Friday 4th Sep: Meet Lips Read

Hi, I’m a dessert queen. Currently going through a home made apple crumble phase made entirely from scratch, but just recovered from a red velvet phase, so I’m getting better, at least now fruits are involved. As a relatively fit newly turned 33 year old I haven’t been overly concerned about my health. Outside of noticing extended hangover recovery times and the odd out of nowhere twinge here and there, I would vary between not really thinking about it to irrational hypochondria and visions of impending death.

Then, my mum introduced me to this concept called Go Juice Detox a new way to both ascertain your true state of health and a programme to improve any detected red flags. She’d lost a stone and a half in five weeks, that was probably the incentive for me rather than undoing calcified intestine walls if I’m honest. I went for the consultation to do the health scan along with my gran, who was also a convert after my mum’s glowing reviews about the indepth nature of the health report you receive at the end of it.

We arrived at the office, I placed my hand around a metal cyclinder (similar to an athlete’s baton) and feeling a bit like Sam from Quantum Leap was thoroughly scanned whilst viewing the varying levels on the computer screen. It was disappointingly feeling-less - not even a jolt to declare that my body was engaging with some kind of cosmic force - and when I handed it over, I was still in 2015 - Oh Boy.

Next came a spherical object similar to a large computer mouse - or the three fingered alien imprint that Arnie’s fighting to get his hand into at the end of Total Recall, depending on how you want to look at it. This one took even longer and also contributed to the yes extremely detailed report that we then discussed.

The report sort of employed a traffic light system, red for issues that you’re already probably feeling symptoms of, amber for potential issues and green for everything’s cool - and went from your liver to your reproductive organs. I mention liver as a few years ago I was told by the doctor that I had a slight imbalance of hormones which many people have that goes undiagnosed. Apparently I didn’t require medication, just six monthly blood tests to ascertain their levels. Yep, you guessed it, the report identified an issue there as well as my kidneys (I’d always wondered why I needed to go to the loo so frequently - I’d always blamed a weak bladder but the Go Juice consultant now assured me it was connected to the kidneys- who would have guessed?).

So anyway, long story short, a few of my secret fears were flagged, nothing major, as well as a predisposition to cling onto fat (although fairly “normal” sized my weight can fluctuate kind of dramatically at times) and I always believed this to be true (as I guzzled down heaped spoonfuls of Ben & Jerrys) so I was pleasantly surprised, much more impressed than I’d thought I’d be, my gran apparently had the same trait. Whilst you might get the news of the dire state of your internal organs, thankfully you get the good news too, the solution. I was informed that there was hardly a condition or red flag that couldn’t be in someway improved or solved by the programme - and that’s when he directed me to look at the cabinet with boxes of people’s old medication they’ve no longer had to take as a result of a programme of helping the body to heal itself through the use of fresh vegetables, selected fruit, mineral flushes (in tablet form), fibre shots and oxygen (not the usual kind). I was fired up.

That was over a week ago. I was ready to try, the only thing holding me back has been myself. No point subjecting myself to this (I’ve heard about the purge phase!) and then going back to normal habits - apparently something tastefully called parasites will return (these pesky cretins live in our guts and are responsible for our sugar cravings-I knew these desires were bigger than me!) so anyway - if I was going to do this, I wanted to do it properly. So thus ensued a bit of a feast delay period whereby those biscuits/microwave popcorn/Kettle chips (delete at will) had to be consumed post haste. I made it my mission, supplying the cretin parasites with their last meal before death, it was only right - they were old friends.

So that’s where I am today. About to embark on a health journey that may be difficult to navigate...who knows if I’ll finish or fall victim to lack of will power/parasite re-infestation, let’s see. All I need to do is ensure I stay consistent both to the programme and my chronicling of it. At the end, I get to do the scans again to see what has improved, then begins a bloody lifetime of new eating habits. Whoopee. But apparently once you get into the “mode” you won’t want the old junk (un)food anymore. I’m going to start calling it that to reprogram myself into seeing my beloved processed crap for what it really is - synthetic fodder designed to curb your hunger rather than nourish you. Which last time I checked is what food is supposed to do. It’s a new way of thinking people, Matrix red pill/blue pill time and I HOPE I’m up to the challenge (said through gritted teeth). Shit, I’ve big talked it so much now, I better succeed - at the very least if the scales drop by a few levels, who am I to complain...Enough already.

Signing off.

LR