Today I am attending Startup Riot, an event for startups who want to pitch themselves to venture capital and angel investor types. There’s something like 50 startups presenting today, so they each get 3 minutes and 4 slides. It is going to be brutal. Chad and I are here just to watch the bloodbath and do some networking.
UPDATE ABOUT THE VIDEO STREAM: Well, I was broadcasting this event live before lunch, but I was asked to stop by the organizer. (Something about some people still have day jobs, potential SEC trouble, etc. I’m sure i wouldn’t understand…)
So we stopped the cleanse on Friday, after 6 days. Cara wasn’t feeling well with the laxative process, so we decided to go ahead and begin easing out of it. I’ve said before that after day 4, everything was pretty much golden, so I’m pleased with quitting after having gotten through the hardest part. Now we have to rebuild our gut flora!
The first day off, we only drank orange juice and organic veggie soup broth all day. You can really feel it going all the way through your stomach, it’s really gratifying to feel that clean. And only that little bit of substance literally filled me up, so clearly my stomach has shrunk quite a bit during this. I’ll go on and cite that as a benefit of the cleanse, since i’m definitely going to leverage my decreased intestinal capacity to develop some better eating habits.
I mean, doesn’t that effect put this fast at odds with the stomach stapling surgery that is all the rage now? So, you can spend all this money and have someone tie up your stomach to stop you from wanting to eat so much, or you can exercise some discipline. One site even advocates using the cleanse for that purpose, perhaps taking 6 days of cleanse, then 4 days of eating lighter, then back to fasting, repeat until your portions are where you want them to be. That might be extreme for most people, but if you didn’t mind the lemonade i could see it being a possibility.
I guess i’m kind of eating my words about weight-loss, now, but it isn’t the same. I’d still say that the fast itself doesn’t constitute sustainable weight loss (the water weight drop is worthless, of course.) But the complete reboot of your eating habits and physical makeup do leave you in an advantaged position to affect dietary change.
On that note, Cara and i went grocery shopping to restock the house with stuff. We spent a lot of money on a lot of things, but i’m proud to say that most of it was organic foods and little or none of it was money spent sustaining factory farming (don’twatchthesevideos unless you’re still eating meat and drinking cow’s milk.) As of now, we’re totally vegetarian.
We also stopped by Cook’s Warehouse at Amsterdam Walk to burn Cara’s $160 gift certificate there. We ended up spending most of it on a couple of appliances: an ice cream maker and a juice extractor! There are a lot of amazing and healthy recipes we can use the ice cream maker for (Alton Brown’s delectable Avocado Ice Cream comes to mind) and the juice extractor will make excellent and interesting supplemental possibilities to our newly-strict diet. Do you know how good carrot juice is?!?!?
On the second day off of the fast, we had a healthy brunch consisting of veggie wraps, pita and hummus, a vegetable omelet, and fruit (we were sharing a bunch of food from The Treehouse, so good and healthy.) Cara had a Mimosa (gotta get that OJ), and i had a glass of cabernet (alcoholism…) Later that night, we cut up some protein dogs (meatless hot dogs) into a bunch of veggies, cooked them up, and ate them on a piece of toasted wheat bread with a little bit of organic salsa on top. This was probably overboard, as my stomach didn’t feel great, and Cara was actually in a lot of pain that night.
The next day, Cara made us an amazing vegetable soup. I wish she’d post the recipe so i could link to it, but needless to say it was an enormous amount of veggies in organic broth. This is the meal we should have had the previous day, according to the instructions (and common sense.) After eating that soup and a bunch of fruit afterwards, i think my stomach is ready for anything again.
The challenge now will be to learning how to be a vegetarian in every day life. When i was eating fish, it wasn’t terribly hard to just go anywhere, anytime. But not allowing any meat at all will narrow my options at many restaurants considerably. Of course, if i do this right, and keep my portions low and my stomach nice and small, it should be just as trivial for me to skip meals when i need to (or just rely on side salads, etc.)
There will probably be one more Master Cleanse-related post where i actually decide whether to advocate this for anyone else or not, but that may not come for another week or so. Just wanted to give a heads up to those of you following me specifically for the cleanse updates, you may not find my technolust nearly as interesting (but that’s your problem.)
Saturday afternoon, Marty and I ground out our first podcast. It is literally me and him chatting over Skype for 45 minutes. Here’s the podcast, the summary is below:
Topics we cover:
Podcasting software: why are there so many pay walls around letting me record my own audio? Currently we are using Pamela, a Skype plugin that outputs mp3s
What should our podcast be called? What should it be about? Currently we’re thinking development talk, social web talk, and entrepreneurial talk.
Loren discusses his experience as an “expert” on web video at the Entrepreneurs Meetup
CamTwist is amazing, free video broadcast software for the Mac
Marty and Amy’s Credible Seminar Series
Why the hell did we do this?
Basically, Marty and I talk about a lot of topics via instant message on a daily basis, and it was time to start eating our own dogfood. We figured, if we’re going to have the discussion anyway, why not do it in the easiest way possible (talking instead of typing), and why not record it and give it away (podcasting to the rescue!) Of course, we learned a lot along the way just getting this first one completed.
Primarily, we’re unhappy with the fact that MOST people can’t just decide to start a podcast trivially, the way we did. And, of course, even we had plenty of bumps. A lot of this discussion is about these difficulties, the type of podcasting system we’d like to see, and how it can be really meaningful, socially.
Marty has actually begun work with Google’s AppEngine and Amazon S3, with hopes of getting some kind of podcasting hosting system created that we can use. If that happens, we’ll likely begin to host this podcast on its own domain, and set it up for subscription via your favorite software (iTunes or whatever.) For now, just look for future posts on our respective blogs.
Speaking of future podcasts, we need feedback and support! If you are interested in more podcasts like this, please leave me some comments here. I want to know what you liked and what you didn’t. I want to know what you would name this podcast. I want to know if you want to be a guest host with us in the future.
I slept in and worked from home in anticipation of the Web Entrepreneurs Meetup that evening, figuring i’d need my energy to go late. I did my saltwater bath (the video from yesterday showed it) then spent most of the day working on a gargantuan blog post that served a number of purposes, like preparing me for the presentation, keeping all of my resources in one place, and linkbaiting the internet to my company’s blog.
Then i squeezed in a haircut (what do you think?) before straightening myself up and heading to the Meetup. At this point, it was 6pm, and i had only drank 1 liter of lemonade, so i took the second one with me.
I was worried about energy because it’s kind of taxing to go to these events. There’s the stairs of the parking garage, all of the loud talking at the event itself, and a few blocks of hiking to get to the bar and back for networking afterwards. All in all it’s a good 6 hours of stress and exertion.
To my surprise, everything was great. I barely touched my lemonade and still wasn’t hungry or weak throughout the time period. It really seems like after about day 4, all of the bad stuff had happened and my body had adjusted to this routine.
My stomach has shrunk greatly during this, no doubt. If that isn’t a benefit of the cleanse, i don’t know what you’re looking for. When i reintegrate food into my diet, it will be really easy to enormously reduce my portions. Not to mention the fact that a nice veggie salad looks as good as a steak dinner, now. If you want to adjust your diet, but are failing to be disciplined enough to do it on your own, i’d recommend the cleanse as a nice way to affect some serious change. Not only do i not want to be stuffed with food, but i don’t want to eat nasty food since i feel so pristine inside.
While we’re on the subject, why do we celebrate being stuffed in this country, anyway? I’ve heard that the difference in us and the French is that we eat until we are full, and they eat until they are not hungry. Sounds subtle, but the difference is pretty huge, especially when you consider that there’s a 20 minute lag time between your stomach and brain in terms of hunger. 20 minutes? That’s a hell of a buffer to contend with, especially at the speed most people eat. I don’t think it’s out of the question that most people eat 5 times as much as they should, before we ever even get to the issue of eating things they shouldn’t.
At any rate, our diets are going to change drastically again after this, i believe. Meat will be entirely killed, portions will be shrunk further, and we’ll probably begin shopping at the organic stores much more regularly. So after the cleanse, its entirely likely that i will continue to blog about the foods we’re eating, and the lifestyle changes that go along with them.
I was watching the Food Network for a few moments today, and it occurred to me that there is no outlet for vegetarians, vegans, or organic advocates on there. Sure, there’s the occasional special episode or something, but overall the consumption of meat and the willy-nilly purchasing at the local big chain supermarket are just assumed in all of their programming.
Is there room for an Organic Network, a Vegetarian/Vegan Network? Man, i bet there is. Maybe we’ll launch a tv network from home before the year is up…
I’ve just posted a mammoth blog post over at the Snowcap Labs site about video on the web. I posted it in collaboration with my discussion tonight at the Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs Meetup, where I’m speaking as an expert on web video.
I left a video today since i’m pressed for time. It includes me chugging the saltwater, a must watch! I don’t know why the spacing is messed up, i blame Seesmic.
Today was great! I woke up promptly at 6:30am (2 hours before the alarm), and almost immediately was able to move the bowels without any outside help. This time, it wasn’t just the saltwater, i actually passed some solid matter (i know, i know, TMI continues.) I guess it’s debatable as to what it was (a mass of now-dead gut flora? or these illusive ‘toxins’ that make everyone so mad to mention?)
At any rate, the exhaustion from yesterday was entirely alleviated afterwards, leading me not to care. I actually had ANOTHER movement mid-afternoon while at The Lab, with the same consistency. I maintained high levels of energy for most of the day, only starting to get tired towards twilight (a long day, even by eating-people’s standards.)
I have been skeptical of doing the saltwater bath at night since day one. The instructions call for it on an empty stomach, so they suggest doing it in the morning. We elected to do it at night for comfort, because it isn’t pleasant, and no one wants to go to work with an unstable bowel situation. Plus, you might need a shower afterwards…
But i’ve been wondering, does water and lemonade count as an empty stomach? That is, does it really work if you do it at night? Today’s results made me think i should try it in the morning, so we resolved not to do the bath tonight.
However, the instructions also call for something called “laxative tea”, which we also haven’t been doing. The tea is optional, it says, so if the bath is working, you don’t have to have the tea. If you take the tea, you are supposed to drink it before bed, then in the morning take the saltwater.
Well, opting for the morning saltwater, we decided what the hell, let’s try the tea also. So we grabbed some on the way home from work (Publix has it, and it looks like this.) Around 8:30, we brewed up a couple of cups and retired to the bedroom to watch Evan Almighty (which i don’t recommend, feels like PG Disney crap.)
I have to admit, it sat rather heavily in my stomach. It wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, but i was certainly aware it was there. What will happen when the morning comes and i combine the powers of the laxative tea and the saltwater bath? You’ll have to stick around for Day 5 to find out!
Also, the constructive comments have started to come in, and that makes me really happy. I’ve got my comments moderated (who knew there was so much hate on the net? oh wait…), so i apologize if you leave one and it doesn’t appear immediately. I highly encourage you to interact, especially if you have questions and curiosities! (I also added video comments yesterday. All you need is a webcam and a microphone, which most modern laptops provide, and you’ll be cussing me out directly in no time! Look for the link just below the comment box. Still moderated, of course…)
10:00 AM: Feeling really sluggish today. Could just be a case of the Mondays, but i’m hoping for some productive eliminations tonight…
Later: As the day went on, i continued to feel more and more weary and exhausted. I suppose this is probably to be expected during a fast, but quite frankly i’m too busy to be slowed down mentally, right now.
Eliminations actually yielded some pretty good results. I expelled some pretty serious demons, and i definitely found that i had a lot more energy afterwards. This is in step with the results i’m supposed to see, so that pleased me greatly (still being a skeptic myself.)
Socially, we’re being met with unreasonable bias and anger. It’s so strange. People whom i’ve known for a long time and whom i would normally say have no problem what anyone else does with their bodies are suddenly persecuting us as though we are standing on their doorstep, telling them that they have to change their view of nutrition and health, OR ELSE. Clearly this is not the case.
These are also people that i would have said are pretty bright about doing their research, or at least realize that i do mine (vigorously.) Yet, the types of things they say show no sign of having looked beyond the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, which is pretty unforgiving, to say the least.
To me, though, these social lessons are exactly the kind of thing that i set out to learn when i resolved to do this. There’s a strange irony here: that their bitching and moaning about this fast being bunk are actually validating the fast for me. Of course, most of them don’t even realize it actually is a fast, and they attack the lemonade as if i’m somehow worshiping the stuff as a miracle drug that precludes medicine and a healthy diet. (As a comical aside, i started calling my juice “jenkem“, because it’s really damn funny.)
Today was a tough one! This morning i woke up with serious hunger, so Cara and i went to making our daily dose of juice immediately. A nice trick is to lick the spoon after adding the lemon and syrup. It gets your ravenous stomach craving the stuff, so you welcome it. And sure enough, after only drinking a little of it, the hunger was gone.
But then we had to take a trip to Peachtree City (45 minute drive) to visit Cara’s mom for Mother’s Day. Cara’s mom the amazing cook. At lunch time. Surely they know to hide the food, right? No, her father is in the middle of his lunch when we arrive, eating something Cara called “pepperoni bread”. But luckily we brought our juice and pushed through. Really, the hunger stays controlled with it, you just have to get your portions right to last you the day.
Once we got home, I only had about an hour to prepare before leaving to go to my investment club meeting, which was being held way outside the perimeter this month (another 45 minute drive.) The club usually eats dinner before the meeting, which would have been easy to avoid. But this time, the plan was to grill out hamburgers and tater tots at the meeting location, so avoidance was impossible.
I’ve already sworn off of red meat (it truly is poison for your body), so i didn’t expect much trouble, but the SMELL, my god. It’s easy enough not to look at it, but i couldn’t stop my nose from its evil ways, sending my stomach all the messages that i desperately wanted it not to receive.
When the host offered me a burger, i plainly said “No thanks, i’m fasting right now.” I thought for sure i was heading down a slippery slope with that one, but i got off with just a strange glance or two and no further comment. Perhaps they assumed it was a religious thing or something. (i guess it kind of is?)
When i got home, i was really exhausted. This cleanse is supposed to keep you at mostly full energy, but driving in the car can take a lot out of you, and i spent 3 hours in the car today, all told. Hopefully a good night’s sleep tonight will see the end of it. The weakness i’m feeling isn’t too out of the ordinary, though, just an active Sunday (the worst kind of Sunday!)
Nothing notable about the saltwater baths, so far. I just chug a liter of saltwater, and then pass a liter of saltwater about an hour later. I’m hoping for more productive “eliminations” in the next few days, where i fully expect some of my dormant toxins to become aroused for the first time.
Now i’m winding down, and expect to have no problems passing out. Which is good, because sitting up late, bored and sleepless (like usual) is a terrible way to avoid thinking about eating.
Today marks the first day of a 10-day fast that my lovely girlfriend and i are embarking on together. It isn’t exactly a fast, though: It is a liquid diet consisting entirely of water, organic lemons, organic maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. The ingredients may sound strange or a bit silly, but each serves an important purpose during the fast, mostly dealing with basic nutrients and energy.
You may not be a stranger to this fast, as it has been around for nearly 70 years and has attracted no small amount of criticism (and hyperbole.) It is called The Master Cleanse, created by Stanley Burroughs in 1941. I’ll talk more about the system itself later, when i have more experience. For now, i just wanted to begin blogging the process for posterity.
Today, we left the house and went shopping for our ingredients. We spent about $100 at the local organic food grocery, Sevananda. We bought almost 20 organic lemons, 64 ounces of organic syrup, a container of sea salt (for a part i haven’t mentioned yet), a hand juicer for the lemons, and liter bottles for bringing our “juice” with us. We got home, mixed up 2 liters of the stuff, and went about our business for the day!
So far, there has been no hunger to speak of, the last thing i ate being a snack around 1am this morning. The juice has done a magnificent job of warding off real hunger, today, but i’m still skeptical of just how long that can last.
The second part of the cleanse is what is called the “saltwater bath”, a nice way of saying “clean your ass out from the inside.” You mix a couple of table spoons of sea salt in with a liter of lukewarm water, and chug the entire thing all at once. Apparently, on an empty stomach, such a concoction will go straight through your stomach and colon, and acts as a natural colonic (sounds a lot better than the ways people are paid to do this for you.)
The saltwater bath is really important during the cleanse, because without solid foods going through the body it is possible that the colon will cease all function altogether (this would be bad.) Of course, the purpose of this program is removing impurities, so getting a colonic along the way seems pretty fitting.
As i write this, i have imbibed the sea salt concoction and am awaiting my first movement. You are supposed to hold off as long as you can (and no passing gas, because you will draw mud!) When you can no longer stand it, you get to do the deed. It takes sometime between 30 minutes and an hour before it should begin, so i figured “Let’s go write that blog post!
I expect the next few days to be the most painful, and the final stretch to be full of enlightenment and changing viewpoints. Stay tuned!
