The Home Stretch

Days 6 and 7
The past two days have been full of pulp.  Pulp in and pulp out.  In fact, I've changed the term pooping to "pulping."  But at least I won't be carrying around that "roughage baby" for the next nine months.  Yesterday was kind of uneventful.  The highlight was discovering the deliciousness that is the pear banana blueberry smoothie.  I food-gasmed.  Twice.  I guess I hadn't realized how much I'd missed bananas.  A little later, Jake's hunger got the best of him, and he gave into a snack craving - a small serving of jalapeno ranch Chip-Ins (gluten free popcorn chips by Popcorn, Indiana).  Jerk.  I'm just kidding (kinda)... he's done far better and lasted far longer this week than I ever imagined he would, especially considering the wild game of musical cleanses I dragged him on.  He's not quitting our smoothies, but he needed to... supplement.  And he was feeling some majah guilt over his lack of willpower.  This is how the little cheater my darling husband spent his snack-time:

The bag of chips is under there with him. 

I did get in my Metamorphosis Level 1 Omnicentric muscular structure workout.  I am OUTTA SHAPE, though, lemme tell ya.  I hadn't worked out in over 2 weeks and have lost some lean muscle on the cleanse, and I could definitely feel it.  Level 1 is much less challenging by TAM standards (and my body was grateful last night!), but even so, I could feel a huuuuge difference doing it last night as compared to 6 months ago when I did it the first time.  I was more comfortable with the moves (having done them all before), my form was much better, and I could really feel the moves deep into the muscles.  It was almost like I could feel my accessory muscles waking up... but more like from a long nap rather than from the full-on comatose state they were in back in October.  It was encouraging.  I decided not to push myself too far and attempt cardio.  I was feeling pretty shaky, and I think I'm going to wait to start adding cardio until Monday.  After my workout, it all of a sudden occured to me that I've reached my weight loss goals.  (That pesky .2lbs of excitement "pulped" its way out.)  I kind of just sat there for a minute, absorbing this.  It's been such a long road that it feels odd (in a good way) to not have to be constantly trying to lose that next pound.  (Not that I was psycho about it, but it's always been in the back of my mind.)  It's all about maintenance now.  I'm planning to be careful, of course, but it's like I've been holding my breath for nearly two years and can finally let it out.  I have A LOT of work left to go in the toning and tightening department, but I know if I keep up with my workouts and eat in the "naturally thin" kind of way, I'll be able to wear my skinny jeans whenever I want.  It was a pretty amazing feeling, and one that I haven't felt in a long time.


Today I had a mid-morning hair appointment, so I was a little nervous about all the "pulping."  Thankfully, it was a non-issue.  It was amazing to get away from the kids and have nearly four whole hours of "me" time in the salon chair.  My blood sugar got a little out of whack since I kind of missed lunch, but I had a smoothie as soon as I got home and felt a lot better.  The most exciting part of the day was our trip to the grocery to buy SOLID FOODS. What, what?!  Ohhh, yeah - tomorrow we are CHEWING AGAIN.  We picked up some things for soup and salad.  We might even go CUH-RAZY and hit up Whole Foods for lunch.  I have been dreaming about the vegetarian wonderland of their salad bar.  I'm not a vegetarian, but that's the kind of food I've been craving.  (Okay, so I'd LOVE a grilled shrimp quesadilla, too, but I'm trying to ease myself back in a little here!)  The grocery trip was actually a little overwhelming.  I've had so little in the way of choices lately that the sudden unlimited amount of them has me filled with indecision.  I'm gonna have to pull out the cookbooks (that I've been avoiding like the plague!) and start getting ideas for the week.  I'm still going to be drinking smoothies (they were already a part of my everyday, or maybe every-other-day, life before the cleanse) for breakfast most days.  Caffeine will no longer be off limits, but I'm not planning to go back to my morning cup and a half of coffee everyday.  I hadn't even really been enjoying it anymore, at least not during the week.  I think I'm going to save it for weekend mornings when everything's more relaxed and I actually have time to sit and savor it.  That's not to say there won't be the occasional stop at Starbucks during the week, though.  I haven't gone completely off the deep end!  Tonight I still have to do my second day of Meta Level 1, but it's comforting knowing that it's the last time I have to do the moves... starting Level 2 tomorrow!

On The Juice

Day 5

Woke up with a sore throat today.  Boo.  It's the first one I've had since we moved to Hawaii.  I don't get sick often, so maybe this is a sign of toxins leaving my body.  It could also be from the weakened immunity that comes with cleansing.  Or maybe it's the universe mocking me for complaining about tasting cough drops!  Probably.  No midnight trips to the toilet last night, so that was a bonus.  I did have some movement first thing in the morning.  Made me feel worthy of this badge of honor a friend shared with me...

I got on the scale to check the numbers, and it read 120.2.  Actually, it read 120.0 the first time - seeing my goal weight stare back at me was wonderful!  So wonderful that I wanted to see it again and again, so I got off and back on several times just to make sure it was real.  The universe scoffed, and on the third or fourth attempt, it rose to 120.2 and stayed there.  Apparently, excitement weighs .2 lbs.  Sorry, Universe.  I'll try and contain it next time.  But .2 pounds wasn't going to put a damper on my day.  I grabbed my skinny jeans out of the "one day" pile and tried them on.  I was able to button them a couple weeks ago, but when I stopped sucking in for all my might, the muffin top made a full 360.  Not a good look.  (Though this doesn't seem to stop a lot of women from rocking it, does it?  Very unfortunate.)  Today, however, those puppies buttoned and NO MUFFIN TOP.  Woot! Woot!  I haven't been able to wear those jeans since July of 2009!  (Which was when Jake came home from Afghanistan and our Happily Ever After also became a little Heavier Ever After.)  I took the jeans off (before the universe decided to split a seam in the crotch!) and went downstairs to get my juice on.

I don't own a juicer, so I've adapted some recipes from The 3 Day Cleanse to fit my blender, so my "juices" will be more like smoothies.  Here's the menu for the next 3-5 days.

 
These are the ingredients for each smoothie.  I'll be adding enough liquid to each (coconut water, Silk Coconut Milk, or unsweetened vanilla almond milk, depending on what I feel like at the time) to get everything blending in my Vitamix.  I may also add a little stevia for sweetness, just to make some of these more palatable.

Greens w/ Apple

1 handful of spinach, 3 stalks kale, ½ of a cucumber, 2 golden delicious apples, 1 lemon, ½ a handful of parsley

Spinach Blueberry Apple Lemon

  1 handful of spinach, 2 c. frozen blueberries, 1 granny smith apple, 1 lemon

Spinach Carrot Pineapple

  1 handful of spinach, 2 medium carrots, 1/3 of a large pineapple, 1 lime

Apple Beet Pear Ginger

  2 small granny smith apples, 2 small pears, 1 beet, 1” piece of ginger

Pineapple Orange Celery

  1/3 of a large pineapple, 2 oranges, 3 stalks of celery, small handful of mint

Carrot Apple Parsley Beet Orange

  2 medium carrots, 2 granny smith apples, 1 beet, 1 orange, small handful of parsley

Carrot Apple Ginger

  3 medium carrots, 2 granny smith apples, 1’ piece of ginger

Pear Banana Blueberry

  2 pears, 2 fresh (not frozen) bananas, 1 ½ cups frozen blueberries, ice

Strawberry Banana

  2 cups frozen strawberries, 2 frozen bananas, 3 cups almond milk

Nut Milk

  1 c. raw nuts soaked 1 hour in 2 c. water and drained, 2 c. water, 3 tsp. coconut oil, ½ tsp. vanilla extract, 4 tsp. agave nectar, pinch of cinnamon, pinch of salt.

The first cup of the day was greens with apple.  It was pretty... bleck.  All I could taste was grass parsley.  But I'm not a fan of parsley anyway, so no big surprise there.  Will definitely be adding a packet of stevia to this one in the future.  But it was really filling, and it felt good to have that "bulk" in my stomach.  Mid-morning I had the apple-beet-pear-ginger.  I went ahead and added the stevia, just because I have had beets in my smoothies before and know how strong their flavor can be, plus my pears were hard as rocks.  It was SUPER tasty. And gorgeous!  So gorgeous, that I have to show evidence.

Isn't she pretty? TELL HER SHE'S PRETTY!  Oh, sorry... got carried away. 

I got to my "lunch" of spinach-blueberry-apple-lemon smoothie later than planned.  My baby girlfriend fell asleep on the couch, and so cherished is her silence naptime that I feared to bungle about the kitchen and wake her prematurely.  But once I finally drank it, it was tasty.  By the time I got to the pineapple-orange-celery, (which was pretty damn good, I might add) I was so full of fiber that I couldn't finish it.  I think the juice versions of these drinks are about 8 oz portions, but the my blender versions are running more like 10-20oz.  That's a lot of pulp.  So much, in fact, that I was looking 3 months pregnant by late afternoon.  Not exactly food baby... more like roughage baby.  THAT should be fun tomorrow.  I didn't have enough room to finish the spinach-carrot-pineapple, either.  It wasn't bad, but not the best, either.  I pushed my leftovers onto my son with a "Drink it. It's good for you." and a Look that said You Don't Have a Choice In This.  His first taste of it resulted in a wrinkled nose, but he sucked it up. (Literally, huh?)  I waited a couple of hours before attempting the cashew nut milk, just to give my gut some time to make room.  To quote Randy Jackson, "It was just okay for me, Dawg."  Kind of reminded me of canned coconut milk, but not so coconutty.  Within a few minutes, I could feel my stomach going, "What IS this? FATS?!"  I feared there might be an uprising, but the feelings passed.  I really like that this juice cleanse provides some healthy fats, because they'll help the body process all these fantastic nutrients in the juices.  And for the first time all week, I wasn't wanting to gnaw my arm off when I lay down for bed.  I'm thinking tomorrow that I might strain some of the smoothies to remove some pulp.  10lbs of roughage baby is not something I want to "give birth to" every day.

Road Rage & A New Phase

Day 4
I woke up again at 12:30am to a party in my tummy.  I dragged myself into the bathroom and waited for the unwanted guests to trickle out the exit.  I guess trickling out was better than everyone trying to leave at once... wouldn't want to wake the neighbors.  Went back to bed and slept okay - not as crappily (I'm making crappily a word - spell check can suck it) as the night before, but not as blissfully as the first night.  I decided to forgo the poop senna tea in the morning, because the morning dose seems to be kicking in right about the time I have to pick my kiddo up from school.  Waiting for 25 minutes in the pick-up line with a puckered butt-hole while praying things don't escalate into a "full blown shit-uation" (thank you for that, Parker), is not how I like to spend my afternoon.

Anyway, on to orange juice.  All of the Master Cleanse info I read said you should "ease out" of the lemonade diet for a few days to give your very rested digestive system a chance to wake up before you start shoving chili dogs down your pie-hole.  For day one of the ease out, they recommend drinking only freshly squeezed orange juice, before moving on to juices and broths on day two, and fresh fruits and veggies on day three.  So Day 4 of my re-vamped cleansing plan  is orange juice day.  I have to be honest and tell you I was having no part of manually juicing enough oranges for nearly a gallon of juice (had to have enough for Jake, too), so I shammed and bought sent Jake to go buy a couple of jugs of Simply Orange - some with pulp and some without, since I wasn't sure how my tummy would react.  Yes, Simply Orange is pasteurized and therefore probably lacking many important enzymes, and the nutrition police would probably issue me a citation if they knew (don't be narc'n on me, ya'll!), but it was easier to just grab have Jake grab the bottles and be done with it.  So first thing in the morning, I mixed up a glass of half pulp/half no pulp and took a sip to test the orangey waters.  It. Was. Delicious.  Part of me wanted to grab a jug and go straight OTB until no drop remained.  But I stayed cool and continued to sip.  Surprisingly, after a few sips, I found it really rich and actually added some water to dilute the flavor a bit.  Who knew that 3 days of lemonade would turn me into an orange juice wimp?  I continued my morning with drinking diluted juice every couple of hours and water in between.

That afternoon I had to make a trip out to Whole Foods (which is only about 12 miles away, but with Honolulu traffic the trip can take 45 minutes one way) to pick up some organic veggies and herbs that I needed for the next few days' juicing and that I can't get closer to home.  After the school pick-up, with the kids loaded in the back seat, I made the trip.  The traffic was unexpectedly heavy for 2:30pm, but things were pretty calm in the car, so I stayed calm.  We made the drive in about 40 minutes or so.  Once there, my daughter refused to sit in the shopping cart, so I was carrying her for most of the trip.  (It's times like these that I'm glad she's teeny-tiny, because if she were the size of most toddlers her age, I'd have a hernia.)  Lemme tell ya, shoving produce into those stupid, impossible to open baggies is hard enough without a toddler grabbing at things every 30 seconds.  Grrr.  And for $3.99 per bunch of kale, regardless of how local and organic it is, I feel like there should be a produce boy following me around and doing shit like that for me.  Or they need a kid room where you can drop them off while you shop.  Like Ikea.  Anyway, for all the squawking my diva daughter was doing, my son was being an angel in comparison.  Treats have been pretty hard to come by in the house over the last week (outta sight outta mind, yeah?), so I decided to be a "nice mom" and let him pick out a treat from the pastry case at their cafe.  He picked the mint brownie.  Of course!  It was a 3"x4" and 1" thick block of brownie, with what looked like a whipped mint cream cheese topping with chocolate frosting on top of that!  The kid's got taste, what can I say?  I had them bag it to-go and tried to erase it from my memory.  (He ate half of it that night, and half is still wrapped up. Taunting me.)  This was about the point that my daughter decided she now wanted to sit in the cart.  When it's time to leave. Of course.  I got everyone/everything loaded in the car (well, my son pretty much loads himself) and headed home.  I got about 2 miles before this happened.

Except there were more palm trees and less smog. Fabulous.  As we inched along, I just kept reminding myself that rush hour in Hawaii must be better than rush hour anywhere else.  Because it's Hawaii! Right??  And then this happened in the back seat.

Because she was out of pretzels.  Girlfriend looks tiny, but she's got some lungs.  I did my best not to strangle her to explain things to her, and when that didn't work, I tried to tune her out.  This was about the point that some asshole decided to cut me off.  And then THIS happened.

It only lasted a minute or two, and no one got hurt, but yeah.  That's what 4 days of no solids and a side of PMS will do to you.  Or at least it's what it did to me. :/  Pretty soon, traffic started moving, and we made it home.

Once my little girlfriend was tucked in bed for the night at 7pm, I decided to go back out and finish up the grocery shopping.  The one I usually frequent is open til 9pm, so I headed there.  I have to say, for someone who is very rarely alone in the car, the silence was blissful.  I was feelin' good.  I got to the store, grabbed a cart, and headed into the entrance, only to be stopped dead in my tracks by a sign which read: CLOSED FOR ANNUAL INVENTORY.  Huh??? I was so dumbfounded that it took me several seconds to process that I wasn't going to be getting groceries there that night.  Don't worry, I didn't go all Hulk again, but I'm convinced this was only due to the blissfully quiet car ride I enjoyed just moments before.  It was almost 7:25pm, and the only other grocery that would carry all the produce I needed for the next few days was open til 8pm.  I didn't really have a choice but to try, unless I wanted another day of OJ.  Um, NO THANKS.  So I hopped back in the car and drove with too much determination to notice the peace and quiet.  I made it to their lot and was through their door by 7:35.  Thank God I had a list!  I grabbed everything I needed and checked out and was back in the car by 7:56. Woot! Woot!  If the kids had been present, that same list would have taken me an hour and a half in the store.  I may never go shopping with them again!  In. My. Dreams.

Hope you all have better luck today than I did at keeping your inner Hulks... inner.

My Lemonade Diet Is Going Sour

Day 3

Today is not a good day, people.  I slept like crap last night.  Gone was the peaceful slumber of the night before.  I woke up at 12:30am with telltale rumbles in my gut.  I was back in bed by 12:45, but I woke up what seemed like every hour.  When I got up a little before 7am, the headache from the night before was back.  I weighed in and was down to 122.4.  Even the .8lb loss wasn't enough to brighten my spirits.  I had some tea, but it took a good hour to get the whole cup down.  I wasn't feeling it.  I also wasn't feeling the lemonade.  Just smelling the lemons in the kitchen (the heightened sense of smell common on the cleanse had kicked in) was making me nauseous.  I waited what was probably too long to have my first glass, so I doubled up the serving to make up for it.  It wasn't enjoyable, but I drank it.  But for the rest of the day, all I could taste was honey-lemon cough drop.  This is pretty much my worst nightmare, because I HATE cough drops.  The flavor is up there with cough syrup for me.  Maybe it stems from a childhood full of sickness (before I had my tonsils out and tubes put in)?  I don't know, but the hatred is there, and it's a deep-rooted loathing.  I don't know why I didn't just think to brush my teeth (as Jake suggested later) to get rid of the lingering flavor, maybe the lack of energy was making me stupid.  Anyway, by 4pm, that double dose of lemonade was all I'd had.  I was staying busy, so I wasn't feeling ravenous from the lack of calories.  I'm the type of person who forgets to eat when she's distracted.  But I knew it would be better for me to drink some more, so I mixed up another serving.  Just smelling it was bad, but when I took a drink the gag reflex set in.  I stopped and took a breath and told myself to get over it and try again.  So I did, and this time I almost wasn't able to overcome the gag reflex.  I don't know about you, but cayenne is not at the top of my list of foods I think I'd enjoy throwing up!  It felt like my body was literally rejecting the lemonade.  I thought, "What if I can find a substitute? Like limes?" But even the thought of that was giving me gaggy feelings.  The citrus/syrup blend is just something I can't stomach anymore.  I don't want to give up, but I know if I continue on this track I'll avoid the lemonade at all costs and end up starving myself.  I want to cleanse my body of toxins, not become anorexic!  I talked to Jake about how I was feeling.  He was very understanding and wanted me to do what's right for me.  I felt like such an asshole! Here I was the one who got us started on this whole thing, and now I'm wanting to jump ship?  I told him I would think about it some more before I made any decisions.

I remembered that another blogger Shan had done The 3 Day Cleanse back in January and really liked how she felt afterwards, and I remembered thinking that the juices she talked about sounded pretty yummy.  I went back and read up on it, and it sounded like something I could ease into pretty easily.  As part of the Master Cleanse "Ease Out" you're supposed to juice for a day anyway, so I thought, maybe I can just extend that a few days?  I talked it over with Jake, and he said it sounded like good plan.  We'd spend Day 4 of our cleanse drinking only orange juice to prep our systems for more complex digestion. On Day 5 we'd start juicing and keep it up for 3-5 days, depending on how we felt.  The goal is 5 days.  Here's a link to a kind of recipe cheat sheet Shan put together for her 5 day cleanse.  I don't actually own a juicer, but I have a Vitamix, so I'm going to adjust the recipes to fit that.  I'm thinking I'll just need less of each ingredient for the same volume of "juice" since there won't be any pulp leftover.  I'm planning to drink quite a bit of water to account for all the extra fiber I'll be getting.  I'm also planning to get an early start on my Metamorphosis reboot if my energy level feels up to it upon starting the juicing.  I'm still feeling some guilt about veering off my original course, but I know I have to do what feels right for me.  And this way I'll still be getting a lot of cleansing benefits.  I have to admit, though... part of me is going to miss knowing that all the "waste product" moving out is years of backed up crap.  I'm sure I'll still be getting rid of some of it, but I can't imagine it will be to that same degree.  That part of Master Cleanse was very empowering. 

I'll be pounding orange juice tomorrow.  I have a feeling it will have never tasted so GOOD.

Spring Clean-Out

I've been reading a lot about cleanses lately, and I found myself ready to give one a try. I've never done one, and the thought of 30 years of literal crap built up in my body is disgusting me more than usual these days.  I've been wanting to clean out my closets and my garage, so why not my colon?   After reading a post by Mistress Parker, here, I began researching The Master Cleanse. I found a crap load of good info on this site.  The Master Cleanse is not for the faint of heart, but neither is the Tracy Anderson Method, so I thought, what the hell?  Originally, I thought I'd put it off until the end of May, when Jake is likely to leave for several weeks for a class in Virginia.  I figured it would be easier to do my first cleanse when I'll only have the kids' meals to worry about.  I mentioned this plan to him, and to my surprise, he wanted to do the cleanse with me!  Jake is 6'5" and fit and likes his meals filling and frequent.  Him signing up to live on spicy lemonade for 10 days was not something I considered to be plausible in this century.  But having a cleanse buddy seemed like a fabulous idea, so I thought, Why Not?  I spent the next week gathering our Grade B maple syrup, cayenne, "pure" water (I still don't know what the hell that means - I bought Fiji brand and hoped for the best), senna tea, peppermint tea, non-iodized salt, and lemons.  I found all the ingredients readily available at Whole Foods. (I must note that this was my first trip to the Whole Foods on Oahu, and it felt just WRONG that I had to forgo all of their fabulous selection for fucking LEMONADE.  My son and I were sniffing cheeses from their cheese case like Mary Katherine Gallagher sniffs her arm-pitty fingers when she gets nervous.

Onlookers may have been a little disturbed. What can I say? We appreciate a funky cheese!)  I also downloaded a book on the Master Cleanse for our Kindle.  Jake read it, I didn't haven't read it yet.

We decided to start the cleanse on a Sunday (instead of a Monday as many recommend) so that Jake would have a day to get used to it all before he headed back to work.  I also came out with a post-cleanse workout plan.  I've clawed my way through 8 levels of Tracy Anderson's Metamorphosis Omni and have just one more level remaining.  The dreaded Level 9.  Could this whole cleanse idea have been a way to stall?  I don't know.  I do know that I'll be feeling mucho guilt about taking nearly 2 weeks off of TAM. (It's taken me 6 months to complete her 3 month program, so OBVIOUSLY this won't be my first break, but the guilt is always there. Judging.)  I just ordered the Continuity program from Tracy's website, so I definitely want to continue on the TAM journey post cleanse, but I know I won't be feeling in tip-top shape.  So I came up with a plan for a rapid reboot.  Once the cleanse is over, I'm going to start over on Metamorphosis from Level 1, spending 2 days on each level (instead of 10) until I get to Level 9.  This will allow me to complete 3 levels per week.  Once I get to Level 9, I'll complete its full 10 days before moving onto Continuity.  This way I'll feel like I've gotten myself prepared for the new phase, without having to wait another 3 (or 6) months to do it the conventional way. 

Now begins the fun of cleansing.

Day 1

I should preface this with the fact that we both drank our cups of poop senna tea the night before. Anyhoo, I woke up Sunday morning and proceeded with my morning ritual of peeing and weighing in. I know not everyone likes a daily weigh-in, but it helps keep me from getting out of hand.  Weight was 124.2.  My lowest post-second pregnancy weight. Victory smile! It was at this point that I remembered we were beginning the cleanse today, and with this I was immediately struck by the fact that I would not be allowed to enjoy the next part of my morning ritual... Coffee.  My victory smile was replaced by the wrinkled up nose of my "whine" face.  But I shook it off and located a clean pair of Big Girl Panties.  I knew I was going to need them.  We went downstairs, and whilst casting longing looks at the coffeepot, I dug out the the salt and got our salt water flushes (henceforth referred to as SWF) ready.  Here's a very informative video on how the SWF moves ya. 

Jake went first and sipped his flush over the course of about 5 minutes. I opted to pound it. It tasted like lukewarm canned chicken broth without the chicken part. Yummay. Not.  We sat and waited for the gurgles to happen. We didn't have to wait long.  Within an hour, we'd both made several trips to the bathroom.  His trips were more productive than mine.  Day One, and I already had poop envy.  Great.  We downed our first lemonades and didn't find them horrible.  Our goal the first day was to each drink 8 lemonades, but neither of us made it to the goal.  Jake drank 7.  I was crashing all day from the lack of caffeine.  If I got horizontal for even a few minutes, I was OUT.  I'm not a "nappy" person, so this was weird for me.  My energy level was non-existent.  Instead of feeling better after each lemonade, I felt worse.  Boo. But the first few days on a cleanse are never fun.  I ended up only getting 5 lemonades down, plus a cup of peppermint tea and more poop senna tea at bedtime.  I opted to use 2 teabags instead of 1, because I've never had much help using 1 bag in the past. (The previous night's experience was no different.)  Neither Jake nor I was terribly hungry, per se, but we missed food. Smelling it, chewing it, and all the feel good chemicals that eating it produced in our brains.  All in all, it wasn't a bad day.

Day 2
I woke up at 3 am with some minor bubble guts, but everything came out okay, and I went back to bed.  I slept HARD.  Jake got up at 4am to do his SWF so that the whole "process" would be over by the time he left for PT (physical training - his Mon-Fri early morning runny, jumpy, sitty-uppy routine that comes with the soldier bit).  I got up at 7 and opted for another cup of tea instead of the SWF.  I should mention that as of Day 2, I weighed in at 123.4 for a loss of .8lbs.  Jake, on the other hand, lost SIX pounds.  I wasn't jealous, really... this cleanse is more about detoxing for me than it is weight loss.  The day went on much the same as Day 1.  I was super sleepy and lethargic.  Jake ended up getting off work early, so he came with me to pick our son up from school.  We hadn't turned off our street before I felt some gurgling.  Uh, oh.  He turned the car around and dropped me off to handle business while he handled the school pick-up.  We were already running out of lemons, so we had to hit the grocery.  Just outside the grocery is a Korean BBQ food stand.  On any given day, the smells that come from their grill make me drool.  On Day 2 of our cleanse, it was like I could feel an alien (otherwise known as hunger) trying to claw itself from my chest to scream, "PROTEIN!!! GIVE ME PROTEIN!!!"  I pouted and whined the whole walk past.  It wasn't easy passing all the grocery shelves.  I'm pretty sure there was a continuous puddle of drool marking our path.  I had to pick up food for the kiddies, so the trip lasted a little longer than planned, but we made it.  The night was spent trying to avoid food commercials and trying not to notice the food being consumed on my TV shows.  I was watching (and forcing Jake to watch with me) Bethenny Ever After, and she was chowing down on what looked like shrimp fajitas and guacamole.  It's almost physically painful for me to even type this and remember the deliciousness. :(  By the end of the night, after my cup of tea (1 bag this time), the lambs were screaming.  I was having trouble not leaning over to gnaw Jake's ear off.  All I could think about was food.  I wanted to motorboat a pizza.  Earlier in the day, I'd been feeding our toddler a banana, and the whole time I was wanting to do, well... dirty things to it.  Pornographic food thoughts were not on the list of "healing crises" I read about.