Day 7

This is the completion of week one. I'm now officially one third of the way through this experiment and I think I need to take a moment to remember what this is all about. This wasn't supposed to be about deprevation or sacrifice or even weight loss. This is meant to be a healing, cleansing process. This is a vacation from the toxic effects of caffeine and dairy and sugar. This is a gift to my body.

In the past few days I've really gotten caught up in what I can't have instead of what I'm giving myself by doing this. Instead of thinking about what I'm going to do after the 21 days, I need to focus on what I'm doing now. This is for now. This is - as Kathy Freston says in her book - a rebooting of the system. It's like a fresh start and a new perspective.

It's hard to catch a glimpse of yourself in a reflection from a window, or passing by a mirror - and just despising what you see. After a week of such pure dedication to making good choices, you want to feel good when you look at yourself. When you don't feel good, it kills a lot of the motivation you have for the process. I wasn't going to weigh myself until the end of the Cleanse, but I knew I had eaten healthy and I drank a lot of water. I needed some evidence of positive change - besides the fact that I know I've kicked the caffeine addiction - to push me forward. So to share the results - I'm now at 246.6. That's a 7.4 pound weight loss - much of which is probably water weight. But still an amazing number to see.

For the next two weeks, I'm really going to try to read each day's chapter in the book to help remind me of what I'm doing for myself. And also, I'd like to add a daily walk to the cleanse, to get me outside and give me time to reflect. Week Two, here I come!