The Cleanse

I love to eat.

I can’t recall going an entire day without eating. Maybe one meal.

Maybe.

But not an entire day.

I sometimes plan my days around food and restaurants in the same way someone might redecorate their entire living room to accommodate one new painting on the wall.

Thank God I love to exercise or there would be a big problem. (No pun intended.)

One experience that I was really hoping to have in India was to do an Ayurvedic cleanse. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t find a doctor or a program that felt quite right given that I was in Kerala, the Ayurvedic capital of the world.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Heiner told me about the 3-week Ayurvedic cleanse he does every year in the beach town of Kovalam, India, where he lives part-time. He’s done this particular 3-week cleanse with the same trusted Ayurvedic doctor for fourteen years. Heiner invited me to visit him in Kovalam in November so I can do a 3-week cleanse with his doctor.

I might take him up on that.

But for now…

I knew I really wanted to clean out my body before coming back to America. Especially after talking to Krishna Das in Hampi and having him remind me about the importance of a healthy body and how that affects every area of life. I feel like I’ve really cleaned out my mind in a lot of ways in the past few months through meditation, experiencing the effects of being with Balinese priests, healers and shamans, and of course being in many brand-new places and having new experiences.

Cleaning out my body was next on the agenda…

I had visited a place called Ubud Sari Health Resort in Ubud, Bali in 1999 and it is still here, years later.

So I signed up for the 7-Day Mind, Body, Spirit Fasting Program at Ubud Sari and I started my cleanse last Monday.

No food. Only juice and broth. And supplements.  Oh, and some other things that I won’t name which help to clean one’s body out.

To say I was nervous about not eating would be an understatement.

But I was surprised: the first day wasn’t bad.

Nor was the second, third or fourth.

I barely thought about food. And even letting go of my morning cups of black tea had been very easy.

Amazing.

But the fifth and six days?

Oh my.

I began to notice when the characters in the novel I was reading would have a meal. I would skip over the many dinners and lunches that seemed to be happening in this fictional woman’s life. I experienced horrible jealousy that this made-up person in my novel could eat and I couldn’t.

Then even my nights weren’t safe: I began to have dreams about kitchens.

Then I began to seriously think about what my first meal would be when I could eat. I would gaze lovingly at the Ubud Sari Resort food menu (sometimes for an hour at a time) and ponder, “Hmmm…maybe I’ll have that to eat when it’s over. No, maybe that. Or…maybe that?”

You get the picture.

I began to be totally obsessed with food.

So I was happily surprised when the 7-Day Cleanse turned out to a 6 and a half day cleanse.

“You can eat now,” said my Balinese cleanse ‘leader’, Sukertini, at lunchtime on Saturday.

“What?! I can eat? I can eat real food?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, it is time to end your cleanse. No rice, no bread, no meat, no caffeine, no sugar, no alcohol for 3 days. Anything else is okay,” said Sukertini.

“No problem, Sukertini! Give me the guacamole, girl!”

Guacamole was the item on the menu that I’d most been salivating over the past couple of days.

Yum.

I’m still going easy on the solid foods. Mostly I’m eating soups and well-chewed fruit and yogurt.

I’m glad I did it:

My skin has never been so smooth.

I’m quite proud of my (very) flat tummy at the moment. I have had no qualms about riding around on my cruiser bike wearing a short top that bares my newly-flat stomach. My skirt that was hanging a tiny bit low on my waist is now completely falling down and I probably shouldn’t wear it in public.

I didn’t do it to lose weight but damn. It feels good to be a little bit smaller in the legs, face, arms, tummy, etc, than before.

I haven’t been the weight I am right now since I was (wow!) fourteen years old. (I’ll probably go back to my somewhat-normal weight as soon as I start eating solid foods again.)

But the greatest gift in doing this cleanse is the distinct feeling of letting go of the past through doing this deep inner cleansing of my physical body.

That feels

sooooooo

good.

My newfound feeling of inner and outer freedom is worth every ounce of food I didn’t eat for six and a half days.

Tagged as: cleansing at Ubud Sari, Ubud Sari, Ubud Sari cleanse, Ubud Sari Health Resort