For the past three months I've been Little Miss Sickly. It could be many parts stress and some parts working with sick kids. Regardless, I'm sick of it. Literally. And Jon claims that since we've gotten married and he's given up the bachelor diet of cereal for every meal, my cooking has not done much for his waistline. I've offered to quit cooking and let him go back to a cereal diet but he was never much for that idea.
Needless to say, we both decided that we need to work on being a little more healthy and so are doing a ten-day detox type of thing. We are both anxious to get this thing started, Jon because he wants to get through the full month program and me, because I want to get through this ten days and then back to feeling good. And, because I've got a lot of sacrificing to do, which I didn't realize until I read what I could and couldn't have.
* No dairy products
* No 'bad' carbs
* No coffee
* No alcohol
So the whole dairy thing, well, that is like taking the girl off the farm. I'm not a big milk drinker by any means, but it does mean I'm not making anymore smoothies in the morning with yogurt. And no more yogurt with granola. And no cheese. How does anyone get through the day without cheese? I mean it IS the four food groups: cheddar, mozzarella, colby-jack and Parmesan.
No bad carbs. And by bad carbs, that would be my beloved chips with salsa, and those wonderful little things called cracked pepper and olive oil triscuits. Oh, and anything that ends in potato. Who determines what a bad carb is anyway because no potato has ever done me wrong.
Unless one is from the Pacific Northwest, the coffee drinker/addicted capital of the world, then I don't know if you can understand the magnitude of this sacrifice. Me without coffee is like Sonny without Cher, The Dukes without General Lee, Hall without Oates, Vegas without Elvis, the South without Nascar, a rebel without his flag. I tried to give up coffee once and it lasted for three days, until I couldn't take feeling like my brain was doing everything it could to pound it's way out of my head while spinning cotton candy. I have already suggested to Jon that he may want to camp (read: live) out in the RV for a few days, for his own protection, while I adjust to life without coffee. Please pray for my family.
No alcohol, no problem nine days out of ten. Only because on my first day I'm going to be a big fat cheater. You see, it's girls night at my friends house and it's been an on-going tradition for a few years now that myself and two of my friends get together, have some snacks, a little red wine and solve all the worlds problems(at least according to Annie). This was planned well before hell-week was dropped on me and it would be incredibly rude of me to insult the hostess by refusing her offer of a glass of wine. So I won't. That's just the kind of friend I am.
So, for the next ten days I will be taking lots of vitamins, drinking gallons of water and protein shakes, eating tons of green leafy stuff, fish and chicken and hopefully come out this not just alive but feeling much better. I'm still a little wary about the thought of going ten days without coffee and I'm going to apologize in advance if I come across a little cranky on the Twitter. Feel free to send Jon messages of sympathy and humor as I'm sure he'll need them while he's camping in the RV out back.
