Day 10: My First Salt Water Flush (a little graphic)

Yesterday morning, I scrubbed out the tub and filled it up with some nice espsom-salty hot water with a few drops of lavender.  Soaking in the salt bath must have jolted my system into detox mode or something.  I felt like crap for most of the day.  Headache, sore neck, fatigue and just feeling...blah.  My gut didn't feel right, either.  By 5:30 pm, I was exhausted and went to bed.  I woke up at about 3:20 am, still not feeling right.  I knew it was time.  Time for the salt water flush.

This is probably the least glamorous part of juice fasting.  Even though you're putting very little solid food in there, there is some waste, and of course your intestines are still doing their job dumping the body's metabolic waste at the curb.  Typically this crap gets ushered out with regular bowel movements, but since I haven't had one in, oh, about a week, it's still in there gumming up the works.  So, with some trepidation, I filled a large cup with about half a litre of water, nuked it for 30 seconds to get it lukewarm, and dissolved a little over half a tablespoon of sea salt in it.  It took me about 5 minutes to get it down.  Just keep telling yourself it tastes like chicken soup without the chicken flavour.

Then it was just a waiting game.  It was probably a little over an hour before everything gurgled through my system.  It wasn't too bad.  It probably took me an hour or so, and 3 or 4 trips to the bathroom to get rid of it all, but it worked like a charm.  Don't want to get too graphic here, but there was very little solid waste, mostly (what seemed to be) stagnated bile.  Gross.  Better out than in as they say.  No wonder I felt like hell.  I'll have to do another one tonight.

I noticed my skin looks clearer and fresher today.  That is a really nice change.  I normally look dragged out, pale and..."doughy".  I've also noticed that the plaque doesn't build up much on my teeth at all.  There's a little there, but nothing like when I'm eating sugary or starchy foods.  I guess the juice clears the mouth pretty quickly so it doesn't have a chance to feed plaque-producing bacteria.  And I usually follow it up with something like clear tea, which has nothing in it.

Well, I'm off to do the grocery shopping.  Got to pick up a bunch of starchy, heavy, calorie-laden foods for my son, who needs to pack some weight back on, and some more veggies for me.