Oct 15 - That One Time I Thought I Wouldn’t Wake Up In The Morning…
By I’m not a health freak, in fact I don’t think I’m unhealthy but I’m probably the furthest away from being a health freak without being unhealthy; if that makes sense. But in March of 2013 I was unemployed, leading a mostly sedentary lifestyle, apart from my daily walk down town for a morning coffee, and feeling pretty gross all round. So when a friend mentioned this three day grape detox I thought to myself, “this is something to do and it might make me feel a little better”. I Googled it and read a bunch of articles about it that convinced me it was the right thing to do.
It must have been a Thursday and, being the food obsessive I am, I decided I’d sleep on it, which really meant I wasn’t prepared to give up on my Friday night and some nice meals over the weekend. And because I’d need a day to mentally prepare myself and buy grapes I set my sights on Tuesday, which would mean that by Thursday I would be finishing the detox feeling like a total champ. Of course the whole thing was so important to me that on Monday I completely forgot about it and didn’t buy grapes leaving me with only enough for my breakfast the next day. But it was okay, that evening I wrote in my blog: “I’m really excited to do it and it’s just three days so it’s not too crazy. I love food but my determination to go through with this will get me through it no doubt.”
It was ON.
DAY ONE
The three day grape detox consisted of eating grapes, and only grapes, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, to be accompanied with water and with the possibility of expanding to green tea. I had already been waking up early for months to go for a stroll into town and make sure I at least did something with my day, so waking up early on the Tuesday was no big deal. In fact, eating something for breakfast, the first bunch of grapes, was a welcome change from the usual coffee on an empty stomach. I had decided to put everything off for the three days (not like I had much to do anyway) except for my morning outing because I didn’t know how I’d be feeling and nobody wants to hang around with the guy with the loudly growling belly.
By the end of the day I was feeling all kinds of weird. I had started my day feeling rather positive but by lunchtime the – absolutely ridiculous – price of grapes in Morrisons had me somewhere between wrecking the fruit and veg aisle and drying my tears with the paper mushroom bags. And by the evening the thought of having to eat grapes again was making me angry. I was in bed by about half ten, exhausted.
DAY TWO
I never used to set an alarm, I’d either get someone to wake me up or hope that I’d wake up naturally, which I would usually do at around half past nine or ten. Wednesday morning I woke up before nine with more energy than all the mornings of this past year combined. I hadn’t slept so well in a long time and not even the rain outside could get me down. So I got out of bed, had a tea and my breakfast and sat down to watch some television. I had read that the second day is the worst of the three, why? I don’t know, but I guess it’s because you’re hungry the whole time. So staying in all day was definitely not what I wanted to do, especially when the fridge sings such a sweet tune. I ended up hibernating in my room so I didn’t have to watch anybody eat real food and wasted the day watching television and browsing the web. Whereas right now I can’t think of a better way to spend the day rather than being sat at a desk, at the time I would’ve killed to have something to do. But it wasn’t so bad after all, by the time I sat down in the living room to watch Newswatch I was tired enough to go to bed.
DAY THREE
Now this is the worst day. Do you know how people always say in the west we’re never really hungry and how “hunger is what the poor children in Africa, with no food, feel”. Well, by Thursday lunch time I must have become a poor child in Africa. I had reluctantly eaten my breakfast bunch and had made the mistake of sitting at the dining table with my parents at lunch time. What kept me going was knowing that I’d be able to have the best breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day and celebrate that evening with a few drinks (possibly reversing all the good I’d done in the three days). Despite the not so much lack of energy but lack of desire to do anything I kept busy to try and keep my mind off the whole thing. Do you realise how difficult this is for somebody who thinks about food ALL THE TIME?
I was determined to make it through. If there’s one thing the detox taught me was that I had more willpower to do things than I thought. And I made it through the whole day until the moment I got into bed, earlier than ever to try and make the nightmare shorter. I was in pain, I had just eaten a lot of grapes for dinner and my stomach was making the rumblies that only real food would satisfy. I was cold, I couldn’t concentrate on the TV show I was watching before bed and I was convinced I wasn’t going to make it through the night. It would be the most ridiculous ‘cause of death’ ever recorded in Gibraltar, even worse than that tombstone that reads, “por un peo, aqui me veo”.
So imagine how happy I was when I had (maybe miraculously) made it through the night and still managed to have enough energy to get out of bed, jump in the shower and walk into town for a well-deserved breakfast: the coffee I had been dreaming of all of the previous evening.
But I made it through. I might’ve lost about three or four kilos in the process, spent more time in the bathroom than ever (from all the tea and water I used to keep my belly full) and spent a lot of money on grapes but I made it through. The regular sleeping pattern, the energy in the morning and knowing I could plan to do something and stick by it were all great but I’m not sure it was a very good idea. During the three days I was constantly thinking of all the things I could be eating, things I don’t even eat regularly or would be eating, but that wasn’t the worst thing; the killer was not being able to experience textures outside of the liquid of the water and tea and the squishy grapes.
The whole thing was pretty ridiculous and intense and whilst I’d never do it again (unless there was a larger variety of things I could consume) it not only made me realise, like I said, that I have the willpower to do things I set my mind to but also that Morrisons stock really bad grapes for their prices.
Check out some of Stefano’s projects at:
https://twitter.com/stefanoblanca
http://instagram.com/stefanoblanca
{fcomment
