12

Day 5: Listen

Before the 10-Day Detox program, I had convinced myself that I would never again see the confident, relaxed, positive person who used to live inside my body. Over the last twenty years, food had become my enemy rather than my friend. I didn’t even realize the connection between food and my emotions because I believed I was following the principles of a healthy diet… i.e., the food pyramid. In hindsight, I can see that the foods I had been eating left me depressed, irritable, and by midday, lethargic. My attitude went along for the ride, causing me to respond to those around me in a manner of frustration and impatience. After twenty years of trying to “eat right,” I had gained sixty pounds and no longer even liked myself. I felt trapped, unlovable, and so very ashamed, stuck somewhere in what I thought was the land of no return.

After the 10-Day Detox, my emotions are miraculously changing. I feel more confident, less anxious, more enthusiastic and energetic. Losing those toxins cleared my thinking. I am now feeling I can find long-term health, recover from those years of being lost in the gloom, and move forward with a positive attitude and resolve. I have lost nine pounds and continue to work toward a healthier lifestyle. I will never go back to my old way of eating. Detoxing my body and mind has recovered the hope that the person I was created to be still resides within my body, and I really like her.

—WENDY FREEMAN

Morning:

Take your measurements and record your results in your Detox Journal or online tracking tool. Also record how many hours of sleep you got the night before and the quality of that sleep.

Begin the day with thirty minutes of brisk walking or other exercise.

Just before breakfast, take 2.5 to 5 grams of PGX fiber: 3 to 6 capsules or ½ to 1 scoop of the powder in 10 ounces of water.

Take the rest of your supplements with breakfast.

Make your Breakfast Detox Shake (see menu plan below).

Optional: Enjoy a midmorning snack (see menu plan below).

Afternoon:

Just before lunch, take 2.5 to 5 grams of PGX fiber with water.

Eat lunch (see menu plan below).

Optional: Enjoy a midafternoon snack (see menu plan below).

Evening:

Just before dinner, take 2.5 to 5 grams of PGX fiber with a glass of water.

Take the rest of your supplements with dinner.

Eat dinner (see menu plan below).

Spend fifteen minutes recording your experience and answering the Day 5 Journal Questions listed here. Write down everything you ate and did today, how you feel, any improvements or changes in your energy and focus, and how these changes make you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Practice the Take-Five Breathing Break for 5 minutes.

Take your twenty-to-thirty-minute UltraDetox Bath .

Get seven to eight hours of sleep.

Today’s Meals (see Chapter 21 for recipes):

Breakfast: Detox Shake

Midmorning Snack (optional): 10 to 12 nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts)

Lunch:

Core Plan: Soup with protein or Dr. Hyman’s Super Salad Bar with protein

Adventure Plan: Vegetable Rolls with Shredded Chicken and Nut Cream

Midafternoon Snack (optional): Dip or spread of your choice with fresh vegetables

Dinner:

Core Plan: Herb-Crusted Chicken Breasts with Roasted Garlic

Adventure Plan: Roast Fish Casserole with Fennel and Leeks

Today’s Focus: Listen

Today is a day for tuning in to what’s going on in your heart and mind. A few days into a detox, things begin to shift at deeper levels, and it’s not uncommon to feel waves of emotions that can catch you off guard. Right around Day 5, we see many 10-Day Detoxers experience profound shifts and gain a greater sense of clarity about their lives, relationships, work, and more.

You might never have done anything like this before—given yourself four days without sugar, processed food, caffeine. As your body heals, certain feelings, sensations, thoughts, and issues that you tended to manage with food may now be exposed. Before this detox, you were pumping up your mood with drugs like alcohol, sugar, and caffeine that kept you artificially stimulated or distracted and didn’t allow you to experience what you were really feeling. In fact, you were likely deliberately consuming some of these drugs so that you didn’t have to feel.

Now, instead of eating your feelings, you’re feeling your feelings. You’re no longer under the influence of drugs that make you numb; you’re becoming connected to what’s really happening in your life—the good and the bad. And it’s important to pay attention. While that can sometimes be painful, it can also be hugely cathartic and life-transforming. It’s an opportunity to detox your life and emotions at the very deepest level—to fix the root issues, not just the symptoms. This practice of tuning in to and healing issues in your emotional life has tremendous value for your health. How we feel plays a major role in how we care for ourselves on a physical level, and now is your chance to clean house and set the stage for long-term success.

Maybe you tune in and discover you’re sad, or lonely, or afraid. It’s useful to pay attention to emotions you may have been stuffing down for years; they can be a wake-up call for changes you need to make in your life. This may seem shocking, but one in four people, for example, have been sexually abused. And many stuff themselves with food so that they don’t have to face the feelings associated with that abuse. I have seen this with many of my patients; when we take away the diversion of food, we open up an opportunity for deeper healing by dealing with the root feelings. It is often best to deal with these feelings with the support of a trained therapist or coach who can help sort through this or similar issues.

One patient, Sarah, was in an abusive relationship with her mother and continued to live with her as a fully grown adult. Her mother berated, belittled, and shamed her nearly every day. Sarah had a highly successful career but couldn’t get her weight under control. Instead of confronting her mother, she would stuff her feelings down with food and sugar, and she eventually developed type 2 diabetes. The cure for her diabetes, I suggested, might not be diet or exercise, but moving out! Sarah needed to have a real and honest conversation with her mother about the healthier relationship she wanted to build.

When you examine your feelings, you may find that you’re feeling guilty for not having taken care of yourself. This is a fairly common emotion that surfaces for people when they wake up to what they have been doing to their bodies. These feelings can be useful because they enable you to see how you may have sabotaged yourself in the past. Even better, they are a sign that you are ready to make better choices. Use these lessons to create a road map of what not to do going forward. Just make sure you don’t wallow in the feelings of guilt or regret, as they can become just as much of a diversion as the food was. Simply note the feelings and lessons you can learn from them, and move on.

You might also experience positive feelings, and those are equally important to notice. Perhaps you’re feeling more awake, alert, and energized. Maybe you’re finally free of brain fog, your joints don’t hurt as much, or you’re just happy that your clothes are fitting better. One 10-Day Detoxer remarked that she spent the day running around after her small child, feeling annoyed that her pants were falling down. Until she realized, “Wait a minute, my pants are falling down… they haven’t done that in YEARS!” Acknowledging and celebrating a positive result helps you build motivation and confidence to take on bigger things in your life, so don’t pass up the opportunity to acknowledge a job well done.

It’s important to stop, pay attention, and tune in to what’s happening internally without trying to fix it, control it, or even become attached to it. One of the most powerful skills we can learn is to simply notice and observe our thoughts and feelings without glomming on to them. Feelings change. They shift, often without our having to do anything at all to shift them.

When I was in college, I studied meditation with a Zen master. It was the most basic practice of just sitting, watching my breath, and noticing my thoughts come and go like ripples on the surface of the ocean. It was a powerful experience for me, this simple act of becoming aware that there was something deeper and more essential that made me who I was than my wandering thoughts. By slowing down, breathing, and gently watching the arising and passing of thoughts both pleasant and silly, I began to realize that I wasn’t my thoughts or perceptions—there was “me,” and then there were “my thoughts,” and they were not one and the same. This allowed me to relax more in my life and not hold on to the past or worry so much about the future.

This is an important day to take out your journal and explore your emotions, both good and bad. Write about the challenges, but also celebrate the successes. Take a little extra time today to listen to that inner voice and explore that interior world that has been unconsciously controlling your behavior, and write what you discover. Today is a chance to listen deeply without judgment. This simple practice of awareness writing is something you want to cultivate as you move forward. You have awakened to what’s really happening in your body and in your life—you’ve come too far to bury it all again under food fog.

Today, remember to reach out to others who are following the program; you’re not alone in this. This is where your community can really help.

Strategies for Tuning In

Do a basic meditation practice. This is one of the most powerful things you can do to tap into your deeper spiritual and emotional life (as well as calm your mind, which we’ll cover in Day 7). There are many paths of meditation you can try, but here is my favorite basic one, which anyone can do:

1. Sit quietly in a comfortable place. Get yourself into a comfortable seated position, perhaps with your legs crossed and your hands resting gently in your lap, or upright in a chair if that’s better for you. You want to be able to sit without fidgeting for ten minutes.
2. Set a timer for ten minutes. As your practice deepens, try to increase the time by five minutes each day until you reach thirty minutes.
3. Close your eyes and begin with a few deep, cleansing breaths.
4. Turn your attention inward. Watch your breath as it passes in and out through your nose. Your breath is the steady constant to return to again and again. Don’t try to think or not think. If thoughts or feelings surface—which they will—let them. Whatever comes up for you, it’s okay. Don’t judge or try to shape it. You can live a lifetime in ten minutes, swinging from pleasant, peaceful thoughts and feelings to sad or angry ones. Just let the thoughts and feelings come and go, observing and gently releasing each one as it arises (you can imagine them floating away on a cloud, or vaporizing in the air like a wisp of smoke) and coming back to your breath. You don’t need to do anything but listen, notice, breathe, and release.
5. When the timer goes off, gently and slowly open your eyes. Spend a few minutes writing in your Detox Journal what arose for you in your meditation practice: what you experienced, how it felt, what insights or shifts you may have had.

Over time you will get calmer and clearer, and this practice will change your brain and how you respond to your own thoughts and feelings. For more information about meditation, go to www.10daydetox.com/resources. My CD UltraCalm provides a set of simple guided relaxation, meditation, and imagery experiences that can be very helpful.

Tune in to your body. Now is a time to pay deep attention to how you feel on a physical level without the sugar and other substances you may have been using to manage your feelings and energy. What is happening to your body? How do you feel from the changes in diet? How are your chronic symptoms? How are you sleeping? How is your energy? Slowing down is key now, so you can really tune in to what your body is telling you. Are the cravings gone or subsiding (by now, they will be for most)? What does that tell you about what you believed to be true for yourself?

Let yourself be. Being kind to yourself is key to healing. You don’t need to fix anything right now; this is the time to simply notice how you feel. Just listen to what your body and mind are saying and write it all down. The paradox is that the more you accept how things are, the more room there is for them to shift and change. You’re opening up to a new awareness of and insight into yourself; trust that you’ll continue to make positive changes that will nurture you.

Extend your journal time tonight as much as possible and write the answers to the questions below. Recording everything that unfolds for you when it is fresh in your mind is key; while you may think you will remember the powerful epiphanies you have during this awareness meditation, they often fade when we return to the busy-ness of daily life. Write everything down so you capture it fully. Then, in the days and weeks to come, you can go back and reread what you wrote and begin to make whatever changes in your life are appropriate to reflect those inner shifts. The simple act of writing is powerful and healing. Science has shown that twenty minutes of authentic, honest recording of your feelings, thoughts, and emotions can create profound health benefits, including weight loss.

Day 5 Journal Questions

How am I feeling physically?

What changes do I notice in my body?

Have any challenging emotions surfaced for me today? Am I sad, angry, lonely, depressed, frustrated?

Do I have any insight into the source of those challenging emotions?

How have I been using food to avoid dealing with feelings in the past? (To soothe stress, to numb myself, as a reward, etc.)

How can I handle difficult feelings in a more constructive way when they come up in the future? (For example, exercising, journaling, doing a favorite activity, talking to a friend or a professional counselor, checking in with the 10-Day Detox Diet online community, or just being with people you love can quickly stop a negative emotional spiral in its tracks and elevate your mood. To soothe yourself, reach for what brings you joy rather than for the food.)

What is one way I could practice that right now?

Do I need extra help or support to work through these old patterns and beliefs and unconscious behaviors?

What positive emotions have surfaced for me today? Am I feeling excited, proud, joyful?

What insight do I have into the source of these emotions? Are they connected to the changes in my body? To my detox experience? How are they affecting my state of mind?

What strategies do I plan to use to stay connected to the positive emotions I am feeling today? (Hint: Rereading your journal entry to remind yourself of the breakthroughs you had in your awareness meditation today is a powerful tool for grounding yourself in the positive!)