Juice Cleanse Day #1: The death of my stubborn, stubborn will.

How can I put this, exactly?


A juice cleanse is NO JOKE, people.  I've been alternating between feelings of intense nausea and extreme starvation all day long--whoever says that a diet of fruits and vegetables will give you tons of energy and make you feel TERRIFIC is full of sh#!, and I'm beginning to think this is all one, big Internet hoax.  Except that Gwyneth Paltrow is a proponent of the juice cleanse, and she doesn't seem to have a sense of humor, so that's saying something, I guess.


All things considered, breakfast wasn't so bad.  I had 1.5 apples, an orange, a cup of strawberries and half a grapefruit (nasty)...juiced.  We made it through church and the donut tables, and then headed home for a "veggie" lunch, before meeting friends at the mall food court, to live vicariously through our children, whom we loaded up on MSG.  Here is where we tried our first veggie juice, and it was one of the most painful physical experiences of my life.  OF. MY. LIFE.  Lunch was the "juiced" equivalent of a half a sweet pepper, tons of baby carrots, tons of spinach and an apple.  Gag.  Double Gag.  Triple GAG.   But I chugged it in like, 3 minutes, and therefore went from being FAMISHED to bloated and burping veggie juice--and let me just tell you, that sucks.  


It took all of my willpower, but we made it through lunch, and the free Asian food samples and the smell, ohmygod the SMELL of pizza, but by 2:00 when I was tempted to eat a hamster, we went ahead and had another "juice" and then it became very clear that my body was shutting down, and I was *obviously* becoming a vampire--because I just couldn't keep my eyes open, and so I slept for 3.5 hours.  I'm not kidding.  It was the highlight of my day, because I don't recall being hungry or nauseous during that time; and so I am working on a plan to juice nyquil (it's got to be plant based, right?), and thus remain 98% unconscious for the next 13 days.  I simply need to time my 30 minutes of alertness with morning/afternoon pick-up schedules.  To the moms at my kid's school:  Don't be alarmed, I am on drugs, I am simply doing natural juices.  And at at the end of two weeks, I'm gonna look like a Cullen.


I think I forgot to explain WHY we're doing this exactly--mostly because I'm really not sure, particularly after juicing asparagus and wanting to remove my tongue.  This is supposed to be life-giving, and good for us and a way to clean our chemically abused bodies, but I'm not gonna lie--it feels an awful lot like death, however, I just assume that's the nutrients that are "changing" me.   We've sort of committed to living a year of radical choices and making life really interesting (and not sticking with our same old boring choices out of fear)--and then Mike saw this movie about juicing, and it all just clicked, and now we are being interesting people by killing ourselves with fruits and vegetables.  At the end of the day, it is GOOD for us to change our bad habits of only drinking diet coke; but it is also fairly obvious that GOOD choices are hard, and kind of gross, and sometimes gag-inducing.  Comfortable doesn't always mean BEST, but that's a fun little lie we're tricked into believing on a daily basis--the idea that shaking things up will damage or disturb us too profoundly.  It just isn't the case, friends.  Also, I don't really desire to drink this crap for the rest of my life; but I suppose that I'm done believing that I couldn't be trained to tolerate it.   This is completely an exercise in examining my boundaries, friends--because when we convince ourselves that we don't like or can't handle certain things, eventually we put BIG limitations on what we are willing to try or what we are capable of.  This is, simply, an experiment in trying something new and seeing where it takes us.


I'm *hoping* to end up in a land where I am 10 pounds skinnier.  And being able to climb trees and run really fast and sparkle like diamonds in the sun wouldn't be so bad either.