was doing the cleanse with a friend. I have been obsessed with food whereas last time (perhaps because it was shorter) I was merely annoyed by food being everywhere. I've taken to lengthy reading of take out menus, circulars for the grocery stores, even tours of grocery stores staring abjectly at all the food I would like to eat someday. It's sounds sad, but it's extremely funny to me. My friend Walter calls it "food porn."

My friends, as much as I feared they would fall away, did not abandon me. That made me very happy. It just shows me that I've made some good choices about my friends. They hung out with me in various ways, with and without food. My friend Val even came over to do yoga with me!

For a while, during the cleanse, I didn't see any results with my weight. I think it was nearly a full two weeks and I had only lost a total of eight pounds. Yet, I'd not smoked for two weeks and that is a long time in a non smoking world. So as much as I was disappointed by the lack of weight loss, I was thrilled that I might best what has been the most difficult thing for me to break. I was happy that I would come out of this process not wanting to smoke again.

And then, finally my weight literally fell off of me. I have no other way to put it. It may have been that I decided to attempt at least a half an hour's worth of daily walking. Or that I also began to do yoga on a nearly daily basis. Or that I decided to add the routine of drinking the disgusting herbal laxative tea for the last week, having gotten sick of drinking saltwater in the morning. I don't know what it was, but a few days ago I stood on the scale and I was 190 lbs, down from 206 lbs.

Yesterday I had to buy a new pair of pants. I had just washed my tried and true pair of blue jeans and they were literally falling off me. I have a lot of pants in smaller sizes from when I was at my "normal" weight (before dating Eric again and eating his meat filled death diet), but no pants that fit this in between weight, so I had fun shopping last night for new, smaller clothes.

I know eventually I'll be able to wear my normal clothes again, to feel normal again and it makes me very glad. I know this was an extreme way to lose weight, I know it is not for everyone, but I had to do it. I needed results, I needed to break up the damaging habits I'd acquired in my attempt to numb myself to my new life. I found myself again and it's no surprise to me that I'm smaller, because that's who I am in my mind.