Day 24 Journal: Body Talking 2

I did my first physical check in a little over a week into the cleanse.

Now, 3+ weeks into it (we finish next Friday) I thought I'd do another journal log about what my crazy body has been doing during the intervening two weeks.

a) skin skin skin! My initial breakouts have cleared up and I have had a lot of people say that my skin looks *great*. I thought I'd noticed a difference, but it's great to get external independent feed back (the people who had mentioned it mostly didn't know each other, and commented at different times and places. Many didn't know I'd been doing a cleanse. Science!

However, the skin on my hands has been crazy dry. I suspect it's a combination of the cold snap we've been having the past week (-19, before windchill anyone? yuck.) and the increased amount of time my hands spend in water, both washing fruit and vegetables and washing UP from eating fruits and vegetables. Blenders, juicers and food processors take a lot of cleaning.

I've also noticed that my general skin tone has changed. This is a documented fact-here's a good article about it.carotenoids! I'm a pretty princess. The end.

b) fat loss. Not the same thing as *weight* loss, mind. About a year ago, I figured out how to make the scale tell me body fat percentage. It was disappointing- 31%. I mean, ok, I'm a woman, higher fat percentage, yada yada. Still, it didn't fit in with my self-image.  Of course, I promptly forgot how to make the scale do that, until earlier this week when Johnny showed me how. Imagine my surprise when my body fat percentage had dropped to 23.5!

Well, imagine even more of my surprise when my weight has stayed more-or-less the same this week, but my body fat has dropped another 2%. This morning I was 21.3%. Crazy. I wish I'd been tracking it since the beginning of the cleanse, but that's life. we'll see how we roll for the next week.

So, this cleanse has been good for cleaning out unwanted fat, but if you're wanting your *number* to change, you might be disappointed. I'm pretty happy to have dropped a bunch of unnecessary fat, though.

c) Muscle tone. Possibly as a result of the fat loss, likely a combination of that and the fairly steady exercise I get, my muscle tone has gotten a lot better, especially through the upper arms and torso. Good stuff. I didn't take the opportunity to work out as much as I feel I should have, over an above hiking around quite a bit and riding my bike, simply because of a lack of energy. The beginning of the month had quite a lot of broken sleep and general stress, which negatively impacted my ability to focus on weights and such.

d) digestion. I'm hungry A LOT. Good thing the vast majority of what I eat is raw fruits and veggies, or I'd be putting *on* weight! There are days I feel that I am eating all day. The difference from a few weeks ago is noticeably that things do seem to be moving *ahem* better than before. However, I feel like my lower abdomen is quite bloated a lot of the time. Stupid intestines. I'm guessing it's the dried plums and apricots. I'm going to cut them out this weekend and see how I go. It might also be the supplement powders, come to think of it. Hmmm.

e) body temperature. FREEZING. Ok, fair disclosure, I'm a little cold most of the time. Still, I noticed that we have our house thermostat 2+ degrees higher than usual, and we're wearing sweaters, slippers and such. Often under a blanket on the couch. Brrrr.

I might do this again in the summer months, which seems more appealing. Lowering my body temperature when it's 40 degrees outside isn't so bad, frankly.

f) energy levels. Up and down, frankly. Days that I remember to eat as often as I'm hungry, I'm all good. Also, taking the supplements (Green Superfood in the morning and Progressive Protein in the evening) I feel has positively contributed to my energy levels. I was certainly not getting enough protein before.

g) mental function. I've been doing crosswords, Scrabble and Sudoku to test out the ol' brainbox, and I'm finding them noticeably easier- especially the Sudoku. Interesting. I'm also feeling generally more intellectually motivated and upbeat on a day to day basis.