The Cleanse: Soap Box Thoughts and the Diet Details.

<> At the end of this Soap Box reel, I post the details on how to do the diet.

              “If you’re going to die you might as well die happy,” over and over again, throughout the years, I have heard people say this in defense of their poor choices and poor lifestyles. They say it as they reach for one more piece of cheesecake, for the video game remote to play one more round of Halo or World of Warcraft that lasts until 4am, for the computer to check on Facebook for the umpteen time, for the joint as their children sleep idly in the next room, or for the bottle to have just one more glass. They say it as they decide to live their lives gorging on fried foods, smoking marijuana, or playing video games day in day out. They say it in defense of their half-lives and poor choices. They say it so they go on living only halfway because it’s easier, because they think these choices are their survival. Complacency is easy and in their “survival” they fail to see they are drowning.

             We all get there, to that complacent place at some point in our lives and then in defense of our complacency we say, “If you’re going to die, you might as well die happy.” We spin the entire meaning of a phrase to fit our poor choices. It’s curious, when did we start thinking that complacency was happiness? It’s not. We have to stop acting like it. When did survival mean to barely be living, to merely be getting by? If that’s the case, I want to do more than just survive.

Before my grandfather passed he said something like, “so what? I did this to myself. I kept drinking and I did this to myself. I could have stopped but I didn’t. I did this to myself. And now I’m going to die. I should have stopped.” It’s not simple, life. We make it complicated because it’s not easy to put down the bottle or cheesecake or video game or the FB, but we’ve got to do it. In the end, we’ve only ourselves to blame. We’re drowning ourselves. We have to stop half living, wake up, and get that focus.

“If you’re going to die you might as well die happy,” use it right or get rid of the saying. Don’t say it so you can sit on the couch instead of doing something, so you can feel better about smoking marijuana and taking some pills instead becoming something better for the people sleeping in the next room, so you can drink again because it makes it easier to forget the hard stuff, so you can play a video game because you have gone numb, so you can scarf down another piece of pie because “you love your curves,” or so you can go on facebook again and again to keep from feeling lonely. Say it so you can do something about your life, say it to stop holding yourself back. The problem with this saying is that it’s a dismissal. It allows us to dismiss negative actions. It’s too content to let things sit as they are. There are so many people just half living out there, going through the motions, never feeling anything more the average. But the truth is, they only have themselves to blame.

Everything in moderation, have these things but do it right. If they're not advancing you then they are not worth your time. You’re not even living. You’re just sitting there numb. When you shovel that food in, spend 9 hours on some game, check FB, smoke the night away, you’re not living. When we do these things we’re taking who we are and making it less. We’re less than existing. So get off the damn couch, get away from the brightly lit screen, get that damn cheese cake you were given for your birthday off the damn table, take a slice of it to savor and send the rest off to friends. Share the things that make you happy. Trust me it’s worth it. And find something else, that makes you more than just complacent. Happiness isn’t easy, you have to work for it or else would it really be worth having. When use this saying and you’re using it just to defend some crap ass choice, realize that that’s easy. Stop living for the after life, the tomorrows, because “if you’re going to die you might as well die happy.” Fight for it. Who ever heard of a dead person who was happy anyways? Not I. Besides, you’re right; you’re going to die so you might as well FIGHT YOUR ASS OFF TO LIVE! Really live.

My complacency brought me to the cleanse to find a clear mind and focus. It worked. Here are the details:

The Cleanse instructions/ recipes: 

The Night Before Day 1: Drink a natural herbal laxative tea. 

Days 1-10:  

       Morning: Every morning drink 1 quart of fresh water with two tablespoons of sea salt mixed in. 

          Day: Throughout the day as you get hungry drink a that you'll make lemonade juice (instructions are below). Consume 6-12 glasses (their about a cup each. You'll drink less in the beginning and more as the time goes on, I try to maintain my at no more than 8. During this attempt I never drank more than 6 glasses.

         Night: At night the tea. :)

Days 11 & 12: Phasing off the Diet.  On day 11, drink OJ all day long. You'll drink about 8 glasses. On day 12: drink OJ for breakfast and lunch. Around noonish begin making the soup (instructions below). The soup should take a few hours to make. Eat the soup for dinner, but eat mostly broth. 

Day 13: OJ in the morning soup for lunch and dinner. A Day of soup.


Day 14: You can go back to your normal diet. I chose not to and stick with the soup for a few more days and OJ in the morning.  

The recipes: 

Salt water mixture: 1 quart or 4 cups of filtered water, add in two tablespoons of salt. Allow yourself time to take this in, it's not easy.

Lemonade mixture: 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoons of lemonade, 2 tablespoons of grade B maple syurp (I use 1 tablespoon), and 1/8 cayenne pepper or do to taste. *the less maple syrup you use the more weight you will loose. I cut the mixture in half, most people find they are too low of energy to do this. As the days go on the cayenne pepper will get weaker, some people add more in. 

Tea: find a natural laxative herbal tea. Senna leaves are a natural laxative leaf. If you as at the drug store, they'll be able to find it for you. To say this in Japanese there are a few ways to say it: 

便秘に効くお茶はありますか？ (benpi ni kiku ocha wa arimasuka?)  -->Do you have laxative tea?

下剤のお茶はどこにありますか？(gezai no ocha ha doko ni arimasuka?) --> where is laxative tea?

<> Just make sure the ingredients are minimal and show herbal plants on the front. 

Soup:  The soup should be all natural. NO meat. It takes time for your body to adjust to meat so you'll have to reintroduce meat to it slowly. The soup can be made up of any number of veggies: Carrots, broccoli, green peppers, cabbage, mushrooms, Potatoes. Any green veggie is good! Be creative. Take your time let it cook and flavor the broth. Then add spices. Salt and pepper is okay, And a veggie bullion cube it okay (this can be found at a foreign food store in Japan). Just keep the seasoning down. You should be enjoying the natural taste of the veggies. :)

And that's it. If you try it, good luck!! :)