21-Day Sugar Detox Day 21: The Number One Gift, and What I'm "Going Back To."

It's day 21 of the 21-Day Sugar Detox. Technically, I could "break" it tonight, since I started it, Jewish-style, the evening before day 1. But I'm in no hurry to break it! In fact, I'm loath to disturb the goodness. 
Cravings?
Which is interesting, considering that going into it (I wrote about the "why" here) I was worried enough about cravings and habitual non-caloric "crutches" like chewable vitamin C and xylitol mints that I made an "insteads" chart to put up in the kitchen...

...as well as a long list of my "big whys" for doing the detox prominent on my bulletin board in the bedroom that I see while I'm rebounding in the morning. 
I thought I'd miss those things. I thought I'd miss stevia/xylitol/erythritol in my teas and smoothies. I thought I'd miss fruit.
But the cravings I was experiencing on a daily basis, before I went on the detox, were far worse!
As it turned out, I was fine with no stevia in my teas and I was surprised by how good my smoothies, even without fruit, could taste with no stevia or erythritol. I'm a spice-ist, though, and cinnamon and its friends were my friends.
I didn't miss the xylitol mints, etc., because I wasn't hungry all the time--I didn't need them to distract the hunger. This, even though I was eating even fewer calories.
And I didn't miss the fruit. The detox allows for one per day: grapefruit, green apple, or green-tipped banana. I can't do bananas (and thought it a very strange inclusion), but I was fine with green apples and grapefruit--both are detoxing to the liver, which seemed appropriate. I had grapefruit for the first half and green apples for the second half, but I still have half the bag of apples--I didn't even have fruit every day! And I did limit my beloved carrots also.
The one thing I did crave, calling myself out here, was the last item mentioned on my "insteads" list; a food item I really had no business ever eating in the first place. It's a chocolate-covered soy protein bar with sea salt. God knows why I bought it one day a few months ago: nothing about it would appeal to me in my right mind (I don't tolerate soy well, it has way too much sugar, and chocolate+sugar is a terrible idea for me). But in those couple months of alternate-day fasting, sometimes I'd break a longish fast with a piece of fruit, stressed, out running errands, and my blood sugar and hunger and anxiety would go through the roof and I'd end up eating something normally beyond the pale. This isn't an uncommon phenomenon, but in my life it's pretty unique. Even knowing that this happens to other people, I'm still boggled by my craving for that stupid bar. On day 4 of the detox, it was almost overwhelming, but day 4 was also the day it came clear just how much better my digestive issues were already, so I had some pretty darn good motivation to battle the craving.
The Number One Gift From the Detox
So yes, by day 4 --just Four Short Days! -- my gut issues were mostly better. They're not 100% "fixed," which makes total sense, but the transit-time/motility issues are basically resolved at this point (and were basically fine from day 4 on); I'm sleeping better, without the intense nausea and bloating. I still have more gas than I'd like, but it's actually moving through now rather than just doubling me over.
Other positive things, too, but the overall gift of the process I can sum up in a single word:
Clarity -- in so many respects. Going into this intentional process allowed me to acknowledge things I already knew but was in denial about, which liberated me to choose what works for me rather than cling to ideals. 
-- No more Garden of Eden. I was able to let go of my idealistic adoration of fruit and acknowledge that, bizarre as it may sound, fruit has always tended to constipate me, even in my fruitarian days! And if fruit does that, surely sugar would do so even worse.
-- Much more conscious eating, none of the crazy breaking-long-fast-while-running-errands scenario described above.
-- Clarity of skin. In my fruitarian days my skin was broken out about half the time. It's been consistently quite broken out for the past several months. But these past 21 days, it's cleared right up (although just today, the final day, I suddenly have one or two zits). I might have expected my skin to be worse during a detox. Once again, the clarity to acknowledge that it seems probable that in my leaky-gutted body all kinds of sugar (yes, including fruit) break out my skin.
-- Clarity to experiment. I'd always gone by the rule of "eat fruit first." But my obsessive blood sugar checking started from the observation that I'd break my fast with some fruit and feel hungrier, not satiated. And yet "eat fruit first" was an article of faith. But during the detox, I experimented with the other recommendation floating around, that if you're going to eat fruit (or a bunch of carbs in general), it's a better match for circadian hormone fluctuation if you eat it in the evening. I found that worked well for me, and meshed well with:
-- Clarity to make changes--with all the fasting, I was tending to eat more late in the evening. Having my fruit in the evening went along with noticing that an earlier, lighter dinner helped with my sleep and general level of comfort in my body.
-- Clarity: Hello! I'd noticed a while ago that fruit makes me hungrier. So then I go eat more fruit, and eat it first? And my m.o. is to eat as little as possible? (I do torture myself sometimes.) Yes, instead I got to be so much more satiated, on less food, without all those cravings I was having, without lots of chewable vitamin C that probably has questionable ingredients to hold it together.
-- Clarity: what a waste of money to buy foods that make me sick and then spend more money buying the most expensive enzymes, which helped just a little bit if I took them by the handful. Isn't that stupid? Don't eat the food, you don't need so many expensive enzymes, doh! 

What I'm "Going Back To" and What I'm Keeping
As I said at the top, I'm a little cautious about changing anything much. And since the only thing I really missed was what I described as a "completely inappropriate object of craving"--something I know is not good for me and never truly want to put in my body, I don't feel compelled to rush back to anything.
-- I probably will add back in pure stevia, erythritol, xylitol, and small amounts of raw honey because my honest experience is that they all work in my body, although I understand the rationale of leaving them out for the detox to reset tastebuds. But I'll use them a lot less. Where my smoothies used to have both stevia and erythritol and fruit (and, honestly, some pretty bitter ingredients too), I imagine I'll use a little of just one of those sweeteners, if any.
-- My Sunwarrior pea protein powder will come back into the mix (it was out because it contains some stevia) because it feels good in my body and it's convenient.

-- I imagine there will be room for the odd xylitol mint and chewable vitamin C and zevia soda. But if I continue to feel so satiated and free of cravings, there won't be much need for them
-- Oh, I'll be glad to put berries in my smoothies again--probably in the evenings, though. And I'll be happy to enjoy some of the local fruit. My favorite farmers at the farmers' market have many kinds of organic heirloom melon, some of which are new to me (and I'm a huge fruit nerd, remember, so that's saying something), and there's other farmers with local peaches and apples (we're at that magical cusp of summer and fall with both peaches and apples). But I expect I'll be cautious and strategic about the fruit. I'm no longer in a phase of life where it's normal to eat the whole melon.
Here's what it is: I'm not "Going Back To" -- I'm "Going Forward To"! 
ONWARD!!
Note: I'd be remiss not to review the detox itself. I will do so, but I'll give that its own space--this post has already gotten quite long. I hope it's helpful to anyone contemplating this detox.

21-Day Sugar Detox -- My First Ever Restricted Diet Done For "The Right Reasons"

My friends tend to freak out at the idea of me doing any sort of restricted diet, since my normal diet tends to involve much restriction and I'm not, let's say, in a condition of excess. But I believe this is the first time I've undertaken a diet for self-care reasons rather than straight deprivation. Why??
Try this on for size: If I'm (1) attached to the familiarity of an old pattern and (2) eating inappropriate foods, I get cut off from my body's innate wisdom. And therefore: My body does have innate wisdom, she knows what is good for her. (Oh how amazing if that could be true!)

I have so many positive associations around fruit. Eating lots of it helped me out of the very lowest point of my anorexia--eating it, but also getting involved in growing, harvesting, and sharing it. I was so much the fruit girl, that's how everyone knew me. And despite all that I came to know and understand about how unnatural fruit is today, I still find myself harboring a Garden of Eden fantasy; I still hold a belief somewhere within me that it's the "perfect"/"highest"/"most righteous/correct" food. And so even after I ate no fruit for a year as I cleansed the worst case of candida my naturopath had ever seen, I gravitated back toward it. And again last year, despite a year of mostly coconut cream which was one of my best years digestion-wise. What's more, the years of fruitarianism mean that my estimation of a serving size for fruit is still potentially inflated.

Back on the fruit this year, I was in trouble. Intense sugar cravings, blood sugar swings. I never used to think of food as a comfort source, and how that evolved in me is for another post, but fruit+sugar cravings was sending me into even sweeter foods; foods that I knew were terrible for me, that made me feel terrible. It's no secret that part of my m.o. is pretty serious calorie restriction. But eating so much sugar when I did eat, I was hungry all the time. So I relied on chewable vitamin C, drink mixes, fasting every other day, and the fasting+lots of fruit sent me into the horrifying unfamiliar territory of binge-purge.
Meanwhile, I couldn't digest anything, couldn't sleep for the stomach pains and nausea, and had such severe bloating, the gas often wouldn't even come out in a colonic session! I was walking around 80-some pounds with a balloon belly. I would read/hear about people who'd gone gluten free, cut out dairy, and were feeling like a million bucks, and I felt like such a victim! Here I was, no gluten or dairy ever, absolutely wretched in my body. And yet at the same time there was a dive into gluten-free cookies here, an energy bar (aka sugary soy) there; even brightly colored sucralose candy one time, to my own disbelief--things I knew made me feel worse and yet somehow felt either entitled to or compelled to. Yes, straight-up sugar, as well as some white grains. In some twisted way I was able to give the cane sugar portion a pass because I haven't historically had a problem with sugar, but cookies made of rice flour? Sometimes with omega-6 oils like sunflower and canola??? My system can barely handle any kind of whole grain, so what's a bunch of finely starchified poison-powder going to do in there?
Even as I felt sorry for myself, part of me had the "sucker" lights lit up. Part of me was calling bullshit. At the MFA program residency, where I had a little less control over food availability and timings, I brought protein powder and gave myself the informal limit of two servings of fruit per day. Two things: I felt much better, and I had godawful sugar cravings, resolving into a couple breakouts into the fruit.
Perfect, then! I knew what I needed to do, and I knew for myself that in order to circumvent self-sabotage, I needed a framework where I'd committed to doing it. Even though I felt completely like myself with the crave and intermittent binge/purge , I knew myself well enough to know that if I laid down a framework, I would comply.

And so, when I heard an interview with Diane Sanfilippo about her 21-Day Sugar Detox a day or two after returning from the MFA residency, I decided it was time.

Stay tuned for my reflections on the twenty-one days!