Oh glorious flavors! How I have missed all of you!

I started the day (after my last salt water flush and accompanying butt tsunami) with a juice recipe I got from my friend Linda. It’s effing awesome, and not just because it wasn’t lemonade. It’s easy, too. Throw an apple, a pear, and a handful of spinach into the juicer. Tada. I put mine over ice.

For lunch I made a salsa juice. 1 onion, 4 tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, one seeded jalapeno,  and a handful of cilantro. It was pretty good, too.

I guess I sorta skipped dinner, but that’s okay because although I can feel my body is hungry, I’m totally okay. I snitched a few spoonfuls of the saag shorba I made for Megan. I know that soups & broths are tomorrow, but I had to make sure it tasted good for her, right?

So right now I have a half-pitcher of raw V8 juice in the fridge, some left over saag shorba for tomorrow, some home-made tomato sauce (the saag shorba called for it and I didn’t want to use canned with all the sugars and everything so soon after my cleanse), and a stock pot full of veggies simmering on the stove making my vegetable stock for tomorrow’s broths and soups.

The hardest part is holding back and patiently rejoining the world of normal food. Seriously, I was putting stuff away and I opened our snack cupboard and had to consciously step away and close the cabinet so I didn’t dive into a bag of sour cream & onion chips.

I imagine it’ll take me some time to completely break some of these habits and urges, but that’s cool. What I know now is that I’m up for the challenge.

It’s Sunday morning. I fell asleep last night before I blogged, so this is the blog for yesterday.

It was my last day of lemonade, and I’m ever so grateful. I only managed to get in the requisite 48oz, but I satisfied the requirement and that’s what’s important.

I went over to mom and dads today for my niece’s birthday party and spent an hour or so explaining why I was doing the cleanse and what I’d learned. Dad even tried some of my lemonade, but he wasn’t a fan, stating “lemonade and cayenne are clearly not meant to go together!”

Later in the day I went to a birthday celebration for one of my friends. He’d chosen India House as the location, which I KNEW was gonna be torture. Just walking in and smelling all the curries and spices just about did me in. As I sat there drinking my water, watching them look over the menus and explaining to some of the group that had never tried Indian food before what was good and what things tasted like, I thought to myself “this is the last OFFICIAL day of your cleanse, and it’s near the end, anyway. You could order something and still not feel like you cheated at all. After all, the ease out isn’t really a part of the cleanse, it’s just a gentle way to get you back into real food. Why not start with something gentle like saag shorba?”

Yeah, even 13 days in and after 10 days of lemonade, there are still difficult moments. I left when their food arrived at the table, just because I really think I would have cracked.

Anyway, I’m gonna finish drinking my salt water for the last time. I’ll write more tonight.

I hate lemons. I seriously do. The only thing that makes drinking the lemonade bearable is the fact that it’s the only thing I can have. I have no intention of eating another citrus fruit (even limes, which I love and are an integral part of the gin and tonic I so enjoy) for at least 6 months.

I just finished my last cup of tea, and tomorrow will (hopefully) be my last butt-tsunami.

Tomorrow is my last day of this lemonade shit, and it has come none too soon.

On the agenda for tomorrow? Find juice recipes and go buy a bunch of non-citrus fruits and a bunch of vegetables and prepare to start easing back into regular food.

Did I mention that I’m tired of the lemonade?

I couldn’t bring myself to mix my third bottle of it when I got home today (I’ve been drinking three 24oz. bottles a day), so I got in my requisite 48oz. of the lemonade shit and I’m satisfied with that.

I effing hate lemons.

I’m bored with this lemonade shit. I need some variety, I’m so done with this. I can deal with the hunger, but this one flavor all day long… man, oh man.

All throughout my day I read recipes from Food Network and imagine the flavors and textures. Am I torturing myself? Hell, it’s what got me through the day today!

I just keep telling myself that I can do this – 2 more days, then I can drink some juice. I’ve got a few different recipes for a V-8 like drink that I can’t wait to try! I’ve never liked V-8 unless I was using it to flavor something I was cooking, but man I’m hankering for it right now!

I’m cold all the time. I’m never cold, especially my hands. My hands are almost always hot. I use them to warm up Megan all the time. Not lately, always cold. I don’t know why that is, so if one of you do, please tell me.

Some of you have asked which cleanse this is or what it’s called, and have also requested details on my daily routine.

It’s called The Master Cleanse, and I learned about it from some of my friends who had done it. It’s basically a 3-day period weaning yourself off food, 10 days of drinking lemonade and “shitting” (it’s more like butt-tsunamis) salt water, and 3 days of easing back to normal food. 16 days. Think about that one before you decide to try this. I know it’s been more of a challenge than I thought, and I can be a stubborn sonofabitch. Just sayin’.

My daily routine goes something like this:

6:30  wake up and drag my crack outta bed.
6:45  make my saltwater flush (1 T sea salt, uniodized + 1 liter pure water filtered through my Britta pitcher)
7:00  finish drinking salt water and wait. While I’m waiting I make my lemonade (juice from 2 lemons, 6 T Grade B maple syrup, 1/4 t cayenne pepper, 24 oz pure water)
8:00-8:30  make several trips to the bathroom for salt water tsunamis
8:45  head to work
9:00 – 12:30  drink 24 oz lemonade and at least 24 oz pure water
12:45  home from work for lunch, make more lemonade
1:15  go back to work
1:20 – 6:00  drink 24 oz lemonade and at least 24 oz water
6:15  home. make more lemonade
6:30-10:00  drink 24 oz lemonade and at least 24 oz pure water. Putz around the house, surf the net, watch tv, hallucinate about food.
10:00 make laxative tea, appropriately named “Smooth Move”
10:30  bed time

So there it is. My day starts with salt water tsunamis and ends with a laxative tea to prepare for the next days tsunamis, and it’s filled with spicy lemony goodness in between. Good times.

PSA: when the instructions on the box of laxative tea state that you will take a dump in 6-12 hours, plan on the lower end of the scale.

I went to bed a bit early last night, and so I was drinking my teat by around 9:00PM. I was awakened just before 4:00AM by my stomach and bowels letting me know the tea had worked.

And now it’s 10:00PM, and I’m tired because I was awakened by my damn tea doing it’s job.

I am noticing, at least today, that it’s getting easier. I’m still hungry, but now I feel like I’m on the down side. I’ve made it past halfway, and I can do this.

I bought a juicer today, too. I’m going to cheat a little on the ease out and try a few different kinds of juices in addition to the OJ and Sunday, which will be the first day of the ease out. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m really digging that I’ve lost so much weight, though, because I put on a shirt that used to fit me a little too tight tonight and it fit perfectly. Nice! I know I said I wasn’t doing this for the weight loss, but I’m kinda digging that aspect. That, and the fact that my BP is down make this worthwhile all by themselves.

I’m still hungry, though.

I don’t mind the lemonade so much.

I don’t mind the laxative tea every night, either. In fact, if it didn’t have laxative properties, I’d probably drink it all the time because it tastes pretty good.

I don’t even mind the salt water flush each morning, and the liter of salt water I have to drink each morning as part of that.

But I am having a really hard time with this hunger.

Ghandi is some kinda super hero or something. What’d he go, something like 80 days or some shit?

I’ve noticed that I’m pretty okay hunger-wise through most of the morning. Like, I can make it to noon, no problem. Then I go home for “lunch” and mix a new batch of lemonade, which only gts me to about 4:00 pm or so. By 5:00, I’m debilitatingly hungry, and it doesn’t let up until around 9:00.

Five more days. That’s what I keep telling myself. “Just make it to Saturday night” I repeat over and over and over.

I’ve started to have very lucid imaginations (hallucinations?) about food. An ad comes on TV and I can actually feel the texture of the food in my mouth as I watch it on TV.

I’m not at a point where I’m ready to throw in the towel – I’m totally going to make it through all 16 days. It’s just fascinating.

Almost as intewresting? I still talk about food all the time, only now, it’s “how can I cook this healthier” kind of things.

Anyway, not gonna say much because I’ve just finished The Oscar’s and I want to go to bed.

Sorry for not writing last night, spent the evening watching movies snuggled up with my sweetie, and feel asleep halfway into (500) Days of Summer.

I’ll tell you this, though – this isn’t getting any easier. My brain is really starting to mess with me. I notice food EVERYWHERE! We were watching The Blind Side, and I was just about drooling over the bag of Taco Bell that Sandra Bullock set on the counter in one scene, and it was all I could do to not leap out of my seat and start licking the television set when they served Thanksgiving dinner.

My friend Liv told me this would be hard, and on day 4, I thought I’d be okay. This is probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done, and the self-discipline this requires from me is unbelievable. I honestly don’t know if I’ll make it all the way. I can only do this one day at a time.

Tuesday will be halfway, right now that’s my goal – make it half way.

Megan says I smell like a tree-hugger. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I don’t think it was a good thing.

Do you realize how many advertisements of food surround us?! Yeah, me neither until today. SerioUSly! Radio, TV, Newspapers, magazines, BILLBOARDS DRIVING DOWN THE FREEWAY!!!

Needless to say, today has been a VERY challenging day for me. From about 2:00pm on, I have been craving all different kinds of foods (some of them even god for me, like salads!). And it’s not like a PHYSICAL hunger. I mean, yeah, I’m physically hungry, but this has been my brain just straight-up FREAKING OUT about food today. These cravings are 100% mental, and it’s killing me!

The good news? I’m learning the difference between what my body wants and needs, and what my brain tells me I crave. Neat lesson, but since I’m right in the middle of it, it’s not all that enjoyable. Megan and I went to see Alice in Wonderland tonight, and the smells of the popcorn, the pizza, the nachos… well, it just about did me in.

My brain was starting to run through all the solutions and possible ways to end this cleanse and start eating again. Things like “well, the doctor recommended it” and “as long as you eat healthy from here on out, you’ve accomplished something!” and even “this whole cleanse thing is ridiculous and really isn’t making any difference long-term, so lets just enjoy something NOW!”

Well, as I sit here sipping my laxative tea, just know that I made it through the day without breaking, and now I’m going to sleep.