Day 4 of the Master Cleanse

I’ve survived to day 4 of the master cleanse with very little incident. I had to teach a fairly demanding class on day 2, and there were times during day 3 that I felt a little light-headed (didn’t make it home until 10:30 both nights), but otherwise things are going fine so far. The first two days I think I was still clearing out the food that I ate over the weekend (though it was a light diet to ease into the cleanse). I also feel like built up a big food reserve over the New Years.

Yesterday was very interesting as I ran out of syrup and had to walk around the supermarket for a few minutes. Walking around food and the smells, I could feel my willpower dropping. It was almost as if I could feel the little “willpower” meter in my body slowly decreasing. It reminded me of a psychological experiment on willpower that I’ve read about. They put test subjects who are hungry in a room with a plate of delicious cookies on one side and a plate of radishes on the other. They then ask some of the test subjects to eat the radishes if they wish, but not the cookies, and other test subjects to eat the cookies. Afterwards, they give both groups a tedious task and found that those that ate the radishes gave up on the task a lot quicker than those that ate the cookies (here’s an article that talks more about the experiment and others http://encarta.msn.com/column_willpower_tamimhome/Can_You_Increase_Your_willpower_tamimhome.html).

Interestingly, for the past two nights, I’ve dreamed of eating junk food and then realize “Oops, I shouldn’t be eating. I forgot that I’m on the master cleanse” in the dream which has been interesting. The experience of walking around the market and the dreams seem to suggest an un/subconscious approach or strategy of avoiding temptation (for fear of what I would do) as a form of control and the associated guilt that comes up in dreams which is very interesting and personally insightful. It would be interesting to sit with a bunch of people eating a nice meal and experience what goes on within. Is it psychological or physiological? If physiological, from where is the feeling of need coming from in within the body? How does it travel through the body? What are the physical symptoms that arise? What happens to the symptoms after I slow down and rest?

On day two, a colleague joked around by eating a chocolate bar in front of me (TV commercial style) which didn’t seem to phase me too much at the time… or did it?