"Ten Thousand Minutes of Hell, A New Dante Level"

I think successful weight loss is defined by the ability to put on previously tight jeans while (and this is key) standing in a very hot and humid place, like a steam room in a steamy country. So on the day my fast ended, I rose at the crack of dawn in Christmas-like anticipation for the spa restaurant to open. I pulled my pajama pants out very far in front of me, a la Subway Sandwiches commercials, and examined the now-sinewy neck gracefully extending from a decolletage I imagined myself in. At 7am sharp, I was barking orders to Helen Keller and her adroit staff; I'd been imagining this moment for 168 hours. Although I was supposed to "take it easy on the first meal," I ate Trish-style. I had two poached eggs, a plate of steamed vegetables (sadly, this was a requirement, or I'd have been replacing the veggies with streaky, chewy fried pig pieces), two bowls of goat yogurt sprinkled with bee pollen, and half a papaya. I nearly washed it all down with a glass of Barolo, but they didn't have any on offer.

At the end of this (entirely miserable, totally unlightening, and never to be repeated) experience, I've taken 217 herbal supplement pills, gagged on 21 bowls of salt-free (incidentally, taste-free, too) vegetable broth, sipped 14 coconut waters, and drunk 14 liver flush juices (that's the juice that's made from Greek salad dressing and orange pulp) and 7 carrot juices. I've spent a total of 140 minutes in the hottest steam room I've ever experienced in my life, and completed 540 minutes of yoga, with a finale of "Pah-tree-sha, your yoga poses today are just beautiful."

Now that it's all said and done, save my attempt to put on my previously tight-fitting jeans whilst in the world's hottest steam room, would I do it again? Really, truly, absolutely not. Normally after this fast, patrons of the spa are in ecstasy. They are on a mental high that some compare to that of a illicit drug use. One faster suggested coming off the fast was like mixing the "energetic high of cocaine with the happy high of heroine." Err, whatever. I hated every one of the ten thousand minutes I went without food; even during sleep I dreamed of buffets filled with chocolate chip cookies.

Well, I'm off to the steam room to try on my old jeans. What have you all been doing for the last ten thousand minutes? (Oh, P.S., in the interest of making certain I'd accurately referred to Dante, I took an internet-based quiz to find out which ring of hell I'd be spending eternity in. Apparently I'll be spending my time, and then some, in the fourth level of hell, where I'll be in the good company of all of those sinners who've "...wasted and lived greedily and insatiably..." Oh well, at least they'll have food down there.