This just in: Humans can survive without meat or bread or eggs or granola bars.

Half-way there. Today is Day Five of the Detox. I have mixed emotions.

I'm tired, very low-energy. But that makes sense because each day I've only been eating 700-800 calories, with half of that coming from apple juice.

Here are some pictures (I tried to rotate them, I don't know what I did wrong but I can't figure out out, so you'll have to use your Taco Neck on some of them. Or we can call them "artsy".... I am not a photographer, I just have an iPhone):

Breakfast Day 1: Quinoa with prunes and pear nectar, grapefruit juice, and "Alkaline Broth" (read: chug it down as fast as you can so you don't vomit). Only half of that apple is mine. Not pictured: one tbsp of pure flax seed oil (yuck.).

Here we have broccoli, green beans, and swiss chard. Lunch each day is some kind of steamed veggie....

And so is dinner! That thing by the knife is fennel bulb - pretty yummy! Also, rarely we get plain rice crackers and ooooh my gosh 3 plain rice crackers are so deliciously amazing when you haven't had anything but vegetables for two days. Also, we get to eat the vegetables IN the Alkaline Broth, and beet juice.

I baked this steamy beet in the oven. It was so steamy. And the size of your baby's head.

This is corn and potato chowder (with chicken broth as an ingredient, OMG SALT). And carrot juice. That white thing on the bottom is celery root, and so far, it's my favorite weird vegetable. I highly recommend it.

Banana in amaranth cereal with rice milk. Yum.

More Alkaline Soup (yaaaaay), celery and zucchini juice, and Fennel Au Gratin.  FYI Fennel bulb cooked in chicken broth, then topped with olive oil and spelt bread crumbs almost tastes like chicken. But doesn't actually taste like chicken.

We are feeling, um, okay. Mostly good. Surprisingly not hungry. And I used to get hungry like NOW. Like one minute I would be fine, and the next I would be HUNGRY like feed me now or someone dies. But the hunger on this diet has come on more gradually, and it's not uncomfortable or urgent, and that is so nice.

I am down four pounds. But I'm not delusional, that's probably mostly water weight and because I haven't eaten anything but fruits and veggies for 4 days. I know that probably won't stay if I eat normally again. But weight loss isn't the point of all this anyway.

My favorite part has been the breakfasts. The food is tasty and I have loved getting up early to make breakfast, and then Thomas and I eating it together. We have never gotten up at the same time in the morning, let alone eat breakfast together. It's real domestic and nice-feeling.

Not much else to say for now. I can't make a judgement yet. I know I feel better eating like this than the way we were. This is a lot of work though, and there has to be a happy medium between eating food that's diverse and good for you, and spending 4 hours a day prepping food and cleaning the kitchen to get ready for the next meal. That's what we hope to find. A healthy diet that fits with a normal life.

Let's Detox! ....I guess....

I haven't run AT ALL since my race. Not one step. I've been exercising here and there, but the last few weeks have mostly been filled with rest, time with Thomas, TV, pizza, and beer. All around lazy. It's been pretty great.

Great, but kinda scary how quickly and easily I forget what my body is capable of when I take care of it and challenge it. Also, I am quite enjoying the weight loss that was a nice by-product of my training, and would like to maintain that.

So.... We've decided to DETOX! This book and the friendly looking man who wrote it will be our guide for the next month:

He will help us get all the nonsense of Costco pizzas and delicious lagers and almond roca and sausage breakfast sandwiches from Starbucks out of our bodies/lives.

So we read the book, and I made this ridiculous list:

 Then we went shopping and justified spending a horrendous amount of money on all organic vegetables and products with how good we are going to feel when it's over. I could almost hear Whole Foods licking its lips as we walked away, enjoying all our MONEY.

But we got it all, and now we're fully stocked! It is perfectly summed up by a text Thomas sent me this morning as I was out and about: "I don't want to alarm you, but there is an enormous amount of vegetables in our fridge."

I am ALARMED.

So basically, the diet eliminates meat, sugar, gluten, dairy, nuts, salt and pepper, caffeine and alcohol. So.... um, what's left? And where does pizza fit in? And the morning cup of coffee I've had everyday since I was 19 or something...?

It doesn't.

In many, many ways.

We get to try a lot of new food though, I am excited to try bok choy and amaranth porridge and broccoli rabe and all the other crazy random stuff in the recipes. And drinking a ton of water and herbal tea. And LITERALLY gallons of apple juice, because we are doing a simultaneous liver cleanse. And sweet Dr. Rau claims that on the last day of the liver cleanse,

"Most of what you evacuate will be watery, but filled with little stones."

Goooood. That sounds great.

"You will be surprised at how many stones you pass."

EXCELLENT.

"Many will be the size of small peas, but there may be a few so large they will surprise you."

Well, call me surprised ALREADY.

I will not tell the interwebz about my "evacuations", don't worry. Just wanted to share that this is a possibility because Thomas and I were DYING laughing reading this part of the book, because everyone knows that girls don't poo. 

So tomorrow is day one. I am excited, especially because I just realized that tomorrow is SUNDAY and I don't have to go to work. Oooooh happy day of sitting around waiting for it to be 10am so I can eat 1/2 of an apple, chewing each bite 20-30 times (yes, he specifies). Hmmm.... 

But really, I am excited. I'm happy for the new start - I truly believe that we get out of our bodies and minds what we put into them. I hope this is an enriching experience that makes us healthier and brings us closer together. I'm hoping for clarity of mind and body as we make some major decisions in the next few months. I'm hoping for a new motivation to protect and nourish this one body I've been given and do my part to protect and nourish this one world WE have been given.

Wish me luck. I hope a straight tablespoon of flax seed oil isn't as horrible as it sounds.