Joel Thornton

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Got some good exercise in today. Rode my bike a few miles to Fremont Sound Mind & Body Gym, and took the 'Pilates' class they have there for the first time ever. Interesting stuff - Pilates is basically a way of exercising which is designed to be compatible with the body's ideal posture, while exerting little force on the joints. Not only are my abs consequently sore, but I had a couple dozen joints and vertebrae crack which have never cracked before! :)

Then took a sauna and biked home. I'm really liking the sauna -- just sitting in there for 20 minutes makes me feel like I've just finished a vigorous workout, even though I never even got breathing heavily.

On the other hand, food cravings are pestering me periodically. I keep having desires to eat something starchy (breads) or crappy, which is annoying. They haven't been too bad though; I've been able to resist so far, and they were stronger yesterday than today, so I'm hoping that trend continues. I have decided that if I do feel overwhelmed with the cravings I'll probably permit myself to eat some cooked stuff; fortunately I don't think this will probably have to happen. I am thinking the cravings are primarily mental, not physical in nature, so it's really just a matter of proper focus, I think.

Have yet to poo out any mucoid plaque, but it feels like there's something in there that wants to come out. May try taking an enema tonight or tomorrow morning to accelerate that process. I also haven't been sticking to the plan as well as I could be -- I seem to be missing 2 shakes and 1 set of pills each of the past 4 days, primarily due to timing inconveniences. Tomorrow, I intend to adhere to the schedule religiously, and I have the feeling that doing so will really get things moving in there. Sticking to the schedule for several days will probably get the momentum and rhythm of the cleanse solidified for me.

Day 2: later that day, went to Donny & Erin's, had a tasty salad, smoothie, walking, sauna, hot tub, pool .. nice :) No signs of mucoid plaque as of yet.

Day 3 (yesterday): feeling fine, until I decided to take a nap in the middle of the day instead of going for a walk (which my body was urging me to do) .. woke up badly cramped up with intestinal pain. Tried an enema, a few bits of baked potato -- no help. Finally went for a little walk -- cured within minutes! Note to self: EXERCISE IS ESSENTIAL.

Day 4 (today): nothing much to speak of yet. Starting to get the impression that my mind is going to get VERY clear ... if my usual mind is like walking through a light morning fog, the glimpses of clarity I've been experiencing are like sprinting joyously through a beautiful summer day. The slowness and cloudiness I'm used to having as my normal mind-state seem to evaporating away gradually.

I'm also getting the impression that continued exercise will speed this process up, not only flexing my muscle tension out, but also working out the toxic crap that is sort of hanging idly about in my bloodstream at the moment. Still smoking cigarettes .. but my tolerance/ability/desire to do this has been going directly down the tubes. I suspect by tomorrow, I won't be able to even handle smoking a cigarette, even if I want to. Which is a Good Thing.

Well, I feel like the cleanse is now getting underway ... I feel like I've purged about 80% of the normal food in my digestive tract between yesterday and today (so far), we'll see what comes next. heh.

I had some pretty bizarre dreams last night, like one where I basically dreamed the first 15-20 minutes of a weird scifi/head-trip movie starring Keanu Reeves ... pretty interesting movie :D

For those interested, hear is a summary of the cleanse and benefits of a vegan, raw-foods diet, as I currently understand it. Comments welcome.

The Clean Me Out program is an intestinal cleanse program which, by the end of the ~30 day cleanse, you are supposed to have pooped out 20-30 FEET of hard "mucoid plaque" or more. Mucoid plaque is basically this hard goo that builds up on the walls of your digestive tract over the years, because we are constantly eating cooked foods (particularly meat, dairy and cooked starches), our body produces this mucus just to protect itself from harm, and perhaps also to slow the rate of metabolism of starches (which contain complex carbohydrate chains that must be broken down into simple sugars before being usable).

Normally this is all a healthy function of the body. But when you eat this kind of stuff your whole life, all the time, and without much fiber in there, the body never gets a sufficient opportunity to get this mucus material out -- it is too busy dealing with the new incoming foods to get around to it. So, gradually over the years, this mucus starts forming a thick layer on the walls of the intestines. Eventually this is when you start seeing people with problems like diverticulitis -- mucoid plaque "pockets" form and then something like a peanut will get trapped in there, and hurts like a mo fro.

Additionally, eating a diet high in cooked starches (especially refined flour), refined sugar, fried foods, meat and dairy is evidentially a foundational cause for many of the other degenerative diseases that plague our Western civilization -- including cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, heart attacks, and many others. I won't go into the full discussion of the reasoning behind this assertion just now, if you are interested comment and I may post more details.

So, the idea on the Clean Me Out program -- first of all -- is to restrict the diet exclusively to fresh, raw, and organically grown fruits, vegetables and seeds primarily.

The human blood is naturally alkaline; I think the ideal pH for the human blood lies somewhere around 7.3-7.8. Well, certain kinds of foods, when metabolized (burned) in the digestive process, produce an alkaline "ash", that is, what is left after metabolization is alkaline in its chemical content. This includes primarily the raw fruits and vegetables, plus some seeds, nuts and beans.

Other foods - meat, dairy, and virtually all cooked food - produce an acid "ash" after metabolization. (True carnivores have an acidic blood pH, so meat is biologically suited for them; their digestive juices are also typically 20x more acidic than humans', making meat-eating much more feasible for them.)

Consequently, eating alkaline-ash foods means a lot less work for your body, because the result of the digestive process is close to the body's natural pH. When eating acid-ash foods, the body actually has to use its resources -- mainly organic minerals like calcium and and phosphorous -- to "buffer" or counter-act the acidic condition in the digestive tract, in order to bring things into line with what is healthy (sustains life) for the human biology. It also happens that when there is an acidic condition in the digestion, that is when the body produces mucus -- to protect itself from becoming too acidic.

As a result of all this, eating raw fruits and veggies means the body doesn't have to work so hard to convert the incoming food to energy; the food is supportive of the way the human biology naturally functions.

And on the flipside, eating cooked foods, dairy and meat, all require the body to do considerable extra work to metabolize those foods -- rather than being supportive of the human biology, these foods actually work against the body's natural biological functioning.

The human body, being a truly amazing machine, is able to make do with this kind of diet for a very long time. But eventually, things start running down. Nutrients have a hard time passing through the thick mucoid plaque layer in the digestive tract. Vital internal stores of organic minerals gradually become depleted, and calcium even starts being pulled out of the bone structure to make up for the deficiency. Eventually, problems such as cancer, heart disease, a weakened immune system, digestive problems all begin to manifest -- because the diet is not supportive of the natural functioning of the human body, and the body just can't do 100% of the work it must do to remain fully healthy.

So, the idea behind the cleanse is to (1) eat raw foods exclusively, and (2) take some fiber shakes and herbs which facilitate loosening and 'sweeping out' the hardened layer of mucoid plaque. The shakes consist of water, bentonite clay (acts as a gelling agent for the mucoid plaque), and psyllium fiber (a digestive fiber which acts as a "broom" to push the plaque out the hiney). The herbs come in capsules and are a combination of many different herbs which loosen the mucoid plaque so that the shakes can push it out.

The shakes and herbs are taken in alternation, every 1.5 hours through the day, along with somewhere between 2 all-raw, alkaline-ash meals (at the beginning of the cleanse) to no food whatsoever (during the final week) replacing the scheduled shake periodically. All this is supposed to make 20-30 feet or more of mucoid plaque exit the human body by the end of the cleanse.

When this mucoid plaque comes out, it actually looks like it is shaped like the part of the digestive tract from which it came -- with all the weird ridges and pockets that exist in the shape of the intestine. I have read that when someone passes a piece of this stuff, it almost feels like a part of the digestive tract itself has detatched and come out -- because we're so completely accustomed to that part of our intestines having that stuff glued on and in an inflexible position.

Purported benefits of this cleanse: greatly increased digestive powers; improved functioning of all the bodily organs; profoundly improved sense of overall well-being; improved acuity of all 5 senses; seemingly boundless energy; much calmer, clearer-thinking mind; and of course, freedom from disease and chronic physical pain of all sorts. By Day 30, I expect I'll be able to either affirm or deny these assertions.

I think the human body is a truly amazing machine, with a remarkable ability to heal itself. Like a car, we just have to give it the proper fuel and maintenance if we want it to perform its best for a long time. Failing to change your car's oil for 100,000 miles will eventually show degradation in the car's functioning -- but changing it every 1,000 miles is said to make the engine last a very long time indeed. Now imagine if you could feed your car a constant supply of fresh oil, along with the best possible fuel, at all times! That is what I think this cleanse and a raw-food diet is like for the human machine.

I've decided to document my progress on the Clean Me Out intestinal cleanse program here. Today is Day 1, and Day 30 will probably be the last day (though I'll just be playing that by ear). If you care to you can watch my progress here, and see if the cleanse turns out to be everything it is purported to be.

I'll probably post a summary of exactly what this cleanse is about soon, for those interested.