Juice Fasting and Social Media Detox!

I am on the end of day 3 of my juice fast, day 5 of my cleanse and day 3 of no social media or cell phone use (phone/text). My Facebook, Instagram and snapchat are all logged out and I’ve only used very minimal email for communication for the past 3 days, and only when necessary.

It’s been beautiful.

I’ve meditated, read, and detoxed. I’ve spent more time in complete silence than I probably ever have before. I went over 24 hours without speaking a single word to another person. I haven’t left the house besides the vet on Friday, and my only visitor was one girlfriend today.

The juice fast has been great, as has been the whole cleanse so far. It is 2 days of raw food, prepping my body for fasting, then 3 days of juice fasting (making your own juices as per their recipes not store bought), and then tomorrow will begin 2 days of easing my body back into solid food. I have to be very careful during this time to follow the meal plan strictly. In the first few days it’s easy to follow the meal plan because it’s new, but now that I’ve had 3 days without solid food and I’m nearing the end, I find myself really wanting those chocolate almond bites that are prepped in the fridge for Tuesday nights dessert! After a juice fast though, my body is not prepared to digest many foods such as leafy greens and I’m sure it’s not prepared to digest the fat from all the coconut oil in the chocolate almond bites that I want to eat!

I found the only times I experienced cravings for either junk food or social media was when I was bored. Mostly in the evening in front of the tv, which really highlights my habits. I wasn’t craving chocolate or cheese because I was hungry. I was craving it because that’s what my body and brain associate with watching television. I wasn’t craving social media because I needed to talk to someone, I was craving it because I’m uncomfortable with being bored. I will say I did surprise myself with how little I felt the need to check social media however, and the only time I unconsciously clicked on the Facebook button was when my girlfriend was over today and she went to the bathroom. Which, again, totally solidifies that my brain wants to avoid boredom. It couldn’t even sit alone while a pregnant woman went pee for the 5th time. And yet, when I was by myself the rest of the 3 days I never clicked on it or missed it once.

Healing really is a full time job. I never would have accomplished as much this weekend if I had been sticking to my normal routines. And, I likely never would have taken a weekend like this for myself if I hadn’t gotten sick. Not because it wouldn’t have benefited me before – it certainly would have! But because I never would have allowed myself this time for only me, nor would I have forced myself to give up any possible social interaction or the comforts of normal routine. What a shame that would have been.

Throughout the 7 day detox it is recommended that one tries to incorporate some other, less comfortable practices to support the detox process. Incorporating these can help lesson some of the detox symptoms as well as allow your body to detox more efficiently. The practices that I incorporated were lemon water, apple cider vinegar and water, tongue scraping, oil pulling, nasal rinsing, infrared sauna-ing, and the one that was likely most beneficial but also the one no one wants to talk about, enemas.

Never in my life did I think I’d be filling a bag full of water/tea/coffee/herbs/whatever other mixtures are out there, attaching tubes to said bag, and sticking the tube up my butt to cleanse my digestive tract. Not to mention blogging about it! Never. In. My. Life. But alas, when you’re chronically ill you a) loose all dignity and b) will try pretty much ANYTHING that might possibly help you heal. People in the Lyme community have been recommending enemas to me since I joined the community a year and a half ago. It took committing to this cleanse where they also push you to do them for me to actually suck it up and do it.

And I was pleasantly surprised!

First of all, there’s something to be said for getting to know your body in all different ways. Understanding how your body works, how it eliminates toxins, what you can and can’t do to it, how it reacts to different things are all an important part of life and health in general, and especially important if you have an ongoing illness. I love learning how to heal naturally without medication and I love learning how people healed hundreds of years ago before pharmaceuticals came into play. Enemas and colonics have apparently been around since the Egyptians and were commonly used as preventative medicine. Who knew!

The first thing I thought when I was reading the instructions on my enema kit was, “you want me to put HOW MUCH of that tube inside of me?!”, a friend from the Lyme community assured me it was fine and much to my amazement, it was. How did I not know this about my body? Of course the tube is very thin but the instructions tell you to put half to three-quarters of it inside of you and that’s approximately a foot! Which maybe I am totally naive but to be able to do that without feeling any discomfort at all completely shocked me. Anyways, the whole thing was significantly simpler than I had expected and besides a bit of cramping, it was painless. The reason this detox places so much importance on colonics is because when you enter the juice fasting phase your body is still releasing toxins into your colon every 24 hours, but you’re not consuming any solid foods or fiber to prompt your body’s response to release them. Had I been doing this detox before Lyme I probably would have skipped that part, but this time I knew I really needed to get the most out of this 7 days that I could.

What I noticed most significantly after my first enema, but also after my others, was how calm and clear headed I felt when it was done. I felt nurtured and safe and at ease in a way I’ve never felt before. Ever since I was fitness coaching I have strongly believed that what I put in my mouth and the toxins that build up in my body have a direct connection to my mental health and this sense of ease after releasing those toxins definitely solidified that belief for me.

When Lyme bacteria die they turn into toxins floating around in my body. When my body can’t process those toxins quickly enough it causes what’s called a herxheimer reaction. Basically this is a flare up of symptoms, possibly new symptoms, caused by the toxic load. Throughout my Lyme treatment I have had multiple times where these herx’s have caused such severe mental health symptoms that I’ve gone voluntarily to Vancouver Hospital ER for them to stabilize me. Because of this I really wasn’t sure what this weekend would bring. When detoxing we are also stirring up toxins to be released and pulling them from our blood and other organs and tissues. Would this cause me massive distress or would they release with ease? I have had a very calm, peaceful, healing weekend and I do attribute a lot of that to the extra detox practices I have been doing.

The only time I wasn’t busy was when I was feeling too tired to be doing anything. That was when I chose to rest and watch comedic Netflix shows (One Day at a Time, anyone?). The rest of my time was dedicated to prepping juices and the meals for my last two days (tomorrow and Tuesday), and to meditation, journaling, blogging and detox practices. With my mind clear and calm I was able to meditate deeper each day for varying times, probably averaging an hour and a half per day give or take. This is when I had some of my clearest healing moments and opportunities to let go of that which no longer serves me. It was beautiful and I am so grateful to have had the time, space and quiet to do that.

I also went to bed early, slept in late, and read. I basically just did whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to, and for probably the first time in my 27 years of life didn’t worry at all about what one single other person was doing besides myself. What a gift! I am well aware that once I have a partner and children in the picture my ability to do that will be very few and far between. I never would have given myself this weekend if I hadn’t of gotten sick and for that I am so grateful.

My lack of desire or need to check social media or talk to anyone besides my higher self really surprised me. I didn’t think that going 3 days at home with no contact with other people would be torture, but I didn’t expect it to be so easy either. This is something that I hope to take with me moving forward. Social media and constant contact with other people is not a need. Yes, it has its benefits, and I do have to come back to the real world at some point tonight to run my business, but I do not need to be attached to it at all times. I already have all notifications turned off for Facebook and have for a while, but I will definitely be turning off my snapchat and Instagram notifications when I log back into everything tonight!

Being able to spend a weekend alone focusing solely on mental, physical and spiritual wellness is such a blessing, everyone should gift themselves this experience,in my opinion, at least once a year.

I am holding onto my immense gratitude for this fast, but I am also excited to ease back into solid food tomorrow! Moving forward I know that I am going to make a conscious effort in allowing myself to be bored and not consistently distracting with social media, texting, phone calls, television, Netflix, or any other outside stimuli. I am going to embrace these opportunities to witness the hummingbird outside my front door, the woodpecker in my bird-feeder, the raccoon sitting on my front mat looking up at me through my front door, or the flowers blooming (in this case the snow melting), all of which happened this weekend.

I am going to embrace these opportunities to listen to my body, mind and soul. If your mind is never quiet, you’ll never be able to hear what they have to tell you.

Namaste.