Scribbles

Four days after the cleanse seems about the right amount of time to reflect on it, which is about how long it took for me to resume normal eating habits. My conclusion is that it was good for me; I feel better, I’m much more conscious of what I put in my system, and I unintentionally lost 10 pounds. I will likely do it again within 6 months. The biggest drawback for me was the hit I took socially in the duration of the cleanse. Outside of a few highlights, the last two weeks have been flat out boring. Not only was the diet restrictive, but during some of the heavier detox days, my body directed most of its energy to clearing house and left me unsociable.

I followed the daily intake of 6-12 cups of lemonade. After a while, I got tired of the same taste and monotonous routine of squeezing juice, measuring the right proportions, and mixing up the concoction. In the morning, I drank the salt water flush, consisting of a quart of water and two teaspoons of sea salt. Other than that, there was nothing radical in terms of enemas, colonics, vitamins, or any herbal supplements. While boring, the process was continuously cathartic. I experienced cleaning up my system and clearing my digestive track. If anything, I feel like keeping myself clean and not polluting it with junk. It’s like buying that new car and you do everything you can to keep it pristine, the weekly hand washes, assiduously avoiding dents, cursing at insouciant drivers.

The hunger and cravings were manageable. I think day 7 and 8 were the worst, when I thought constantly about the foods I wanted to eat after the cleanse. That was the first of my two major mistakes. I got it in my mind that I was so close to finishing and then I would be free to eat things soon. That attitude really tormented me. Surprisingly, that disappeared by day 9, where I felt tired and sleepy for two days, a sign of more detoxing occurring. Unfortunately I ended my cleanse after day 10, the minimum suggested duration, when my body was telling me it need a few more days.

I decided call it victory after day 10 because I had a big social commitment coming up, a family gathering to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday. And that led to my second mistake of not taking a smooth enough transition to solid foods. The suggested transition period of 3 days consisted of a first day of juicing, the second day of juicing and soups, and the third day of eventual simply solid foods, with avoidance to meat. I shortened that and after eating even a little bit of food, my entire system didn’t feel right. It’s hard to describe because I’ve never experienced it before. It was a feeling of a little bit of bloat, which I ascribe to as a symptom of my digestive track being confused. After 10 days of non-solid food, it needed some time to warm up.

The next time around, I plan to allocate more buffer time, in case I decide to continue the MC past 10 days, and to take the transition period seriously. The good news is that I did a ton of reading during the time and still made it to the gym and dance regularly. My work didn’t suffer either. I would recommend anyone with the desire and will to take out 2 weeks during the winter, when things are slower, to give it a try. We give our cars tune ups. We clean our homes. There’s no reason not to give our bodies the same chance to heal itself and refresh.

For those of you who don’t know already, I’ve been involved with FitFiend, a fitness related social networking site started by a good friend and classmate of mine from INSEAD. As with any startup, we’re a pretty lean team in these tough economic times. Nonetheless, we’re working hard and been rewarded with a vibrant community there that simply rocks.

We were fortunate enough to receive the nomination for Mashable’s Sports and Fitness category. Not only is it an honor, but also a great opportunity for the site to gain exposure to people who could really benefit from and contribute to the community of a fitness conscious crowd. Help us out by voting for us using the widget on the left. You can do it once a day per email address until the end of November. The competition is tough but with your support, we believe we can reach our goal of 3,000 votes. Thanks!

Heads up to friends in HK, I’ll be traveling there next week and avoiding the turkeys in the US. While I have been in clamp down mode, some friends who planned the trip convinced me to burn some of those points I’ve accumulated as a consultant. So the airfare and hotel portion of this fun trip will be covered by miles. Better to use them sooner than to wait for the inevitable dilution. Can’t believe it’s been more than 2 years since I last visited. Here’s my commemorative photo in Lan Kwai Fong (eating no less, since I’m not doing any of it now).

Woohoo, I made it to day 8 of my Master Cleanse. Not that I’m surprised I could do it, but it is a relief after a series of nightmares where I ate a ton of food and immediately regretted breaking it. So I am craving food after all, but not in the sense of craving described by the book. They make the distinction between craving and hunger as craving being wanting a specific food, such as pizza, or coffee, or fried chicken, and hunger being the desire to eat anything, indifferent between devouring either a large salad or a burrito. Well, I’m craving good food, such as grandma’s cooking, or some of the interesting eats I’ve been meaning to try out after reading reviews on them, or even some of the restaurants I usually frequent. The foodie in me needs to be satiated.

Physically I feel fine, quite energetic and focused. I didn’t experience any of the difficult days (2,3, 7) that other people did, other than being quite sleepy the first few days. I also haven’t experienced the day of clarity on day 8 yet. My activities in the past week haven’t suffered either, I managed to work, hit the gym twice, attend dance classes thrice. The only pain is socially, as I haven’t been able to break bread with family or buy my visiting friend a drink.

I realized that the maple syrup has been giving me enough calories and energy to not experience the usual dizziness, irritability, and weakness when I go without food for too long. My caloric intake is about 1000 a day, and hence I’ve only lost about 5-6 pounds of weight. One of the pieces of advice was to measure the inches and not the pounds, and I can say that I do look slimmer on the waistline. Overall, I am content with the cleanse, but will save my final conclusions after this is over. In the meanwhile, I gladly report that I’ve made it so far, and am alive and kicking.

Let me preemptively acknowledge the irony of this posting and me being on detox right now.

After finding out from Column 1 of LA Times that the Nickel Diner was in downtown, I knew I was in for a treat. While everything sounded honky-dory in the article, nothing could quell the inner skeptic like a good outing.

Well, the first try was a strike. Good friend from SF was over on Friday night for a game at Staples Center and we wanted to grab a quick bite before hand. Silly me didn’t do my homework, otherwise I would’ve known that the place isn’t open for dinner yet. No problem, take two the next day for lunch. We had a late start and were famished. As we vultured for parking, we noticed a line out the door. Undeterred, by either the line or the lack of parking in downtown LA, I eventually settled for the paid parking lot across the street. Upon walking in, I immediately felt at home. The decor, the set-up was exactly as I expected, comfortable, cosy, and pleasantly busy. One of the owners, Monica, took down my name and seemed apologetic for us having to wait. No problem, we only waited 5 minutes before settling down in a nice booth in the corner. The attentive server quickly offered us drinks while we scanned the menus. What better start than having some fresh OJ.

Now the food. It has the typical diner items from hamburgers to entrees. What I enjoyed though, was the breakfast menu. I’ve been searching for a good brunch place a la NY for a while, and this place definitely brought it. A lot of choices, including pancakes, and vegetarian friendly dishes as well. Don’t be discouraged by the “vegan” chili, it totally rocked with their fresh salsa. We had that and their homemade blueberry sauce with an order of French toast.

After stuffing our faces silly, the other owner, Kristen came by with two plates. First a small dish of sample-sized puffs, which turned out to be their Peanut Salt, an amazing blend of salty and sweet, peanut butter and chocolate. The second, was a full tray of desserts, so many I can’t even recall all of them. There was a mystery muffin that Kirsten said she couldn’t tell us what was it was made of, other than we’d have to have the “balls to find out.”

We wimped out and went with the vegan tapioca. Did I mention that we were already stuffed? Well, it was delish – very subtle in sweetness and flavor, but cool and light. I loved it.

all photo credits to Dave Lee

We were quite delighted to have tried out the diner, with its charming character serving up great food in our gritty neighborhood. Needless to say, you’ll find me there once I’m off my detox.

Today I embark on a 10-day detox plan, aka Master Cleanse. Not having been on the healthiest course of eating lately, this seemed like a good idea to improve my energy and well-being. What it is not meant to be, is some weirdo “diet” designed for losing weight. Yes, one of the side affects will be losing weight, but the amount varies. What disturbed me was reading in Newsweek how the MC helped Beyonce lose 20 pounds in 2 weeks. Even the cover of the book advertises “Lose Weight” on the very top and first line. The diet was first invented by Stanley Burroughs, and recently made popular by Peter Glickman’s website and eventually published book. Is this another fad weight loss plan?

What assuaged me of this not being another American diet fad was reading the book itself. It properly claims to be a detox method. It’s not meant to be a diet, which I interpret as one’s eating routine. In the US we’ve hijacked the word to mean some temporary eating plan to help shed some weight. I hate that. Losing weight in a unusually quick manner, and eventually regaining it, sounds like a recipe for bad health. I highly discourage that, even if you have to fit that dress for your best friend’s wedding. The other thing that made me feel better was the general advice on healthy eating, sticking to raw vegetables as much as possible, is something I already try to follow as much as I can. So this cleanse isn’t as kooky to me as it may be to the typical barbecue-lover from Memphis.

For the cleanse itself, it’s pretty straight forward. The combination of liquids and ingredients that you intake result in the toxins in your system getting loosened up and flushed out. It begins with some senna tea in the evening, and then almost a liter’s worth of sea-salted water. This combination is pretty effective in getting things going. Then throughout the day, I drink a mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. The effect of this is to provide some calories and loosen up the toxins.

Granted I haven’t been through one full day of detox yet, but I’m feeling ok. Having to go to the restroom multiple times can be inconvenient, but is after all the whole point of a detox. The book claims that about one in four people feel hungry. I’m not sure what duration of hunger that meant. I’ve had bouts of hunger that were easily suppressed by drinking water. Supposedly days 2-3, 7, are the worst due to the amount of toxin being released. Reports of hot releases and general crankiness have been made. If you catch me moody over the next few days, there’s my get-out-of-jail card.

I couldn’t resist…

photo credit to Seinkonnen

The results are out. Obviously I’m happy and proud of the results. Most importantly, I heard Obama say the thing I wanted him to say, and that was about everyone having to make sacrifices. It’s a tough road ahead to get things back on course and unless there is a concerted effort to making things right, we won’t be able to address the challenges. Supporters can’t sit complacently after this victory, and the others can’t sit out in disillusion. Today, we’ve made the first, crucial step in the right direction. Let’s ride this momentum and make real progress towards improving the world.

I’m pretty certain that I am preaching to the choir here… I can’t imagine any of the readers of this blog who wouldn’t vote if there were legally entitled to do so. Regardless, let me put out this message to remind you the importance of this election. Go out there and vote. This is going to be one of the biggest elections of our generation. Don’t side out on the sidelines and regret not being part of it.
Even if you don’t think your vote will affect the outcome, it will still change the way whoever wins the election governs. I believe and hope that Obama wins, and the more votes he gets, the bigger the mandate he has for pushing his legislative plans. It would also be a clear signal of your dissatisfaction with Bush. If you’re a McCain-Palin supporter, go vote, even if their chances are slimmer. The last thing you want is your candidate to be routed because you thought he had no chance of winning.

And if you’re in California, vote no on Prop 8. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is a bigoted proposition.

Gosh this brings back memories, and a sobering reality of today:

While reflecting on my reading habits, I noticed that while I’ve been devouring the newsweeklies, online papers, and blogosphere lately, I realized that I haven’t read any books lately. The last book I finished a couple months back was actually a compilation of blog posts. Not to take away anything from online articles or blog posts, – you’re reading one right now – books simply cover a single topic in much greater depth. The best advice for reading is diversification, and I’m back into books now.

I picked up the God Delusion off my shelf. I found it an appropriate book after watching the move Religuous.

So far I’m halfway through the book and I find it pretty fascinating. Having a Christian upbringing, I’ve been exposed to a lifetime of pro-God arguments. While I had my own skepticisms, as any person rightfully should, devoutly religious or not, I’ve never encountered the arguments against it, from such a scientific perspective. (Don’t worry, I believe in evolution). Dawkins has done a superb job in framing the arguments against religion, as well as poke huge holes in the common arguments for it. I haven’t even finished the book yet and I would highly recommend it, especially to religious, logically-oriented people who are open minded enough for another perspective.