My Ghetto Martha's Vineyard Detox - Day 3

DAY 3
Okay, this is absolutely crazy.  I have weighed the same for about 2 years now - by my scales at home, it's always 170.  I rarely weigh myself because it's depressing, and I feel I should give my poor little scales a break in between my weighings.  But, for the purpose of tracking my progress, I weighed myself at my Mom's house on Day 1 - 171 pounds.

This morning, I decided to weigh myself just to see if anything was happening - my non-digital scale hovered between 159/160.  I knelt down and looked at the numbers closer.  I stepped off with a look of puzzlement on my face.  I found my glasses and put them on, and stepped back on - 159/160.

10 POUNDS IN 2 DAYS?  Is this for REAL?


At this point, my body feels maybe a little bit different, but I would NEVER have expected 10 pounds to melt off right away!  I'm almost certain that most of this loss is water weight, because ever since my 20's I've had trouble with swelling, especially when I was pregnant.  When I was pregnant, I looked and felt like one of those gel-filled stress squeezers.

I'm also trying to figure out how 10 pounds left my body!  I mean, sure I've peed quite a bit, but not 10 pounds worth!  And to be frank, I haven't really #2'd any more than usual either (which is sadly once every few days for me).

I am now super pumped about my decision to invest in this detox, because I'm actually seeing results!  I hope  this momentum keeps up!!!

This evening I could only choke down half of my soup.  You'll probably hear me say this a lot - it's one thing to have vegetable soup.  It's quite another to have pureed mush soup that tastes like vegetables.  I'd rather eat nothing at all than that.

I'm also naughty and had 2 cigarettes.

My Ghetto Martha's Vineyard Detox - Day 2

DAY 2:

Aside from not sleeping well AT ALL last night, I'm really not feeling too bad. Being at work really helped keep my mind off of food! Although there are a few plates of leftover Christmas breads sitting around in the break room, I resisted the urge to grab one (mostly because they're growing hair). The green and berry drinks along with my colon cleansing pills are keeping me full, and I haven't really felt hungry. I went home for "lunch" and juiced my first glass of fresh veggie juice ever - I did 1 carrot, 1 wedge of red cabbage, 1/4 cucumber, and 2 onion petals. Um, not good. Onion juice makes me want to hurl. I chugged it, and went on with my day. I warmed up some leftover soup and broth from last night and drank it. I saved the leftover "veggie trash" from the juicer to throw into tonight's soup, to hopefully keep as many nutrients as possible going into my body.

I had a little freak-out episode when I walked in the back door at home tonight. My husband was making oven-baked sloppy joes with Mac & Cheese, and was also cooking up a crock pot full of chili for him and my daughter, Dylan, to eat on for the next few days. Now, I didn't go outwardly crazy, I just freaked out on the inside, and got really quiet and grumpy. I was very short with Justin and cried a little. I tried my best not to react badly towards him, because he's been so supportive of me doing this, and I know he was trying to get all the cooking done BEFORE I got home, so I didn't have to go through the torture of making the meals myself. He basically left me alone, and I stayed in the kitchen and super-cleaned the kitchen, made my drink powder packets for tomorrow, and cooked some dinner soup, and I feel better. My daughter hates this diet and is really worried about me. "Who would make UP such a diet with NO FOOD, mom?"

Since there is a freaking blizzard and negative temperatures, and my gut was feeling a bit crampy, I went out to my husband's 30x40 carpentry shop behind our house and did a mile walk in there.

I've also added Vitamin C to my pill mix to help with cigarette cravings.

Overall, I felt good and had lots of energy and a positive mood today, until I was faced with real, chewable food.

My Ghetto Martha's Vineyard Detox - Day 1

I'm 30, and I've never stuck to a New Year's resolution, which sucks. Through the years, I've even decided to give up something that I didn't really care that much about (i.e. chocolate or soda, neither of which I'm addicted to or even crave) just to create a fake sense of accomplishment for myself.

This year is different. I'm just a few months away from 31, and for the past several years I've felt very uncomfortable in my own skin. And it shows. Not only am I overweight, and now weigh as much as I did FULL TERM PREGO with my daughter (who is now 6 years old), it also shows in the way I carry myself, my overall self confidence, and in my married life. Because, honestly I don't know how anyone could find my sexy - I sure don't, and it makes it hard for me to be intimate. I hear all this stuff about how "30 is the new 20" and how women really "come into their own" in their 30's and just start basically kicking ass and writing names down. I don't feel any of that.

So, a few months ago, my best friend Ashley gave me a book to borrow called "21 Pounds in 21 Days - The Martha's Vineyard Detox Diet". She told me she tried it herself in the past and made it 6 days, but lost around 11 pounds that stayed off. I read the book thoroughly, and then read it again, making notes all the way. Sure, the notion of losing that much weight in such a short amount of time sounds crazy, and a little unhealthy. But the book explained things about our bodies and our digestive system that was easy to understand and really made sense to me. I realized that my body is toxic - I'm basically a walking Atom Bomb, which has made me unable to lose weight. I decided I had to do it.

For about 5 or 6 months, I took notes, and talked my husband's ear off about it, explaining the good parts (weight loss, attitude change, overall appearance change) and the bad parts (emotions spilling out with the fat, side effects called a "healing crisis"), and the cost (around at least $200.00 - and that's doing it cheap). Even though I felt really selfish for spending all this money on a silly "diet that probably won't work", I held on to the hope that this could really change not only my body, but also my self-image. He told me to go for it.

So I am. Here's the basic breakdown of my next 21 Days: Every two hours, you drink either a natural concentrated berry or vegetable drink. Three times a day, you take colon cleansing and enzyme supplements. For lunch, a cup of fresh vegetable juice - and by fresh, I mean cutting up veggies, putting them into a juicer (which I had to purchase just for this detox), then drinking the juice immediately. For dinner, 2 cups of "cleansing soup" - this is throwing any kind of veggies and spices you want into water and cooking it. Sounds good, right? Well, then you have to fish out the veggies and puree them in a blender, then dump them back into the vegetable broth water. Cleansing soup = hot mush. Along with all of this, you are supposed to use only distilled water (for everything), use only fresh ORGANIC vegetables, give yourself coffee enemas, brush your skin with a natural bristle brush before showers, take detoxing baths, sit in saunas, and get colonics (a machine that flushes poo out of you).

This is where my detox becomes "The Ghetto Martha's Vineyard Detox". Since I'm a struggling real estate agent without lots of money or time to blow on this, I've made some exceptions to the rules that will allow me to complete this without breaking the pocketbook:

* I don't use distilled water - just plain ol' tap water or whatever kind is in the water cooler at work.

* I don't use fresh, organic veggies - I'm buying regular fresh veggies, not the ones that are certified "organic". I'm also using frozen bags of veggies that I find on sale, too. ALSO, I'm shopping the back rack of "past their prime" veggies that the grocery store puts on heavy discount - they may be a little shriveled, and may have lost a little bit of their nutrients, but at a big bag for $.75, who cares?

* I have no sauna available to sit in, unless I want to sneak into a hotel and use theirs. I am not getting colonics regularly, as they are $50 a pop, not to mention that the closest colonic center is 2 hours away.

I'm not sure if this will work since I'm skimping on so many things, but that's the best I can do, and here we go.

DAY ONE - January 3, 2010

My husband, daughter and I are making the 3 1/2 hour drive back home from a late Christmas weekend at my parents' house in Iowa. I gorged myself on yummy food over the past couple of holiday weeks, and am feeling ready to finally be starting!

I put my drink powders into baggies and brought lots of bottled water with me to make my drinks in the truck. I have a bladder the size of at least Rhode Island - I normally NEVER have to pee on this road trip, or really any others for that matter. With all the water intake and my special "green" and "berry" drinks, I made Justin stop 4 times on the way home. Then, when we got to our driveway, I scrambled out of the truck before it came to a full and complete stop and screamed "I call dibs on the bathroom!" In addition to making me pee like SeaBuscuit, it's also making it really hard for me to look at restaurant billboards and convenience store pizza.

Also, the book says it's very important that you not smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol during this detox, as it could potentially make you very sick. I am a smoker. I finished my pack of cigarettes on the way home, and called it good.

I wonder how many other bloggers are out there posting their New Years' Resolution progress for the world just like me... This blog, for me, will serve as my "Detox Diary", to journal my experience and to motivate me to continue. I know one other person who is doing the same - my best friend, Ashley, has decided to do the detox with me. To get the full effect of this detox, follow her blog, too, at Journey to a Better Me.

Anniversary...

My mom and step-dad's 25th Anniversary was this week, and my brother, sister, and I put together an Anniversary dinner for them that's going down this evening. This is the video I made for them to show tonight. I'm really just posting this so my sister, who lives in South Dakota and won't be able to make it back to Kansas, gets to see it. But anyone else is free to enjoy it as well. It was, admittedly, hastily done, and I could have done a better job if I hadn't been figuring taxes all week too, but... Without further adieu:

Time to catch up...

I haven't written here for a while, and quite a few things have happened in the meantime. Let's recap, shall we?

A. My bestie, who is training for a triathlon, talked me into doing a 5K run with her in 5 weeks. Yaaaaaaaaaay. First off, I'm a smoker who was supposed to have quit 3 weeks ago. Second, I have always lived life under the ideal that running is strictly for escaping from burning buildings. Anyway, I said yes because I'm an idiot. Surprisingly, training for it has been pretty rewarding and semi-enjoyable, if you don't count the shin splints that make me want to puke. We'll see what happens.

B. I have officially put in my notice to quit my full time job as Office Manager for a real estate firm to do the Realtor thing full time. Sounds stupid, huh? (Trust me, it sounds even more retarded when it's typed out in black and white) Well, there are a lot of reasons for it, the biggest ones being that I'm sick of babysitting grown ass people, and I currently don't have time to market myself and respond to prospective buyers and sellers of my own in order to get any business established. AND, I figure that if I can make it work in this freaking economy, I will be some sort of housing rock star when it gets back to normal.

C. I finished reading "Fractured" by my favorite author, Karin Slaughter, and am eagerly awaiting her newest book which comes out in July (I pre-ordered!)

D. I started reading "Scar Tissue" by Anthony Keidis (of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame). It is freakishly weird and I can't put it down. My bestie, who lent it to me, told me she actually called in sick to work one day so she could keep reading that book.

E. I got a new (used) vehicle, after driving my lump of crap Cavalier for 10 years. YESSSSSS! It's a 2004 Chevy Colorado, very nice, and compared to my old, dented-up piece of shit, it makes me feel like a stone-cold pimptress.

H. I got a new cell phone, and I now have texting for the first time. Yep, I finally dumped my giant Zach Morris phone and made it happen. I'm waiting for a whole bunch of people to be blowin' up my cellie, but the only person who texts me is my husband.

I. I got Strep Throat. The back of my throat looked like a pair of tits.

J. I got over Strep Throat by drinking a Six-Pack of Corona.

K. I blogged. Now we're caught up.

Check ya later.

A shout out to my bestie...

Please allow me a moment to blogify about a person who has had my back (quite literally) for 23 years. She first had my back in 2nd grade on Halloween when she was the only person to tell me that my homemade poodle skirt made of felt was tucked severely into my underwear while standing at the chalkboard in front of the classroom. She had my back in high school cheerleading when she dove to catch me from a 12-foot-high stunt gone wrong. She made sure to sit me down and explain to my broken heart that my 3-year-long high school crush was indeed, fucking ugly. She's told to me to quit hanging out the window talking shit when bike cops pulled her over while she was attempting to drive my drunk ass home from the bar. She's held my hair back while I puked, she makes me laugh until I pee my pants, and every time I open my Facebook page, there's always a fresh "poke" waiting for me from her.

It's not a simple feat to still be besties with your childhood friend after 23 years, and through everything, I wouldn't trade mine for 400 pounds of pudding, or any other really important thing that you could barter with.

Happy 30th Birthday to my bestie, co-founder of The Original Bung Book, The Hunger Speech, and The Bung Blog.

You'll always be "Jeans and Shirt Ashley" to me.

Now, for your viewing pleasure - a very small sampling of our journey together... so far.

To learn more about us and about our daily retardocity, see us at The Bung Blog.

My Valenties Day...

If you're expecting to read about roses, candy, and candlelit dinners, you might as well hit the back button now. And I'm not complaining - flowers just die, candy makes me fat(ter), and personally, I enjoy seeing what I'm eating. I think my Valentine's Day was much better than that.

My husband and I left the kid with my dad, packed up, and headed out of town to go to a Cross Canadian Ragweed concert with ten of our closest friends (five of which I had never met before). It was basically a sausage fest, with seven dudes and three chicks, so testosterone and lots of beer carried us through the evening.

Our group of five arrived at the hotel first, so we all cracked a beer and lounged around in the room. When all three guys collectively looked up at eachother and realized that they had been watching "How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days" for the past 30 minutes, they decided they needed an activity that was a bit more macho. So, we all went into the other group's hotel room and switched the box springs on both beds to sit on top of the mattresses, and remade the beds. For future reference, this is a fantastic idea... Think about it - what's the first thing you do when you get into your hotel room? Sit/lay/flop/jump on the bed, right? Well, this particular group of guys (who had consequently been tying one on all afternoon) tested them out by body-slamming eachother onto the beds as soon as they entered their room. A good time was had by most.

Since all that bed moving made us thirsty, we grabbed some bro-skies and headed outside to have a smoke. While outside, a hearse pulled into the parking lot, and three questionable-looking guys started unloading some of the weirdest contraptions I've ever seen. By questionable-looking, I mean a 5-inch long "flavor saver" type beard and a padlock earring. By weird contraptions, I mean steel cage-looking devices. They even asked my husband and another one of our guys to help them carry some of the stuff inside. The "weird stuff" turned out to be some sort of sex torture chamber. The questionables turned out to be the hosts of a swinger's party just down the hall from our hotel rooms. Now for me, nothing says love quite like taking your significant other to a party and doing someone else - Happy Valentine's Day, honey! We were even invited to attend the free instructional seminar (yes, they have instructional seminars prior to swinger parties). We didn't go, but it's just not every day that you run into something that bizarre - they later brought dogs in. Use your imagination. Sick - okay, now stop.

By this time, we've all got a good buzz on (except for the other pack of guys who are just plain drunk) and we decided that we'd better get some grub before we chewed eachother's arms off. So, we piled into the trucks and headed to Buffalo Wild Wings. This was my first time to eat at BWW, and it will now also serve as my last. We waited fifteen minutes before I finally found a waitress and asked if we could get a couple menus. It was even longer before we got drinks, and even longer yet before we got our food. So, we ate, drank (and drank) and were merry. Apparently a little too merry, because one guy in our group was told that he wouldn't be served any more drinks. Since drinking is way more fun when everyone participates, my friend bought another beer and handed it to Mr. Cut-off. The manager didn't like that and started talking a gang of shit. Out loud. Just walking around talking to herself out loud about how unruly we were (I truly believe that we weren't being that naughty). Well, since I thought that the bitching was highly inappropriate and because sucky customer service pisses me off, I set my beer down on the bar, let little miss Pissy Pants know that I wouldn't be spending another blankety-blank penny in her blankety-blank establishment, and went ouside. Right after that, my husband very nicely asked Pissy Pants if she needed to change her tampon. That must have been a big hit, because she kicked him out of the restaurant. He complied with her request, and politely laid his full, open beer on the bar (on it's side) before he exited. My husband's best friend thought that looked like a pretty good idea, and did the same. Pissy Pants got really fired up after that, and started talking some more shit. So, while she's busy getting in people's faces, my new crazy friend takes a huge swig of beer and proceeds to power-spit beer point blank into Pissy's face - I'm told it resembled a whale shooting water out of it's blowhole. The rest of our group was helped outside shortly after that, and after a teensie little shouting match and a couple (okay, many) expletives, we headed on down the sidewalk to the concert.

Shortly after we got to the concert and started mingling around, we noticed a few cops milling around in the crowd with flashlights, as if they were looking for someone. That someone turned out to be our Turbo-Spitter - Yep, Pissy Pants called the fuzz. So, after some shirt-swapping, a little questioning, and a bit of blending into the crowd, we bellied up to the bar and got drunk while we listened to some live noise and looked at the backs of people's heads. The beer and shots started to take their toll, and my husband and his best friend had a disagreement and started a smallish fight in the middle of the crowd, and before we knew it, we found ourselves on the sidewalk again, taking care to not let the the door hit us where the good Lord split us.

At this point, the details of the evening begin to get a tad blurry. The remainder of our evening was pretty standard, consisting of more beer and a few WWF-style wrestling matches in our hotel room. My friend even got to meet the hotel manager, who came up to personally introduce herself, and to remind us that it was in fact 5:30 in the morning, and that there were in fact other people attempting to sleep. That was nice of her.

The only casualty of the evening turned out to be the door to Room 540, which was kicked in by our very own Turbo-Spitter. Apparently, at some point in the wee hours of the morning, he couldn't find Room 514, so he wandered down the hall, kicked in a random door, and passed out. It was, fortunately, not occupied at the time. He came down the hall in the morning to let us know he'd found us again - wearing a hoodie, a pair of boxers, and cowboy boots.

This is a true story - I couldn't make this shit up!

Happy Valentine's Day!