Juice Feast-Day 57

Day One-Parasite Cleanse
I wish the worms that I saw in my toilet tonight looked like the cute little fellers to the left. They didn't...

Today is day one of my 3-week parasite cleanse. On a 92-day juice feast, it's recommended that you undertake a parasite cleanse somewhere around day 60. Apparently, a LOT of people carry around parasites in the form of worms, flukes, bacteria, and viruses without knowing it. Especially people with pets and people who travel. For the past few days I've been thinking about the possibility of worms wiggling around in my colon (among other places) and it got me all freaked out, so I decided today was close enough to day 60 to get started. Besides, as my economics professor used to say, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Not in my colon, anyway!

Parastroy
My "dewormer" of choice is Parastroy, by Nature's Choice. I ordered a kit from amazon.com and think I paid about $14.00 for it. You can find it a few bucks cheaper online, but I was already ordering some other goodies, so I figured I would save on shipping. My kit came with two CDs-both related containing tips for healthy living (haven't watched them yet).

The Parastroy kit comes with two bottles, one labeled Para Rid and the other Para Sweep. Each bottle containing 90 capsules, although kits are available containing 120 capsules. For people on a juice feast lasting 60 days or longer, taking Para Sweep is completely unnecessary and not recommended. Para Sweep is designed for folks who need help with elimination, not for people who have been cleaning their colons for the past 60 days. So if you're on an extended juice feast, the bottle of Para Rid is all you need. Unfortunately, I have never seen one bottle sold separately from the other so for long-term feasters, it's a bit of a waste. Para Rid contains cascara sagrada, so it should not be taken in tandem with any other herbal laxatives. Some juice feasting protocols call for 1 capsule twice a day for the first week, 2 capsules twice a day for the second week, and 3 capsules twice a day for the third week. The box recommends taking 2 capsules twice a day from the start, so that's what I'm doing.

The Bathroom Horror Show

(reader discretion advised)

I popped two capsules with juice for breakfast, and two with my juice for dinner. Soon after dinner I experienced some rumbling and mild abdominal cramping (no doubt the cascara sagrada was kicking in, or else I was experiencing some immediate die-off symptoms). I went to the bathroom and to my horror...Now seriously, I have pets (who, by the way, have had worms), and I've done some traveling (to some pretty wormy places) but I really didn't expect to see any results from my parasite cleanse. Let alone on day one! But, horror of horrors, there THEY were, a half dozen or more wormy-looking things floating in my toilet bowl. Some were big, some were small, some were in (pause to gag) "segments." All dead were dead.

So, were they really worms? Well, I think they were. There was nothing else expelled into the toilet to confuse them with. I suppose they could have been something else (something created by the parastroy ingredients perhaps?), but if so, I'm not sure what. Let's put it this way, if someone had said to me, "Hey Ellen, look in this toilet bowl and tell me what you see." I would have said, "Hey, those are little worms in that toilet bowl!" I was mortified and repulsed, yet oddly relieved all at the same time.

As I stood there, I wondered if I might just keel over and pass out from the sight of them. I kind of waited for it, but then the science geek in me took over and I ran upstairs and got a wooden kabob skewer from the kitchen so I could take a closer look. (Curiosity can be your best friend in these situations.) When I was standing there, it just didn't seem possible that what I was looking at just exited through my own butt. I mean, not MY butt for heaven's sakes! If they were worms (and I strongly suspect they were), there will be no more hitching a free ride fellas! Bye-bye! Ugh. I hope that's all of them...cause thinking about this again as I type this post is freaking me out all over again.

Okay then, on a much less disgusting note...

I released another 2 lbs this week. That makes a total of 35 lbs released so far. My starting weight was 188 lbs. Currently I weight 153 lbs. I decided to track my weight loss from week to week over on the right hand sidebar instead of writing about it here. I may post picture updates around day 70 or 80. Not sure yet.

Juicy Diary-Day 57

(Today's juice & supplements)

12 oz rooibos tea

32 oz water

15 oz honeydew/blueberry + parastroy + MSM + B12

64 oz green juice (spirulina, kale, spinach, dandelion greens, cilantro, carrots, celery, cucumber, red bell pepper, orange bell pepper, assorted hot peppers, cayenne pepper, garlic, onion)

32 oz water

34 oz strawberry/raspberry/apple

Total Juice = 109 oz (0.85 gallons)

Total Water = 76 oz (0.59 gallons)

------------------------------------

Sleep & dreams: 9 hrs (disrupted) No dream recall. I'm rarely tired when I'm awake these days, but when I sleep, I seem to REALLY enjoy sleeping!

Exercise: 1 mile run/walk with dog

Sauna: 30 minutes

Energy & mood: Feeling very blissful lately. I'm in a really good place both mentally and physically. I'm enjoying the wave of nirvana while it lasts because I know tricky days are probably just around the corner.

Comments: My body has really changed. I've never lost this much weight without exercising before, so physically, my body is taking on a whole different shape. That's fine by me. I'm rolling with it for now. I'm still feeling like physiologically I'm in a state of detox. I don't want to expend too much extra energy on exercising because 1) I don't want my body diverting energy to muscle repair that it could be using for detox, and 2) I don't want to build up any lactic acid in my muscles. I could definitely be doing more stretching and cardio, but I still don't feel like hitting the weights.