Cleanse Day 9, Part I: The MasterCard(R) Commercial

October 17, 2005

It's Day 9! One day before the last day! And that snarky chick is dead! I guess she met the Porcelain Grave like the other toxins.

• 19 Organic Lemons: $20.10
• 1 Bottle of Organic Grade B Maple Syrup: $9.99
• A pasta and cheese girl craving a tomato salad over spring greens with crumbled bleu cheese w/ champaigne baked chicken breast... totally and utterly frickin priceless.

I guess I should pause for some of you to pick yourselves up off the floor. If you know me at all... anything with "tomatoes and salad" in the same sentence sounds like crazy-talk. I'd better call mom and make sure she didn't have a massive coronary.

I walked into Wawa today to buy my son's school snack. About the only thing I buy there now is peanut butter crackers and yogurt. Even that's a stretch. Did you ever just look at the contents of a convenience store???? Yeah. Hmmm. Convenient place to breed disease.

I remember a local Wawa employee who lost a lot of weight and looked great. I asked her what she was doing. She loudly proclaimed "I stopped eating the food here." It took her a second to realize the oops. I guess the arrows flying out of her supervisor's eyes didn't help. But she was quite passionate about it. She shared with a whisper, "I took time to read the ingredients of the food we prepare here, and just couldn't eat it anymore." Wow. She didn't work there much longer than that. I wonder if she got in trouble for the remark or simply left after the revelation and change in health.

I started bi-monthly trips to Marlton NJ to visit Trader Joe's and Whole Foods long before I started the cleanse. Now, more than ever, I'm not comfortable in a convenience store or the local food market. By taking my mom with me, she has the same reaction when we miss a trip, and finds her way to our much-smaller local health food market.

In the book The China Study, the author declares that the state of disease in the U.S. comes down to three things: Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm sold. It's a new day.

Notes to those on the cleanse:

1. The body does regulate based on the new schedule. I find that my salt water flush works faster in the AM, and now I can make it through the night after Senna tea (without waking at weird hours for the Bathroom Dash.)

2. Organic limes are a nice change for two reasons (a) they cost less than lemons but give more juice per fruit LOL and (2) they add variety. Even with all the benefits of the cleanse, I find "food boredom" my worst enemy.

3. It's day 9 and I have one day left. I opted for the 10-day cleanse, but I'm already rethinking that decision. I look forward to breaking the cleanse on Wednesday and eating solid food by the weekend with the family. But, I don't look forward to deep-sixing the awesome physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of being on the cleanse. I may not "break" after tomorrow. More on that later...