And on the 12th day of meat and vegetables my true love gave to me... a good amount of energy and mental clarity.

I think I've turned the corner for the most part and am feeling really good overall. I'm getting enough carbs to sustain my energy, but not spike blood sugar and insulin so my energy has been very sustained. I'm also sleeping well, although I've been getting to sleep much later throughout this experiment than I'd wanted to.

So at this point I have no negative effects to report. However, I'm getting really excited about being able to eat fruit again soon!

Today I ate how I've been eating and made a great stir fry with chicken, tomatoes and jalapenos.

I took the same supplements as yesterday both for general support (these are all very, very helpful for general health and efficient detoxification) as well as support for my hearing which I have had issues with as mentioned in previous posts (The Vitamin A, C and E combo has strong evidence in hearing protection as does magnesium). My supp's consisted of:

1. Wide spectrum vitamin E sofgel (Tocosorb by Jarrows) - This is far superior to your regular Vitamin E supplement. the term "Vitamin E" refers to 8 naturally occurring compounds that function as antioxidants. Typically, Vitamin E products that you'll find use a synthetic, isolated form of Vitamin E called alpha-tocopherol which can do more harm than good by creating imbalances. However, Tocosorb and others like it derive a wider of the Vitamin E family, called tocotrienols and tocopherols, naturally from palm oil. So you get vitamin E much more balanced and closer to how it's found in nature, providing you with all of the cholesterol reducing, anti-aging/healthy-aging, brain function supporting benefits without any of the potential down side. Additionally, Tocosorb contains no soybean oil (read about the dangers of soy) like most other mixed tocopherol/tocotrienol brands which . 

P.S. - There are tons of real life benefits associated with mixed tocopherol supplements including the potential to decrease hair loss!  

If you wanted an even broader spectrum (but more expensive) option you could always go with Mercola's brand Vitamin E which has all 8 Vitamin E compounds. And don't worry, there's no soybean oil in this one either.

2. 200 mg Magnesium Malate (AOR brand) - Magnesium is essential for life and unfortunately, today's human beings are generally speaking, greatly deficient in the mineral. It's incredibly important for your body to operate and has a great number of benefits in terms of supplementation that include better heart health, benefits to hair growth, reduction in anxiety and depression, relief of constipation and so on...

AOR brand is a bit expensive, but I believe in the quality. That being said, the best deal I've found on magnesium malate has to be Source Naturals brand.

3. 25,000 IU Vitamin A (Thorne Research brand) - Preformed Vitamin A is essential for many processes in the body (it should be in balance with your vitamin D levels for max effect), but right now I'm taking it mostly to support my hearing as I travel to band practice.

4. 1,000 mg Lypo-spheric Vitamin C (LivON Laboratories brand) - Lypos-spheric vitamin C is awesome stuff which can be very helpful when your body is detoxifying and needs some support. Vitamin C is an antioxidant which has been touted for its benefits to overall health for years. The added benefit of Lypo-spheric C over regular vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, is that it is much more easily absorbed, you can take more of it and it's somewhat comparable in effect to intravenous vitamin C therapy. I take this whenever I find myself coming down with a cold or feeling like my immune system needs some support and it always helps. I'm taking it now because my body has seemed to be detoxifying intensely throughout the diet and I happened to have some on hand. So I figured I'd go for it!

Anyway, that's all for today. If anyone ends up taking any of these supplements or has in the past let me know what you think of them! I'll start checking in every other day now through the end of the experiment unless I have something significant to report.

Talk to you soon!

-Rob