This was the most challenging day of all.  I had to finish my quart of green smoothie and a quart of apple juice/vinegar water by 2:00 for the gallbladder/liver cleanse.   It involved two rounds of Epsom salts in water and a half-cup of olive oil with the juice of one lemon.  This is a common procedure to flush out gallstones before they get too big to pass and cause a great deal of pain. It wasn’t easy.

I am considering all of this ordeal a challenge.  Of course, I want to cleanse my organs pre-emptively to prevent disease first and lose weight second. But actually, there is a third reason that is just as important:  to see if I am up to the task of actually making it through a very specific and challenging 26-day task.  Can I make it…someone who has real food addictions and has often given in to a chocolate cake or a bag of Toll House Morsels?  I’m far enough along to say that:  yes!–his time, I’m going to make it!

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a rough go, especially this 24-hours.  The olive oil/lemon was a bit thick to get down, and the Epsom salts tasted like a chemical-salt combo that was far from pleasant.  The protocol told me to expect nausea in the night, and I did wake up. Everything was fine until I drank some water.  Unfortunately, that gave my stomach something to throw up, which I did.  It took me a while to get back to sleep, and the Epsom salts gave me the kind of diarrhea that you only get when you are preparing for a colonoscopy. Well, I thought to myself, at least my colon cleansing is going well!

Breakfast and Lunch- 3/4 quart of apple juice combined with water and apple cider vinegar to open up bile ducts for the voiding of gall bladder stones

Dinner- No dinner, part of the prep for the Epsom salt and olive oil/lemon juice protocol.