All done! Yippee!

Today is Day 41. Today's menu heavily features Orange juice. The taste seems so crisp and clean. What a sensitive instrument, the taste bud.

I stayed fairly active during the cleanse, working outdoors most days for 5 or 6 hours (cutting brush, planting trees). There were maybe 5 or 6 days total when there just wasn't the strength available for that, so I went in for naps. On average, stamina seemed about half of what might normally be expected.

There was only one episode of "knock me down" obvious cleansing. On Days 26 to 30 I was weak, headachy, flu-like. I rested almost all day, each day (reading, napping). On those days I also had huge amounts of white coating form on the tongue. I never got the completely clean "pink tongue" of lore, but came pretty close to it on days 30 through 40.

About Day 20 or 21 I noticed more clarity of thought as a mental fog lifted. It is similar to the feeling one gets a few days into a lengthy medition retreat.

The bathroom scale helped track another aspect of body health. It showed a steady weight loss of about 6 pounds per week. By Day 26, the weight was down 23 pounds. Then came the "cleansing episode," during which 6 pounds was put on in 3 days! On Day 31, the tongue cleared and the same 'nearly one pound per day' pace returned. That is, it took a week for the weight to get back where it was before the healing episode occurred. Today, at the end of the cleanse, the scale showed a loss of 29 pounds compared to starting weight -- though one expects some rebound as the internal tubing fills up again.

The plan is OJ for another day or two, maybe with some grapefruit snuck in. Then wheatgrass & green smoothies for a day or two followed by ultra-healthy stuff. Green smoothies will definitely be part of the new lifestyle. Yesterday, I started all kinds sprouts for future greens, beans and grains. There was plenty of time to think about and to research diet options while on the MC. Since I just finished a 40 day MC and am feeling so clean, I have decided to make a 40 day experiment in following a 100% raw vegan diet. Wish me luck!

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