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Writer's pictureCandy Irven

Day 140: Self sabotage

Updated: Dec 29, 2021


ALT_11.24.13

To my horror, Man of the Year was in.  Guess I caught him in a weak moment also.  Kilo held to her guns and said she’d support from the sidelines.  We agreed to start on Monday (three days ago)

Like before, we went together to pick up our three day supple of juice…not smoothies…juice.  


At 8:30am we started to down our first of six with 14 ounces of juice to follow roughly every two hours till we hit #6.  Unfortunately for me, I hate the last one so much, I end up doing five per day…which just adds to the agony.

I think I was on an adrenaline high on Day 1 because I was surprisingly upbeat and energetic.  I’d decided to do the cleanse as a means to realign my eating habits.  Eating a Paleo-friendly diet is never easier than following a cleanse.  Being able to chew again is such a reward that it doesn’t matter if the food isn’t drowned in melted cheese and ketchup.  

So that was the plan.  Three days of a cleanse and then Paleo….then Day 2 hit.  I woke up groggy…drained of energy…struggling to put sentences together.  Not only did my body feel weak but my brain wasn’t working properly.  It felt like I was moving through…and thinking through…a dense fog.

I made it to juice #5 before I lost it.  I’d messaged Man of the Year earlier in the day to tell him it was too much.  I wasn’t feeling right and wanted a burger. He was still in it to win it and encouraged me to hang on.  We were over halfway through the cleanse….we could do this.

As I drank juice #5 — which happens to make me feel nauseous — I asked myself why?  Why was I making myself so miserable?  You don’t really lose weight on a cleanse…sure, it’ll make Paleo seem like a treat but I’d successfully done 30 days of Paleo before without a cleanse to set me up.  And I felt great on Paleo!  Now, I felt awful….it was nearly impossible for me to engage with the rest of the world.   I was overwhelmed and under nourished.

Again…why was I doing this?  Why didn’t I bail the moment I started to feel so bad?  Was it about the money…pride…competition…control….?  I finally told myself that I needed to listen to my body and get out of my way.  My body said it was hungry and wanted to eat.  And that’s what I did after I messaged Man of the Year and Kilo to tell them I was out.  The juice had won.

After getting down on a chicken finger basket (I know, not a healthy choice but we were at a baseball game so I had very limited options), I let the question of why sit…and percolate.

When I woke up this morning, I had an answer.  Self sabotage.  It’s not like I don’t have enough things I’m juggling right now…the boyfriend, new puppy, new job, new business, questions about the future.  Despite all that, I felt like I was finally starting to fall into a rhythm.  I was managing to balance everything and feeling pretty good about it.

Only makes sense that I’d want to throw in a juice cleanse…which I know from previous experience makes me feel emotional…out of balance…drained.  Of course, that’s what I should throw into the mix.  Why not try to test the patience of those around me and myself by further stressing my body…?

But we do it all the time.  It’s a phenomenon that we can’t explain.  When things start to feel good…maybe too good…we introduce some new outside stressor to create waves.  Then we sit back and watch the fall out…and wonder why everything that felt so good now feels so chaotic.

Maybe it’s because we’re human and we’re trained to constantly push from a young age.   Maybe it’s because we’re just stupid and can’t allow ourselves to be happy.  Maybe we are self punishing for some unknown guilt we’re carrying.  


Whatever the reason…who cares…I for one am going to try to stop self-sabotaging.  There’s already enough curve balls throw our way without stepping up to the mound and pitching one square in your own forehead.

Happy chewing!

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