13 Hours in Hell: The Detox Debacle

I think I'm about to start vomiting. I keep burping the flavor of vital greens which I vow never to drink again. I've just eaten a carrot and I'm wondering when I'll start feeling better. I have been crying and barely have the energy to type. This is awful.

Those are the words that crossed my mind more times in the past 3 hours that at any time in memory.

This. Is. Awful.

It started with great intentions. Dani and I booked this 7 day fasting detox in before I went to Nepal. The goal of the exercise is to remove plaque and mucus buildup from the intestine and eliminate lots of stored toxins from the body, resulting  in improved energy levels, mental clarity, skin condition - not to mention digestion. It sounded like just what I wanted to achieve. A bodily toxin reset. Besides, I'd never tried a fast before and as a health professional it appealed to me as an area I would like to be able to discuss from having personal experience.

Never. Again.

The method was taken from Daniel Reid's Tao. We are meant to drink psyllium husk, hydrated bentonite (a clay to attract toxins) and vital greens on a rotating roster 5 times per day. His method suggests home colonic irrigation daily. I decided on a professionally administered colonic at the beginning and end of the detox. The first colonic would be my first ever.

I'm not at all hungry, though I was at 10am. It passed. I've been awake since 5:30. I've been mildly dizzy and light headed since 11am. Throughout the day, this dizziness has increased, as has the light headedness. It peaked at 6:30pm when I lay on my bed crying, hoping beyond hope for the room to stop spinning. Any movement of my head amplified this a hundredfold. The nausea rushed over my in waves. It felt horrible and depressing. It did not feel like I was being nice to my body. It felt (and feels) like punishment, torture and deprivation. Not AT ALL like the nurturing or supportive outcome I was trying to accomplish.

This is not practicing self care. This is not balanced. This is not healthy. My brain is completely deprived of glucose, my body weak and my vision blurred. My skin tingles and my ears ring. This is destroying my metabolism AND I'm running 34km in 14 days.

In short, this was a very bad idea.

I have, however, learned some really cool stuff.

Today I had my first colonic. I learned not only through the experience of what happens, but from the advice of the practitioner who administered it. She talked to me at length about nutrition in terms of the foods best suited to both my blood type and the symptoms my bowel displayed. I learned that green tea dehydrates the bowel as much as coffee and my interest in an alkaline diet was renewed.

I had made some resolutions as to how I would eat following the detox and I'm going to skip straight to them - eating primarily organic fruits and veg, sprouted grain and raw, with the addition of making alkaline food choices. But I'm definitely not going to torture my body one second longer. Holding walls in order to walk, sitting to dry retch whilst feeling incurably miserable were all great signs to quit. When I reached that conclusion and called on my support crew, she was already on the same page and eating turkey.

We had realised, in the words of James Yates, "that life is too short to be skinny, dizzy or boring".

The End.