cleanse

sherry asked me tuesday night if i wanted to go on a detox diet with her. having already bitched very publicly about my gut on multiple occasions, and feeling like this two-week cold is lingering just a wee bit too long, i said alright. the schemata was no preservatives, no additives, lots of fruits and veggies. sounds harmless but very unlike me, you say? the girl who's only purchased fruit twice since moving to shanghai?

i'm on day 1, having been caught unprepared on the actual day 1 and eating everything in sight. (i had to get mentally ready.) what we didn't know about the detox thing (because we weren't adhering to a specific diet, just kinda reading shit online and deciding whether it sounded right, yes we are retarded) is that dairy and meats are pretty much no-nos (this was a consistency in my online trolling of weird hippie-dippy websites and insane people's testimonials about the lemon/cayenne pepper 'master cleanse' business). so here i am, committed to a week of essential veganism. one of sherry's coworkers (no doubt alarmed at the randomness of our 'detox plan') handed her a book on detox, something like the tao of detox although i could honestly be making that title up completely. and we are essentially adhering to that book's rules, which bans refined starches, meat and dairy, and processed shit. ('processed,' by the way, is a mighty wide definition. olive oil is apparently ok but whole wheat flour is processed. aren't they just squished versions of the original item? feel free to set me straight.)

anyone that knows me well will laugh when they read this. i put the prime in prime rib. i put the rib in, too, for that matter. i can eat more red meat than any woman and most men i know. i like vegetables and fruit, but i'm chronically lazy and chronically busy, and produce is perishable. so i stick to things with long shelf lives, like ramen (i buy the good ramen imported from japan, ok? lay off), and, uh, eggs (i eat them way past expiration dates), and... hm. rice? frozen peas. freezer-burnt chicken if i'm lucky. and tasty things that they serve in restaurants.

anyway, today is my first day so i will list for you what my diet has consisted of thus far (oh, and i got a nice delivery of organic produce today in preparation for my fas- sorry, cleanse. whatever. just read.)

• banana and natural peanut butter
• steamed asparagus and cherry tomatoes
• hummus (i'm pretending hummus is ok but it's probably not, although this hummus was inarguably just blended white beans and no tahini) and tabbouleh which smelled + tasted like feet so i threw it out.
• more hummus
• another banana
• raw almonds
• dinner was kale cooked with shallots and white beans. and a piece of sweet potato.

wtf? i can't eat tofu for some reason (maybe i made that up, i've noticed the only side effect i've been suffering from is acute memory loss), so i'm really up a creek on protein. i'm going to be a beanatarian for 7 days.

i'm including below the rather impressive and happy delivery i received this morning at 7:30 from american gardens, this great little organic produce farm near SH. see? i'm eating both locally (earth day) and i'm being healthier. sorry about the fact that you can really only see bag and not produce, but it was 7:30 am.





apparently days 2 and 3 are the hardest. i'm pretty energetic today but sherry is on day 2 and looks like she was flattened by a large and angry person, and she has a raging headache. apparently tomorrow and saturday i should feel like shit and be one of the bitchiest people on the planet (done and done). i dare to say it's not the toxins causing this, but the pervasive sense of COMPLETE AND TOTAL DEPRIVATION.

i can't believe i ate beans and friggin kale for dinner.