I am packing tonight, again I am packing.

Tomorrow I am heading to Nelson with a friend to take on a Seven Day Fast at something called a Wellness Centre.  Seven days, no eating.  Our diet will apparently consist of juices, supplements and  herbs. We will be dry brushing. We will be gently walking. We will be sitting in the sauna. We will be stretching. And I’m pretty sure we will be really fucking hungry.

Nervousness and excitement are slugging it out between my ears. A friend has recommended it, reckons boredom is the toughest part, but she’s a cleaner creature than me in the ingestion department, so I’m only partially believing her reportage.   Another acquaintance has told me of his fasting life: I’ll feel cold, and alive, my senses will be on fire, the first two days are the hardest and I won’t sleep much. Oh, and I’ll have amazing dreams.  He said it’s quite ‘druggie’. That sounds fabulous. 

In preparation for my  digestive system’s vacation I’ve been coffee, sugar and alcohol  free for seven days. Damn that my skin and eyes have already lost  five years, that I’ve already doubled my energy, that I’m sleeping like a princess with no pea, that I’m waking enthusiastically early.

There’s a part of me that would prefer to notice little improvement, so I can validate my slide back into an evening wine or two or three, some chocolate on the run, a trim flat white to go please. There’s a part of me that wants these habits exorcised.

There’s probably a whole lot of new parts of me I’m about to discover. Like hipbones. 

I’m doing this because I want to know what it feels like to be detoxified, to be completely clean. The really fascinating bit will be what I do with the information my body shares.