Melina

finished

2007-05-03T21:56:22Z

Today is orange juice and vegetable broth day for me. I decided to end a day early to give my body the 2 full days it needs to recover because Im pigging out on cinco de mayo. Horray! Orange juice is wonderful and im slowly eating popcorn which is cheating, but i couldnt resist!

Day 7

2007-04-30T19:44:08Z

Im really bad at writing in daily journals generally, and livejournal is no exception. So this is day 7, and im so close, yet so far from eating food.

Days 3 and 4 were the worst for me, and I was so so close to quitting, if it wasnt for the support of all my housemates, especially Jesse. He's taking me to Urban (outfitters) this week to buy me a dress, as motivation =) There really is a period where your mind and body conspire to make you doubt yourself, and you start to convince yourself that there's no reason to do this. You forget all the reasons you wanted to do this in the beginning, and dont care. But you have to ask yourself: are you in any physical pain? Are you having hunger pangs? Do you feel really tired and cant go about your day normally? If your answer to any of these is yes, then you should stop, but in my case, i didnt experience any of this, i just wanted to EAT, dammit. Its all about willpower. I have absolutely no willpower, and if i didnt have people around me not letting me eat and encouraging me to finish, i wouldn't have made it thus far. Hopefully my newfound willpower will help me say no to bad foods after this is over and I will be able to eat healthier.

And if you have made it past like 3 or 4 days, you cant just stop drinking the lemonade and go out and buy a huge burrito because you will throw it up. After being without food for this long, your system is not yet ready to digest regular food and you need to ease back into food, which is another reason to keep going, since if you do decide to quit, you need to go another day with just liquids and soups. So, because of this, even though Thursday is my last day of my cleanse, Friday is orange juice and vegetable soup day, and i cant eat normally till Saturday. You should do orange juice and veggie soup the following 2 days after you are done, but we are having a cinco de mayo blowout on Saturday at my house, and i will be cooking, so i will be eating haha.

Day 3

2007-04-27T19:58:20Z

Day 3 sucked. Felt like i was getting a cold and my throat hurt all day. I was REALLY missing the act of eating, chewing food and just tasting the different flavors of food haha. Im deprived, but determined. Well, not too much to say except it was the worst day yest and hopefully today will be better. Toodles.

Day 2

2007-04-26T05:25:33Z

Day 2: Sooo its the end of my second day and i still havent eaten/smoked/drank anything! Well its wednesday so i wouldnt drink but im very excited about not doing the first 2. Today at school they had a huge bbq grill outside and were GIVING away free hamburgers. You could smell it from anywhere on campus, and i work at Cabrillo so it sucked. Still havent been hungry at all, although i like to think about what my celebretory(sp?) meal will be when im done. I want to switch over to a leaner, healthier way of eating, since afterwards your body doesnt crave salty fatty foods cause its all out of your system. HUGE bonus today though: I lost 4 pounds in 24 hours!! yay! I weighed myself last night and i did again just now and i am very pleased. I know im going to gain at least half of it back, because a lot of it is just water weight, but im still happy about it. You lose a lot of old fat tissue on this cleanse, but it all has to be replaced when you start eating again, so ill try my best to make sure its good fat and not fosters freeze burgers and fries. Maybe just once, though. Well im drinking my tea and then its off to bed. Peace lovers.

Intro / Day 1

2007-04-25T19:18:58Z

So, after doing my research and reading The Master Cleanser by Stanley Burroughs, i have decided to do a detox program that requires me to not eat for 10 days, and instead sustain my body with a special lemonade recipe that cleans out my entire system. Its totally legit and its not gonna put me in the hospital, but it will rid my body of any and all toxins from drinking, smoking, eating like shit, etc. And it completely cleans your organs, cleans out your bloodstream and after 19 years of not really taking care of my body, i think its time. Think of it as pushing a restart button on your body and having everything be clean and new. Motivated by my house mate Alyson, who has done this 4 times, we are doing this together and i prepared myself mentally for about a week and im writing a journal for myself to keep track of my progress and maybe have a reference for anyone else who would like to try this. You can Google the program, Wikapedia has it, but before you do it, read the book, its really good and only like 50 pages.

Heres the basic outline of what im doing:

The night before you are supposed to drink your choice of any laxative tea
(which is necessary because although the lemonade concoction does have enough calories and nutrients to sustain your body and give you energy throughout the day, there isnt any fiber in it and you need it to um "assist" you in getting all that bad stuff out of your body)

Every morning, first thing, drink your laxative tea. I bought the senna leaf chocolate tea and its yummy.

Then after, i usually make enough lemonade to last me the whole day. This is the recipe for 1 serving of lemonade (which can all be found at Trader Joes, although i went to Costco for the lemons for me and Alyson):

2 tablespoons of organic lemon juice
2 tablespoons of grade b organic maple syrup (GRADE B)
and you add cayenne pepper to that, as much or as little as you can tolerate (the cayenne speeds up your metabolism and heats up your body since youre not digesting any food)

youre supposed to drink 6-12 servings of this diluted with 10 oz of water.

And have another cup of tea at night before bed.

and you CANNOT eat anything or drink anything other than the above. You cant even chew gum cause that has sugar and calories and other stuff that you will swallow and get into your system. Im looking into sugarless gum or wax to chew, but i dont know yet. No smoking of ANY kind and obviously no drinking. Another important part of making this work is breaking your diet and what you do after the 10 days, cause you cant just eat everything, but ill get into that later.

Day 1: I had my tea the night before, and so did jesse, since he was interested in doing it with me, although he quit after like 5 hours yesterday because he couldnt resist a burrito and cigarettes. I had class all day today and work right after, and i had so much energy and focus, more than usual. And the lemonade is reallly yummy. I wasnt hungry at ALL which really surprised me, and i was pretty much full all day. I think its the maple syrup that keeps you full. I had like 7 servings of the stuff and had my tea, and went to bed feeling good. My only complaint is i guess youre supposed to get a weird white coating on your tounge from toxins and Alyson says she usually doesnt get it till like 3rd or 4th day but I already have it and its gross. No kisses for me.

Day 2: Going well so far, had my tea in the AM, went to class and im just now having my first water bottle of lemonade. Ill probably update in another entry tonight.

Warning: may be boring

2007-02-08T22:50:19Z

Today, for the first time, I have a clear perspective on what i want out of school, what I will do/study and where its gonna happen. My outlook on what Ive wanted to pursue has changed considerably since I began college, but today I feel like a lot has been lifted off my shoulders.

At first, when I moved, I really felt like I didnt know (educationally) what I would accomplish in Santa Cruz. Soon after, i felt like I screwed myself over because I couldnt find any majors that I was really interested in, unlike SDSU, which I got frustrated with and left because of overcrowded classes, living situation, boyfriend situation, etc. I really was looking at communications and business, since SDSU has really great programs for both those, and I felt lost here, and almost felt like going back. Almost.

Then later, I found out that UCSC does have a business econ major. However, UCSC doesnt even have a business program, its more of a liberal arts major. Liberal like everything else in Santa Cruz, which isnt bad, but I pondered how seriously a liberal arts degree in business would be taken in the business world.

Anywaaaaay, long story short, after talking with several counselors here and UCSC, here is my plan and peace of mind for now:

Bachelors in Business Management Economics at UCSC
and then
get my MBA at SDSU

Sorry if youve read this far and found it uninteresting. But thats whats been going on in my life and im a lot happier this is figured out.

p.s. i am still in the process of accumulating credits for UCSC and will hopefully be attending next year (cross your fingers for me)

p.p.s. chelsea and jake are coming presidents day weekend. it will be great/awesome/amazing fabulous/fun/crazy and any other positive adjectives you can come up with =)

Warning: might be too mushy for many.

2007-01-04T00:59:02Z

Today marks exactly a year and a half that me and Jesse have "officially" been a couple =)

There has been some unofficial dating on and off since April/May 2004, but we set an official date for anniversaries sake. It had to be after high school since there was so much drama before we couldve really been together and happy. So 7/3/05 it is.

It is actually also the longest relationship i have ever been in, and it keeps getting better. Usually, at least in my experience, the relationship fades with time so it makes me feel good that im still happy and very very very in love.

I love his family and visit them if im in town and he's not, and his lil brother actually said to his parents that he hopes Jesse marries me haha. My family loves Jesse very much and consider him part of our family and have asked about marriage being in the future. Not like "so when you getting hitched?", more like "do you see that happening for you two?", and honestly, i dont know what to say to them.

It would be the best thing ever if it worked that way, but we're still so young, and still have a lot of growing up to do. We loved and trusted each other enough to deal with past relationships, endured almost a year of living 500 miles away from each other, and i moved 500 miles to be with him and we've learned to live together (because its not easy to adjust, FYI), so what else would we need to be sure? I dont know.

All i know is that im extremely happy with our situation right now and we will see what the future holds when we get there. I dont wanna get married till after college, but we could still get engaged while were in college, i guess. But, who knows? Certainly not me.

I might insert a string of cute pictures of us thoughout the years later, if i feel like it, but thats all for now =)

its all good.

2006-12-22T05:22:29Z

Lately, ive been in a state of nothingness. Im not sad or have any negative feelings. Just neutral and not very excited about anything. And i usually get so excited when christmas is almost here. Theres something about it when youre a little kid, and you really think theres a santa, and you really dont know what presents you'll get, and when you get it, its the most incredible feeling ever, and youre consumed by happiness and love. Dont get me wrong, theres love all around, but the holidays arent like that for me anymore. I am not looking foward to seeing my family in Los Angeles this christmas because everything i do or say will be under a microscope. How much weight ive gained/lost, what i do with myself now that ive moved away from home (somehow, the concept of college is so foreign to them, they must think im somehow lying about it), i just wish instead of speculating what i do with my life, they should just fucking realize that im not knocked up, im not married, i graduated high school and am bettering myself post high school. I know my aunts and uncles are just unhappy with their life and regret that their kids didnt even graduate high school, i dont need their support or their acceptance, i just need them to stop fucking gossiping about me amongst themselves. Havent seen the extended family since last christmas really, except on a few occasions, where through the grapevine, my mom heard that my aunt who baptized me as a baby said that i was so fat, my face looked completely deformed. But her two sons (my cousins who i love very much) are nearing 400 pounds and arent doing a thing about their health. Because of this, i guess, i dread christmas, and am hoping everyone has a better christmas than i will. Ill hope for the best and wish that one day, my extended family will find happiness and quit judging me and my family because we get along, we love each other, and we dont need material things to prove ourselves to other people. Sorry if this was hard to follow. dkfhklfhlj.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all

and chelsea, i need some santa cruz dates so i can request those days off work =)

last night

2006-12-08T22:17:01Z

Last night was pretty ridiculous on a lot of levels.

I decorated the house with christmas trinkets and ballons and it looked very snazzy. I was determined to not get fucked over on money, since the keg was like 100+ doillars. So i made it my mission to be the solo cup nazi, and only hand them out to people who made donations, since alcohol is NEVER free. The following events are out of order and choppy. We were watching seinfeld and i started drinking at about 7. A game of kings cup was initiated, with only the neighbors and us since no one had gotten there yet and after that, i felt like beer pong. After about 3 beer pong games with Jesse as my partner (won all 3), i continued to drink and before i knew it (and before anyone else got there) i was unable to monitor cups and collect money =( At some point, after a huge fight with Jesse (that i have no recollection of), i try to mend things with him by driving to jack in the box without anyones knowledge and getting him a couple chicken sandwiches, cheese sticks, regular fries, and seasoned fries, the remains of which are still sitting on the computer desk. I do not condone driving drunk and i think it was a very dangerous and stupid move and i thank my lucky stars there werent any sobriety checks at all on that busy street. I pass out before any of the guests arrive and wake up with a bit of a headache and a full stomach.

Bad Day

2006-11-15T22:13:01Z

things i am looking foward to (in no particular order):

getting paid
going home for thanksgiving
having a 2 month long christmas break
dinner
jesse getting better (so i can sleep)
this weekend

School is wearing down on me and i just want it to be over so bad. I went to math class last night and found out i did so bad on the test, i need to consider dropping it, so i dont fail. I miss 2 classes this whole semester and now i might need to drop it. Fucking lame. Work is so ridiculously boring sometimes, its almost not worth the money, but i cant quit. Im grumpy cause im hungry and i wont get to eat till 4. grr.