Cleanse: Day Nine

Comfort.

Today's special word is COMFORT.

It's a theme that's been coming up for me in the last couple of days. Today I celebrate four months of being out of my relationship, a fact I hadn't realized until twenty minutes ago when I was on the phone with my friend Steve. I do not have the comfort of someone to come home to. Someone to complain about my boss to. Someone who can listen to all of my shit, my hopes, my dreams, my frustrations, my wishes. Right now I do not have that comfort.

And for the past nine days, I have been on this cleanse. Week One felt for the most past like I was just cutting out steak, pork, turkey and dairy. It just felt like I was watching what I was eating. It felt like eating better. But it didn't feel like a cleanse. Here's what else I was cutting out: caffeine, soda, fast food, alcohol, tobacco, fried foods, iodized salt, juice and preservatives.

I would work out every morning and RUSH to Starbucks to get some coffee. I'd have a rough morning and reward myself with a cigarette. I'd sit down at my computer and mindlessly munch on cheese slices and meat. If it was Tuesday (which it is today), I'd sit in front of THE BIGGEST LOSER and wolf down 12 tacos. Yes, my metabolism affords me the gift of being relatively slender. But my body hasn't been tight in years. I've even trained for a marathon and I still had some around the middle. Somewhere along the way, I felt my body held on to some of that reserve because it needed it. It was comfort.

This week, I have cut some more things out. And my options are way more limited. I cut out sugar and sugar supplements, pan frying, wheat and white flour, chicken and soy. Oh my God, where is my comfort? I just went shopping again today to get some peanut butter and non-sulfured dried fruit w/o sugar. I have my steel cut oats I eat in the morning and my raw almonds, almond milk, dark cherries and freeze dried blueberries to add in there. I've got fresh salsa I've made. I'm putting sea salt on things. I drizzle oil onto food instead of cooking with it so not to release free radicals. I'm going to make mushroom soup with veggie broth later in the week. I have to remember to cut some fresh peppers to take as crudite tomorrow.

What I don't have is comfort.

What I do have is awareness. I know everything I'm putting into my body and I know why it's there. I make sure that I don't do anything to jeopardize my progress. Everything works together and I take the time and care enough about myself to make sure nothing impedes my progress. That's what I have to do in my life.

And I've started. But I still have plenty of empty calories in my day. Everything needs to work towards my progress.

I like to say that I've got no hamburger, no onion rings, no Irish potato (and I mean that as nicely and as affectionately and respectfully as I can).

So today my attitude is good, my energy is high and my desire is strong. And I didn't eat through THE BIGGEST LOSER.