21 Pounds in 21 Days (21 page)

Testimonial
HILARY BEARD

Age:
44

Occupation:
writer and editor

Location:
Philadelphia

Two days before I received the first phone call about being the writer on this book project, I asked God to help me with my fibroids. I've had fibroids for twenty years. Over the previous six months my period had gotten heavier, and earlier in the year I had experienced a very heavy period that came after only two weeks. EEEK! My gynecologist suggested birth control pills or surgery, neither of which I wanted to pursue. So when James called inquiring whether I might be interested in working on this project, I knew God was sending my answer!

I was excited about detoxing my body. I've detoxed twice—I did a water fast for three days about ten years ago. It was miserable. When I'm hungry I can't sleep, so I get overly tired and feel like a kid on the verge of a temper tantrum. I've also done the Master Cleanse (the Lemonade Diet) for four days. I liked it because I didn't feel hungry. The only problem was, I didn't have a plan. Halfway through the fifth day, I ran out of maple syrup and crashed. Hard. So hard that I bought a Mrs. Smith's blueberry pie and ate it, defeating the point of the detox. I experienced by far the worst breakout of my life—I looked like a pimply teenager. I'm lucky I didn't get sick. So I welcomed the idea of being detoxed by a pro. I aspired to do the 21-day detox—but I didn't want to feel hungry and I didn't want to lose weight. I decided to work up to it in stages—doing the weekend detox first, then the 7-day. I'd conquer the 21-day program last.

I did a three-day detox at the Inn. I figured that since I had once survived on water for three days, it shouldn't be too bad. Still, I didn't want to be hungry. Dr. Roni promised I wouldn't be. I wasn't sure I believed her, but I decided to give the Detox a try. She was wrong; it took a couple of days for her and Linda Hicks, another naturopath on staff, to figure out how much nourishment I needed. Apparently I have a fast metabolism—sometimes I'd find myself feeling slight
hunger pangs as soon as fifteen minutes after being fed. Dr. Roni first eliminated digestive enzymes, which I clearly didn't need. That helped a lot but didn't solve the problem. Linda started feeding me protein shakes, which meant that I was no longer on the strict detox, though my body was clearly cleansing. Protein shakes helped a lot, but I still found myself sneaking into the kitchen in the middle of the night to make myself a shake. She started adding essential fatty acids to my shakes.

During the detox I didn't feel tired and I was never uncomfortably hungry even though we were adjusting my portions. I'm healthy and take good care of myself, so I didn't experience any memorable healing crisis or anything unusual. I just peed an awful lot. I reluctantly accepted Dr. Roni's suggestion that I not wear any deodorant so my body could cleanse through my underarms. I felt sensitive about my hygiene, but her explanation made sense so I figured I'd try it and wash up a lot.

At the end of the three days, I could tell that my system was cleaner than usual. I had lost a few pounds, which I wasn't happy about. I had urinated so much I figured it was probably water weight. But it wasn't like I had slowed my pace, as a normal retreater might, so what did I expect? After completing three days I returned home, thinking everything was normal. I was wrong. Over twenty people told me how great I looked! People I knew and people I didn't know commented on the appearance of my skin. Something had changed that was obvious to everyone. What a pleasant surprise!

I carried the momentum from the detox into the next month's lifestyle habits at home. I figured that I'd prepare fresh vegetable juice on as many days as I could as a nutritional supplement to my regular meals. I was so enthused that I juiced on twenty-seven out of thirty days. Over that month, even
I
had to admit that my skin looked amazing! After about two and a half weeks of daily juicing, I started waking up at 4:30
A.M
., unable to get back to sleep. I wracked my brain trying to figure out the reason for my sudden insomnia. Then it dawned on me that I wasn't tired. Dr. Roni had told me the detox would give me more energy. I had assumed she'd meant I'd feel perky and peppy. That hadn't happened. For me, more energy meant more waking
hours. By the end of that month, I had picked up two additional hours of awake time in the morning and three or more hours of alert time in the evening because I stopped snoozing in front of the TV and was wide awake until midnight. All this from improving my nutrition? I couldn't believe it! I remembered that when I was in my twenties, I had had enough energy to work all day, then eat and run my errands, then go to the gym at 10:00 at night. That's how I felt after my detox. I hadn't had this much energy for twenty years. I couldn't believe how, as healthy as I thought I was, my quality of life had declined in such small increments that I hadn't noticed it!

Next, I tried the 7-day Detox, also at the Inn, where Roni and I were working on this book. I was confident that I could complete the 7 days, but the specter of the 21-day lurked in the back of my mind. I really wanted to do it, but couldn't imagine myself succeeding. I stopped talking about it with friends and family because I didn't want to speak myself into failing. First things first, I thought. Just do the 7 days.

Two days into my 7-day Detox, Linda cracked the code on how to keep me from feeling hungry. Over the week she supplemented my protein shakes with ingredients ranging from a dollop of plain yogurt to sesame tahini to coconut milk to avocado. She also added ghee to my dinner cleansing soups. Ghee is clarified butter from which the water and milk fat have been removed. It is frequently used in Indian and South Asian cooking. I felt much better. The nourishment I was receiving finally “stuck to my ribs.” At this point I was way off the program, but I didn't care. I was doing something much better for myself than I had ever done in my life. What did it matter if I wasn't following the rules to the letter?

On Days 1 and 2, I felt great and I began to see the pores in my face cleaning themselves out again. I decided to follow Roni's suggestion and not wear any deodorant. On Day 3 I coughed up a lot of mucus—so much that it disrupted my sleep. I kept feeling like I was going to choke on all the mucus that was draining into my throat. I also noticed my ears itching. Where did all that wax come from? I developed matching zits on both sides of my neck, followed by matching zits on each side of my forehead. All over my body my skin started to shine and glow. The skin on my lower legs was no longer dry. My heels,
which are usually a little bit on the dry side, were hydrated and as soft as my hands. Could the dry skin I had suffered from since childhood merely be a nutritional imbalance? Apparently so.

On Days 4 and 5, I found myself feeling sad—not sad enough to cry; however, something I couldn't put my finger on was definitely bubbling up. On the night of Day 5, I started crying—I'm still not sure what about. I cried for maybe an hour, but then it was over and I felt fine. Day 6 went wonderfully. I knew I'd be driving home the next day and wanted to continue the detox for another couple of days—I hadn't thought about how many. Since I'd be traveling for eight hours, Linda helped me figure out how to get through the day. We made a protein shake the night before, poured it into a water bottle, and put it in the freezer. I would sip on it as it defrosted during the drive. We put a bunch of celery, carrots, and radishes in a baggie. Roni made some kind of cucumber/soy/ginger dressing that I poured over them. I nibbled on them on the ride home. I stopped at McDonald's along the way and picked up an Asian salad—hold the chicken. More cheating, but given my fast metabolism I needed it.

As soon as I got home, I headed straight for the grocery store to stock up on organic vegetables so I could detox for a few more days. By this point I knew that if I didn't have my supplies, I was in danger of crashing and coming off the detox the wrong way. After working with Dr. Roni, I understood the importance of breaking the detox correctly. That night I decided to use my Crock-Pot for more than decoration. For the first time in five years I threw a bunch of vegetables into it—kale, collards, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, red pepper, green pepper. Even though kale and collards didn't fit the menu, I figured I'd make an Italian-flavored cleansing soup. I seasoned it with oregano, rosemary, basil, and pepper and cooked it overnight. That was easy enough. It tasted great. I had survived Days 8 and 9.

But on the evening of Day 9, I ran into a crisis. It was 9:00
P.M
., I was hungry, out of cleansing soups, and there were hardly any vegetables left in my fridge. I had purchased more veggies than I'd ever eaten before. Where had an entire refrigerator full of vegetables gone in two days, I wondered? The answer—I had consumed them—gave me a reality check on how many veggies you run through when you're making pureed cleansing soups. A Crock-Pot crammed with vegeta
bles might reduce down to a quart of pureed cleansing soups—plus, I was juicing, which consumes a lot of vegetables. I realized I'd have to go shopping daily—or at least every other day. That night I “cheated” and ate a salad for dinner. I went shopping first thing on Day 10. I bought vegetables along with some grains and fruit so I could begin to go off my detox beginning the next day. But when the next day came, I didn't want to go off the detox. I figured I'd try to make it to the 14-day mark. On another day I went too long between “feedings.” I could feel myself crashing. I cheated again by eating a vegetarian platter from a Middle Eastern restaurant. When I got to 14 days, I didn't want to go off. Even though I wasn't doing the hardcore detox because I didn't want to lose weight, I had almost made it to 21 days. I had boatloads of energy; I might as well keep going! My skin looked amazing; my fingernails had gotten very hard—so strong that they didn't break or chip when I traveled with luggage (traveling is often hard on my nails). And they were growing so fast I had to trim them twice a week.

At that point I figured I'd better get a colonic. I had known that detoxers were supposed to get one colonic a week. I had gotten one colonic and one coffee enema during that first week with Dr. Roni. When I tried to make an appointment with the woman who had been giving me colonics for over ten years, I couldn't get in until the equivalent of Day 25. That meant I had to consider giving myself an enema. EEW! I hate to sound like a snob, but in this area I am: I'd rather pay someone to deal with my anus and feces than save the money and do it myself. That is, until I started getting really grumpy on Day 16. By Day 17, I had turned into the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and the Wicked Witch of the West combined. I could barely keep myself from snapping at everyone and saying every negative thing that came to mind. Over the course of two days, funky, nasty, mean thoughts that were completely unlike me bubbled up from God knows where. I was in such a bad mood, I knew to stay to myself before I said something mean that I'd later regret. I knew I was paying the price for not flushing the toxins out fast enough. I would have to give myself an enema or continue to be trapped in this cesspool of poisons and mean and nasty thoughts. On Day 19, I gave myself an enema, which was nowhere near as bad as I'd made it out to be. In fact, it wasn't uncomfortable at all. Immediately after doing the enema, I felt so much better. Until
the caffeine really kicked in. It turns out that I'm caffeine sensitive. I stayed high on caffeine for 18 hours—I felt better but I was a mess! I ended my detox on Day 21, broke the detox correctly—which I found surprisingly easy; I thought I'd be ravished—then transitioned into maintenance eating, which was better than I've eaten in my entire life. I kept that up for four months, backslid somewhat, and am now getting back on the bandwagon. On what would have been the equivalent of Day 25 I got a colonic, and my hydrotherapist was stunned to see large, black, marble-sized balls of toxins come out of my body. We hadn't seen anything like that before and we haven't seen it since. After getting those toxins out of me, I felt better immediately.

A few days after the detox ended, I gave myself a pedicure. To my surprise, I noticed that there were far fewer spider veins on my ankle. I'd had spider veins as a teenager. I'd attributed them, in part, to spraining my ankles many times playing sports. Now, I realize that they reflected something unhealthy happening in my circulatory system—and that some of what was wrong had healed! I was also shocked to discover that I stopped needing deodorant—even in the 95-degree heat. (To be safe, I purchased a natural deodorant that didn't work on me before detoxing, but now works fine in all kinds of weather.) My internal thermostat changed as well. About a month after the detox, I traveled to New York on a sweltering, 100-plus-degree day. As I walked through the streets, I realized that I was hot but not wilting as everyone else was. I walked comfortably at my normal pace. I am no longer as hot on very hot days or as cold on cold days. My body seems not to be anywhere near as affected by the external temperature as it used to be—it's as though it regulates its thermostat better. My hair is growing incredibly quickly. And as for my fibroids? They seem smaller and something's definitely shifting about them. I no longer bloat before my period and the volume of my period has decreased by one-third. I intend to do the 7-day Detox yet again this year—who knows, I may keep going and make it to 21 days again!