No coffee and no food: Now that's an exclusive getaway

You may remember that the last time we talked, I was about to go to a fasting clinic in Santa Rosa, where I paid a lot of money to not eat anything.

You might think it would be cheaper to stay there if your meals were not included, but no. It actually costs more, because they have constant medical monitoring to make sure you aren't going to eat the paint off the walls or anything.

Seriously, the doctors and nurses started coming around at 7:30 a.m. and keep coming until 7 p.m., asking you endless intrusive questions about your bodily functions. They wanted to make sure they're all still working OK despite your lack of food. I wanted to throttle them.

I learned this the hard way, because I slept in the first morning, only to be awakened by a painfully cheerful nurse who demanded to know how much I weighed that morning and what my blood sugar level was.

I looked at her groggily through the one eye that I'd managed to pry open and tried to be polite. “Um, I don't know?”

For those of you who haven't kept up, I went to the True North Health Center up in Santa Rosa for eight days in order to detox and reset my eating habits, which had grown to be atrocious. I had even begun to consider frozen pizza as “food.” Many years ago, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and I immediately embarked on a healthy-eating, wholefoods, plant-based lifestyle that brought my blood sugar down to normal without meds and also made me feel 10 years younger. Seriously, it did.

Then, of course, as some of you know, I got a pesky bout of cancer that I still haven't been able to get rid of. Cancer loves sugar, so experts recommend getting as much sugar and crappy “food” substances out of your body as possible. However, I was deeply in the throes of what many of you are familiar with – a processed food addiction.

The more processed food you eat, the more you want. And it seriously will freaking kill you. C'mon. Everyone knows that. But I was like an alcoholic who wouldn't stop clutching my bottle.

So, yeah, that's why I went to True North – to detox, and to have a major attitude adjustment.

When I arrived on a Sunday, I met with my doctor, who was a real MD, by the way. He specializes in food as medicine. He immediately took me off all my medications and supplements except a half-dose of thyroid meds. Yes, I said ALL my meds. That's the kind of thing they do there. And one of the reasons they monitor you so closely.

Then, I learned to my horror that water-only fasting included NO morning coffee. None. Zippo. If I had it to do over again, I would probably smuggle in some Nescafe. Sorry, doc.

So, to recap, you get no coffee, no food and no meds. And it's just as much fun as that sounds. There are tons of people there who stay for weeks, not only water fasting but also juice fasting or learning to eat their super-healthy food, which is plant-based and has no salt.

That's right. No lowsalt. Zero salt. It's like no one there ever read “King

Lear.”

Yes, you do get hungry. You drink at least five glasses of water a day, which tastes good but not as good as food. However, hunger does come in waves, and you can wait it out. From previous fasts, I knew that the worst is usually over in three days. At a certain point, you just lose your appetite, and your body starts burning the fat of the land instead. My land has a lot of fat, so it could burn for a long time.

There are a lot of myths about fasting, like it will kill you, blah blah blah. At True North, people can fast up to 40 days with medical supervision, and they're fine.

I did find that I was weak as a kitten. The trip from the bedroom to the bathroom was an exciting adventure.

The first thing I did when I left was get a cup of coffee. Sorry, doctor. I was a failure. And, yes, you do lose weight, but a lot of it is just water fleeing your body when it realizes what's going on.

A week after I got back, I definitely feel healthier. I'm only eating vegetables that I have cooked myself. OK, so I am salting them a little, but I went through my freezer and threw away a mountain of crappy pseudo-food. I can even watch my son eat an ice cream sandwich and not want one.

If I've made this place sound irresistible, you can learn more at healthpromoting.com.

I'm supposed to go back for a three-week fast after Thanksgiving. I told myself I can skip it if I get healthy enough. Let's see what happens.