Today is Day 27 of the detox challenge. It annoys my desire for symmetry that we did not start on the first day of the month, which would have made it easy to figure out the day of the challenge. It makes no sense to have Day 27 on the 25th of October.

I will take my measurements later this week. And tally up the results. I have complied with the program to a pretty high degree, but not 100 percent. I think that I’ve benefited from it. I have had a lot of inflammation in my left hand and a “trigger lock” finger for the last year. The inflammation prevents me from gripping with my fingers. The trigger lock finger comes from inflammation on the tendon which gets stuck in the joint. The Mayo Clinic website says the cause is unknown but that it’s common in diabetic, middle-aged women. [Hello.]  Surgery is the recommended treatment. I’ve already had steroid shots and compression sleeves. And rest. As in no-typing. Voice dictation sucks.

The good news is that the inflammation is almost entirely gone. I see some other improvements too. My skin feels better. And my weight is down. More on that later.

What I’ve done well: eating a pretty clean diet. And following the shake-requirement. The detox protocol progressively eliminates pro-inflammatory foods: red meat, gluten, dairy, caffeine, and fructose.  I did very well foregoing red meat and gluten. I also gave up fruit without a fight. (I already limit my fruit consumption to berries most of the time because of their sugar content.)  I limited dairy to about 1/8 or 1/4 cup in my morning coffee. And I drastically reduced my espresso consumption. I gave myself a pass when faced with a writing deadline. I just did not want to struggle with a caffeine-withdrawal headache while trying to produce an important piece of persuasive writing.

Other aspects of the detox were more challenging. I didn’t find the discussion forum useful. It was too big and too hard to find my way back to conversation threads. And I don’t like reading questions from people who would rather ask 1,000 people than look something up for themselves. “Let me google that for you” comes to mind.

Another fail for me was limiting screen time and going to bed early. I stay up too late, like to read and like to chat with friends. A lot of my work is “on-line” connecting with people in different time zones around the world.

I thought (hoped) I would lose more weight than I have. I think the two-shakes-a-day put the brakes on. I had been losing pretty steadily until that point. Maybe too many carbs? But right now, the weight loss is stalled. We’ll see what happens as I transition back to a regular meal plan.  I will return to Low-Carb High-Fat “Green Paleo” (of my own invention).

If you’re interested in more information about the meal plan I’ve created for myself, let me know.

Stay tuned for the final results later this week.