Days 9 and 10...master cleanse mastered

I'm finished! Yay! I feel good. I'm really glad I did it. I ended up loosing my voice yesterday afternoon. I noticed my throat felt really dry while I was studying with a deaf Bible student. Of course I'm signing and not talking so I didn't notice my voice was raspy until the evening. It's still gone. But I don't feel sick at all. Someone told me it's my body getting rid of toxins through the phlegm. (My tongue has also been white the past 10 days which is another way the body gets rid of toxins). So I guess that's a good thing.

The main motivation for this was to clear out my digestive system. It's cleared out for the most part. The secondary motivation was to loose a bit of weight. I think since my main motivation was health it helped me be more determined to stick with it. I don't think I would've thought of doing this if my main motivation was to loose weight. Seems too extreme. (I did end up loosing about 12lbs. I'm thrilled about that!) But to do it for health seemed reasonable. So I'm going to try to keep that same "good health" motivation in the intentions of having a balanced and healthy diet. If I focus so much on my weight I end up making myself feel deprived to an extent. That's just miserable and damaging. I won't last thinking that way. It's funny how we can play games with ourselves like that. sigh

So tomorrow I'll get up early to make the Curried Carrot soup. I'll add some eggs and tofu to meals from Sunday on. I'm so excited! I wonder if things will taste different....

Days 7 and 8...the end is in sight

I've been really needing a nap each day, even if it's only 20 minutes. Today I had an appointment with a Bible student but she was late so I took a nap right there in the McDonalds where we were meeting. It made a big difference.

Other than that I'm feeling good and looking forward to eating again. Friday is my last day but Saturday I can only have juices and soups. So I went to the store to buy the veggies for the soup I'm going to make (tomorrow and Friday are very busy so today was my only opportunity to go to the store.) I had to walk fast, so many wonderful things to eat that I couldn't let myself dwell on. I'm going to make Curried Carrot Soup and that night I'll make Slimmers Pumpkin Soup. Anyone have a favorite soup recipe? Sunday I'm going to make hummus.

I also have all my meals for next week planned! It'll mostly be salads and steamed veggies. I can't quite go be back to normal eating yet. I shouldn't have meat or milk for 2 weeks. I can hold off on the meat but not having milk will be difficult. I'll have to at least add some to my coffee.

Ok, enough about food. Only 2 more days!!!

Days 4, 5 and 6...continuing to persevere

R and I came to stay with me for the weekend on their way back to Africa. They were up in Chiang Mai visiting their daughter A. It's too bad it was this weekend, there was lots of good food to eat! They planned to go to a buffet dinner at a nice hotel nearby. I went along for the company. It looked like a great buffet, much nicer than other hotels I've seen. Then R and N invited us to dinner last night after the mtg. I went along again for the company. This time is was a Lebanese place. It all looked so good. sigh. But, I persevered. I've come too far to cheat. And one slip would ruin the whole thing. And both those places will always be there.

Good results though! My intestines are responding well. And I've also lost a few pounds, not sure how much. I forgot to weigh myself before I started. My energy level is low though. Saturday after service (which was walking a lot in the heat) I came home and took a nap for nearly 2 hours. Yesterday I felt good but it was an easy day, thank goodness. Today is easy too. I took a nap in the afternoon and then did some pilates in the evening. I've been feeling a bit weak in my low back and pilates always helps. Tues-Thurs that are my busy days, no time for naps. We'll see how it goes.

Days 2 and 3...still going strong

Great news! I didn't get a headache yesterday and I don't have one now. I'm still feeling pretty good. My energy level stayed strong yesterday but today it took a bit of a dive. I could've slept most of the afternoon. (Although, that could also be because of the heat, it's getting really hot. It was in the low 90s and sunny today.) But my energy was back up for my meeting tonight.

So the first 3 days are over. Yipee! It hasn't been as bad as I'd imagined. The lemonade drink is good and I don't feel super hungry, just kinda hungry. And I've been able to keep up with my routine just fine. The worst part is the salt water in the morning. But the results are good enough to motivate me to drink it down every morning. Ahhhh, to be clean!

Day 1...Success

Yesterday I only ate raw fruits and veggies. No coffee. I felt ok for most of the day but had a bad headache by the evening. Went to bed early.

I woke up this morning feeling good. The lemonade drink isn't so bad, no problems getting it down. I was really feeling good about things around 1:00. No major hunger pains, energy level good-actually better than yesterday. Then came 3:00. I was tired and struggling for energy. I got home around 5:00 and had another drink. I was doing good till about an hour ago. The headache is back in full force and my energy is ZERO. Good thing it's time for bed.

All in all, it's been a good day and I feel positive about being able to complete it. But they say it's the first 3 days that's the hardest...we'll see how tomorrow goes.

The Master Cleanse

Otherwise known as the Lemonade Diet. Every morning starts with 30 oz of salt water. That gives your intestines a good scrub down. Then the lemonade. It's a concoction of 2 oz of lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1/10th of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper mixed into 10 oz of water. You're supposed to drink 4-6 classes of that each day. No food. I'm gonna do it! I need a cleanse! Tomorrow I'll prepare myself a bit, only raw fruits and veggies for the day. Then Wednesday I'll start. It's 10 days long and then after the cleanse you can't go straight back to eating normal. It'll be soups and juices for another 3 days. Sigh. I can do it. I can do it! I CAN DO IT! I am kinda nervous. I know I'll be feeling tired and cranky a lot. But I can do it! And headaches for at least the first 3 days. But I can do it! I'll keep thinking about all the benefits. A clean colon! More energy! A strong sense of accomplishment! And maybe, just maybe I'll loose a few pounds and the Thais will call me skinny! I won't count on it but one can dream. Ha Ha

Anyone have a good experience cleansing? Please share!

Ahhh...the islands

So I had to take an overnight bus down to Krabi. The bus is way cheaper but it's 11 hours in a chair that doesn't really recline. Fortunately I had the row of 2 seats to myself but still didn't sleep well. Not a great start to a morning where I have to interpret part of the Wt. That's what holy spirit is for. The meeting went well, 8 deaf came. They usually have at least 1 or 2 so it was impressive that 8 came. The congregation in Krabi has about 40 publishers and the KH is small. We all barely fit in the back. It's always fun visiting the smaller groups. The deaf are not so accustomed to the meetings yet so they often talk a lot, correct the interpreter if they don't understand a sign. And there's always a leader, usually one of the older ones. Krabi was no exception. There's an older man who freely tells us when he was younger he won a beauty contest when he used to be a ladyboy. Apparently now he's bored with the whole ladyboy thing. Not sure. Some things you just don't want to know. Here's a photo of a local sister and a little girl learning Thai sign, K, and the deaf girl who's studying.

So Sunday around 3:30 K and I took the ferry to Koh Phi Phi. We stayed in a nice bungalow that is up a hill a bit (thought we'd be safe if a tsunami came). Monday morning K went to search for a spot to snorkel and I laid by the pool (hadn't slept well the night before because of loud music and still hadn't recovered from the bus ride). I got some nice photos from the pool side. Around 11am we switched to another place, a bit cheaper and quieter. Around 2pm we went to the Spidermonkey rock climbing office. Rock climbing was on the other side of the bay, about a 20-minute walk. Neither of us had climbed before and weren't sure what to expect. We weren't really given much instruction. A few others in the group had climbed before so we watched them first. It ended up being really fun but really hard! It was often hard to get a good grip with my hands. The instructor finally told me to depend more on my feet. They give you special shoes to wear with the toe area being shaped so that you can get just the tiniest grip on the rock and push yourself up. They also help with the rope in giving you a strong pull. By then my arms were really tired so I still struggled but I felt good about how I did. There were about 5 or 6 climbs set up and I tried each of them. I only made it to the very top once. The others I made it usually 2/3rd of the way. K made it to the top every time except that last one which was the hardest (that's the only I didn't attempt, I was really tired by then). Everyone was really impressed with her. By the time we finished our arms felt like rubber but it was really great and we both thought we'd love to try it again. You can see the photos of climbing on the photos on the right of the blog page. Here are a few photos of our view from our room the first night and also from where we were climbing.

K has always got witnessing on her mind. She came with a bunch of magazines and placed them all by the end of the day. It's not hard actually to bring it up. The locals are always impressed with how well she speaks Thai and ask her how long she's lived here and why she moved here. She would also ask if there were any deaf on the island. We were told there's a deaf lady who sells fruit at a market so K made the search and found her. We had a bit more time after climbing so we went to find her and had a great conversation. She never went to school so she can't read or write. Her sign is ok but she can still communicate well. She can read lips for basic words and seems to have her own style of communication with her husband, who is hearing, and other family. She has a sad story. She had a 4 year old son, who was also deaf. One day she had given him some money to go buy a snack. He went off and that's when the tsunami came. She looked around for him as she was running up a hill but never found him. She told us the story with tears in her eyes. We had given her the Enjoy Life brochure and showed her the picutre of the resurrection and explained how in the future she could see her son again. She seemed to understand. We were really glad to have met her and really enjoyed talking to her. Hopefully we'll have an opportunity to visit her again.

The next morning we left the island at 8am. We first took a speed boat to Koh Lanta and waited there for an hour for a bigger boat. Koh Lanta is where I went with Will, Nat and Shonda last year. I didn't recognize anything, we were on the opposite side of where we had stayed. The next boat took about 3 hours, it stopped at several islands to let people out. It was really cool to see all the different islands! We passed another one I had stayed at with Jackie and Alex when they were here several years ago. So K and I were planning our next trip as we were passing all those islands. We also had really great conversation. I also got a bit sunburned-doh! Here's a few of the islands we saw along the way.



We eventually stopped at a pier in Trang which is the province K lives in. After waiting around an hour we finally got in a van to Trang city. That took another 35 minutes and we finally arrived at her place around 3pm.

The next day we went in service and in the afternoon K has a Bible study with 5 deaf - an older lady (who seems to be kind of the leader of them), a couple and 2 men (the wife of the couple wasn't there that day). They all really like K and call her 'the teacher'. None of them have been to school so their signs can be tricky to understand. But K has brilliantly drawn some picutres to explain different Bible teachings and they seem to have a basic understanding. Really nice to see! Here's a photo of them.

I left Wednesday night on the train and arrived Thursday morning. It was a quick trip but well worth it! K is always so refreshing to be with and of course being on a beautiful island is always amazing. My next trip might be to the south again but for the circuit assembly. It'll be in Surat which is on the mainland near Koh Samui.

Btw: I'm thinking about doing the Master Cleanse or Lemonade Diet. Anyone have experience with this? Anyone up for a cleanse?

Uninspired

Two weeks have gone by and I've been mostly uninspired to write. No particular reason. There's lots going on so I guess I've just been consumed with day to day stuff.

I did make it to watch the Superbowl Monday morning. Had to get up at 5:30am and to the pub at 6am. It was worth it! What a great game! The place we went to was just ok. There were a lot of Americans of course. The place I'd previously gone to for football games was charging 500 baht (apprx $15) to watch the game, buffet breakfast and 2 beers. Kinda pricey but I would've gone for it if the others I was with were up for it. But they weren't so we went to another place that was 400 baht. Oh well. It was a good time. I'll definitely do it again next year!

Saturday night I'm heading to Krabi to meet up with K at the Krabi cong to help with interpreting. After the meeting K and I are heading to Koh Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee). Neither of us have been there before. It's one of the most popular islands among foreigners. It was also badly damaged by the tsunami in 2004. But I'm sure everything is rebuilt now. It'll be interesting to see. We're thinking about rock climbing, something I've always thought would be cool. We'll be there 2 nights then back to K's in Trang Tuesday. I'll head back to Bangkok Wednesday night on the night train. Quick trip but I'm always up for some beach time!