Gee. I used to be so impatient, back in the day. The older I get, the more patience I have as I learn that it's ok to make progress by degrees.

I just finished the basic Dr. Schulze style five-day kidney cleanse with juice fast and as much #2 as I could manage to ingest (2-teaspoons, five times daily). Have been doing the IF #1 daily since before I started the doing the kidney cleanses twice each year in the spring of 2009.

As an aside, in my opinion, IF #1 is, as some critics contend, extremely addicting. In fact, I can't think of anything more addicting than achieving REGULAR ELIMINATION (lol, lol, etc.).

So I've completed seven five-day kidney cleanses w/ juice fasting etc.

After the first time, I managed to stop eating meat and most animal food except a small bit of cheese now and then. I slowly lost around 20 pounds, of which 15 managed to stay off most of the time thereafter.

After the fast-cleanse, I always felt great and would usually abstain from bad food for quite a while, but after a few weeks the inevitable occurred and somebody would have a birthday party and I'd have just one small piece of cake, followed by another a week or month later, followed by eventually eating a bit of candy, or a Frappe, and then more and more, until by the beginning of the next bi-yearly cleanse I'd be eating the dang sugar stuff nearly every day. It seemed that eating that first piece of birthday cake was my undoing.

BUT... after last November's cleanse/fast, I never ate one piece of candy or cake and even stopped using real maple syrup.

It seems like if you don't eat it, you won't want more of it. Sensible enough, eh?

I just had my first "real" breakfast this morning: bean-noodle soup with cilantro,lots of garlic, in a vegetable stock with a bit of lacto-fermented sauerkraut tossed in. I've been eating this for breakfast for several years now.

Lunch was a home-made bean/rice patty on whole wheat bread w/ home-made lacto-fermented katsup, and more sauerkraut.

My usual week-day lunch is semi-stir-fried brown rice with brussel sprouts, and a few pieces of walnut.

After this latest fast w kidney cleanse, I've lost about 7 pounds more. Maybe I can keep it off if'n I cut out that cheese. Hmmm....

I intend to now start quarterly or at least tri-yearly cleanses-fasts with liver cleanse between the two kidney cleanses. I'm pretty sure I need to do the 6-15 liver cleanses people talk about. I've been putting it off, but I just want to do it right, and avoid the Epsom salt. That and the fact that I still haven't found a blonde nurse to administer all those coffee enemas :-)))

Anyhow, I'm not especially ill, except blood pressure that's a tad high (and ALWAYS stays down if I get enough exercise, and maybe sleep, too... which I never do). But it was way down this morning.

Rocky & Uny's herbal formulations are the greatest, and I couldn't do it without you guys.

Also, yesterday, used my tincture press to press out a gallon of Shculze-style Super Tonic; two quarts of Hawthorne Tincture; one quart of 2x Echinacea Tincture; and one quart of KA (Kick Ass) Habanero & Bird Pepper "Cayenne" Tincture. The press worked very well and the bit of liquid that did flow back into the pressing vessel through the holes in its wall did not enter the pressure-packed herb material mass. or if any did, it was minimal. I'd like to someday see about having a spout welded on, but that's probably one of those things that will be put off (over and over :-)
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