The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet: Activate Your Body's Natural Ability to Burn Fat and Lose Weight Fast (36 page)

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.