Week Seven Summary

Week Seven has come and gone, and I'm hanging in there!!

Except for Monday this past week, I've been on a lemon juice fast. With the exception of one day, it's was easier than I thought. I really didn't feel all that hungry most of the time. And when I did, I simply had a cup or so of the lemon juice, and that would hold me for awhile. If anything, I had trouble drinking more than four glasses a day.

I saw the naturopath this week and he was pleased with my discipline and the progress we've made so far. He was expecting more at the level of the liver (specifically, corn kernel-sized deposits in my stool, yellow, orange and/or yellow-orange in color).

When I explained to him the visceral manipulation I had done with the osteopath, he felt that this would almost certainly account for slower progress. He suggested another month of the drops and upped the Essiac from 20 ml. to 2 tablespoons, 2X daily.

Almost two months and I've not had so much as a crouton of cooked food! It has been a challenge to be sure, but hey, I've made it. The real test will be the coming two weeks -all the invitations to dinner and the goodies that come with the Christmas and New Year festivities. Time will tell.

Until then, wishing all of you a joyous, blessed Christmas Season.

The stats for this past week:

                               12/13/09              12/20/09      Change

Weight                 138.6 lbs.               134.4              -4.2 lbs.

I haven't been at this weight in decades! I feel pretty good overal, a little weak from being on the lemon juice fast, but all things considered I 'd rather be this weight than where I was two months ago before I started on this journey.

Body Fat             25.2 lbs.                  21.0               -4.2 lbs.

Last week I wrote, It seems I´ve dropped the easy part; I suspect the rest of the fat will be slower to drop off. It seems I couldn't be more wrong. 100% of this week's weight loss is body fat. Amazing!

BMI                     18.2                          15.7                -2.5

Well it seems my BMI index is dropping like a stone. I spoke with my naturopath and he said this was to be expected. Whatever part of the body, including muscle, was not healthy tissue would be flushed out as part of the first phase, the cleansing process. In the second phase, the rebuilding process, new tissue would be created as needed, and my weight would start climbing again until it found its proper level.

Body Fat             18.2%                     21.1                +2.9%

Same as above but as a percentage. (The math doesn't seem to work out. Will check this again next week.)

Water                  59.8%                      61.5               +1.7%

Given that I only drank lemon juice flavoured water all week, this much of a jump in water content is not surprising. The trick will be to up my usual intake of water over the course of the coming weeks, so that my percentage doesn't drop too much.

Bone Mass          6.4%                        6.4                  No change.

The naturopath said that some bone loss was not out of the ordinary. The body sometimes chooses the lesser of two evils. If acidity in the body was the major problem, then it might get calcium, which is alkaline, from the bones if no other source was available -even if that meant creating a substandard level of bone density.

If I continue with a healthy diet, this deficiency in bone mass will slow down and eventually rectify itself as the body becomes more alkaline and the levels of calcium start to rise from eating raw food.