Still Here

Yesterday was quite a roller coaster! If you missed that post, I'm doing a 4-day Aryuvedic cleanse. Check out that post if you'd like the details.

After a slow and sluggish start, midday was wonderful. The sun was shining and I went outside with a book to soak up the rays. Sitting outside gave me energy and I decided to hand-water the garden, meaning, I watered using the watering can. It's a decent workout and, I thought, definitely qualified as a replacement for the Yoga practice I was just too tired to do earlier. As I watered my tiny vegetable patch I saw that I had quite a bumper crop of grape tomatoes and was rather sad that they were ripe on a day I couldn't eat them - usually, there's so few each day that there's only enough for me to scarf down as I water. 

"What the heck?" I thought. "One tomato can't ruin the whole cleanse." So I ate one. It was magnificent! The best tomato I ever ate in my life. I knew better than to eat another - you can't top or even repeat perfection. And I knew, since it tasted so much better than all the other grape tomatoes I've eaten off that plant this summer, that my appreciating its taste was enhanced by my mono-diet of kicharee. However, I'll long remember that burst of flavor - and also the lesson that it's better to limit a treat and pay attention when having it and really enjoy it than to overeat or mindlessly eat and miss the experience.

Ironically, later in the day, we had a long downpour, so aside from the benefits to me, my watering was wasted effort. And along with the rain, dark clouds engulfed me as well. I didn't eat enough during the day and found myself hungry by evening. I was out of kicharee and too tired to cook a new batch.  Reading over the directions for the cleanse I saw that I'm allowed four meals a day - I'd thought it was only three. Frankly, I'm not sure I can stomach the idea of kicharee four times a day so I'll probably try eating more at each meal today instead and see how that goes.

I had more energy yesterday. Ironically though, I got less done. This was probably due to my time outside and this is fine. The best way to do a cleanse is to focus on yourself. I also think that being outside, in the sun and nature, is always healing and definitely relaxing so it was a doubly good thing to do.

I am now cooking another batch of kicharee. I've doubled the herbs this time and hope that makes it more palatable. I also hope that this will be the last batch I'll need to cook. I'm looking forward to some "real" food on Sunday. 

Tomorrow, we're off to see Harry run at Bard College. That will be a challenge! I would have liked to go into Rhinebeck for a lovely lunch after his race, but because of the cleanse, we'll be heading back home. Today, I'm baking a batch of "Brownies for the Brave" (http://madlyhealthy.blogspot.com/2010/08/brownies-for-brave.html) for him - I'm sure they'll be quite tempting, even without sugar!