After I posted a few days ago about Orlando’s 36 hour fast, I’ve been getting emails, texts, and phone calls wondering how it went, if he survived and details about the experience. So we decided to share. The fast was only supposed to be from Thursday after dinner to Saturday morning. 36 hours. He was then going to spring into his cleanse. On Saturday morning, when he woke up I asked him what he wanted to eat for breakfast. He didn’t want breakfast! He wasn’t hungry anymore!!!! We had baseball that morning so he told me he would wait until lunchtime to eat. Lunch turned to dinner and before we knew it, Orlando had fasted for 48 hours. Nothing but water, lemons, and green superfood for 48 hours!!!! It was incredible to see how he continued to push himself during the fast. We even went to Costco during the whole thing and he never broke down emotionally even though he was surrounded by food…and those little sample taste carts that surround the Costco aisles!

As for the Nicorette, he had 2 nicorette gums on day 1 of the fast and 2 nicorette gums on day 2. This was a huge step for him considering that he consumes approximately 10-15 gums on a regular day. He initially intended to quit cold turkey but started to fear that he was putting his body/brain under too much distress. That could have negative consequences, because it is so highly addictive that it messes with your brain chemistry. The goal is to cleanse to be healthy not produce unhealthy results. So he has chosen to taper off, dramatically, but not cold turkey. As we posted earlier, this gum is his biggest challenge.  His withdrawal symptoms have included anxiety and a lot of pressure in his head. Not so much a headache as pressure in the brain.  But he has continued to work through it and I am so incredibly awed by him.

So now he moves on to the cleanse. He’s basing his cleanse criteria on a cleanse offered by Whole Living http://www.wholeliving.com/152870/2012-whole-living-action-plan

One of my best friends did this cleanse last year and told us about it. I took some recipes from there back then and now we’re using it as a guide for Orlando. Note: there is a 2013 cleanse offered by them, but I like this one better because it is stricter.

So Orlando is in week 1 of the cleanse which means he is only eating:

• fruits
• vegetables
• plant based fats- nuts, seeds, and oils

He broke his fast on Saturday evening with a delicious Ratatouille. He made a few changes to this recipe, for example, he added brussel sprouts, carrots, and broccoli. He did NOT use any cheese or put it on a bed of grains such as Quinoa or Couscous. So really it turned more into a vegetable casserole. It was absolutely delicious!!!!

On Sunday he made a delicious Beet Soup for lunch. And we had the leftover Ratatouille for dinner.

And…. he made what I like to call PowerSnack Balls to have for the week! He grabbed the idea from the Whole Living recipes and tweeked it to make it his own. Basically its a ball made out of dried fruit (no sugar added! we could only find it at Whole Foods), nuts, and seeds. Stay tuned for that recipe tomorrow. It is totally worth it!!!! I don’t even like dried fruit and I LOVED those PowerSnack balls!

So we are ready to attack the week and we’ll keep you posted of his progress along the way. And yes…even though the kids and I are not participating in the cleanse, we do eat a lot of the same things as he does.  I’m just not eliminating things like my coffee for breakfast or my dark chocolate for dessert, or the kids yogurt for example. But what he makes is what we eat as a family and that way we all benefit from his cleanse!

Have a wonderful week!