Reflections on a failed, yet successful cleanse...

So here it is folks, you finally get to hear the real story of why Mickey stopped the cleanse mid-stream. After 6 days of being faithful to cleanse aside from some jelly beans on Day 1, I decided the cleanse just wasn't for me. The first cleanse defiinitely helped see the relationship and emotional connection with food, but this second cleanse was just miserable. I tried desperately to cling to this higher power, but the whole cleanse just seemed idiotic after day 6... let me digress a little. So, during my 6 days of nothing but spicy lemonade, San Francisco, had some of the coldest weather in history. No matter how hard I tried, (cranking the heater up to 80 degrees) I could not stay warm. And the headaches, that Dr. Stanley Burroughs describes as the pain you feel when the toxins are leaving your body, seemed more to be a lack of protein. Beyonce can work the cleanse for every movie role or video she needs to do, but I seriously think its the most unheathly diet to feed yourself nothing but sugar water for 10 days. At least I'm walking away from this a little wiser and with great vegetable soup recipes. Thanks Ms. Laurs!

Reflections: Laurs

Hello faithful readers. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for following along with us on our Journey to Cleansed. Now that I've had a bit of time to think about my experience with Cleanse #2, I have some reflections to share.

Overall, this was a very different experience from Cleanse #1. First of all, the novelty of life sans food had worn off. Second, I already knew I could make it 10 days without eating since I had done it before, which weakened my motivation a bit. And for whatever reason, I felt more of a pull to go out this time around, which is difficult for me when I'm in Cleanse mode. As a result, I would stay home and have a low-key night, sometimes growing a little stir crazy.

Another difference was that I had more energy this time around. I was SO tired on the first Cleanse and although I was a little weak this time around, I felt much stronger overall. And my spaciness wasn't as bad either. I wonder if any of this is tied to the fact that the salt water wasn't having as dramatic an effect on me this time. Sometimes it would do it's thing and other days, my bathroom and I kept our distance.

On balance, this Cleanse was about as challenging as my first one since it was physically easier and emotionally more challenging. As much as I love the idea of cleaning out my system and engaging in a "time out," I think 6 months was too soon after my first Cleanse to launch into another one. Mickey, who will add his thoughts soon, came up with the theory that Wintertime might be more difficult since our bodies instinctively want to store weight yet we're forcing them to do the opposite. Could be. Maybe this is why I was craving chicken and meatballs even though I'm normally a vegetarian? At one point, I actually had a vision of myself biting into a chicken leg and ripping off the meat. Damn!

Am I glad I did another Cleanse? Yes. Was returning to the world of food everything I'd dreamed it would be? Hell ya, it was (my first rye cracker tasted as good as a snickers bar!). Will I do the Cleanse again 6 months from now? Probably not but I may do another one the following summer. We'll see...

After my last cleanse, I successfully gave up candy (with the exception of dark chocolate) and regular coffee (still drinking those decaf soy oles--yum!). I also became more conscious to avoid white, processed bread, rice, etc. This time I'm not ready to give up something else, but I am going to try to cook more at home. I'm not sure I need to make any big changes, but it's always nice to be reminded how delicious food can be and how we don't need as much of it as we tend to eat (at least I don't).

With that, I leave you with my final reflection. A Master Cleanse Poem:

Life get busy, pants get tight
Too much wine on weekday nights
Overdue to make amends
Time to rock the Master Cleanse

Finally we pick a day
To launch the Cleanse. It’s on. Hooray!
Shopping never was so easy
And then we start and things get queasy

Lemons, syrup, cayenne pepper
Senna tea? Oh yes you better.
Wake up to a salt water flush
We hit that bathroom in a rush

One day, two day, three day, four
How much longer, how much more?
Dinner invites get declined
Our friends all think we've lost our minds

Spacey brains and early nights
Mickers isn’t as up tight
As Laurs who hardly leaves her home
Restricting friendships to the phone

Five days, six days, seven, eight
We start to notice we've lost weight!
The end is coming, food is near
Dreams of tacos, cake and beer

Nine days, ten days, juice then soup
Back to normal food and p**p
Eating really is da bomb
So long MickMaster Cleanse.com!

Day 10: Laurs

Hooray! It's my last day. As I type this, I'm drinking Ginger Lemon tea in utter defiance. I simply CANNOT drink another cup of mint tea. I just can't.

Since last I wrote, there's been a lot of action in the world of Laurs and Mickers' second Cleanse. First of all, Mickers decided to abort mission. I know, I know. This decision shook my world, too. I'll let him explain himself, but rest assured that he's doing well. In fact, he just stopped by to try my homemade veggie soup, which he said was "restaurant quality." Love that boy... I dare say, the results were indeed smashing.

The other breaking news is that I started my juice fast a day early, on Day 10 rather than Day 11. Not to blame Mickers for my decision, BUT, he just sounded so happy to be back on regular food--it killed me! Plus, I'm meeting up with an old friend in LA this weekend and I REALLY want to be able to go out to dinner and drink some wine with her. This way, I'll have time to ease myself back in by the time we sit down to dinner. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

OK, that wasn't the whole truth. The honest to God truth, my friends, is that not only did I start my juice fast this morning, but I also had some rye crackers for lunch and a taste of the veggie soup for dinner. Gasp! I know. It was plain wrong, but what can I say? Fresh squeezed orange juice is a slippery slope to the forbidden world of solid food, I guess. Not to worry, I still drank my lemonade for lunch and plan to continue with juice and soup for the next couple of days.

Tomorrow, I plan to write my Cleanse Reflections. I'm still thinking through the experience and will hopefully have something profound to share. Until then, I'll be basking in the splendor of rye crackers, veggie soup and, my favorite, pomegranate blueberry juice.

Day 9: Laurs

Wow--I just read Mickey's post and can't believe he put himself through a late night of dancing at a club while on the Cleanse. There's no way you'll catch me out on the scene during my 10 days on the MC. As you remember from my own Day 5, I was JUST starting to get some energy at that point. The cleanse for me, winds up being a very quiet time, mostly spent at home reading (cook books included) and watching movies. I have this sneaking suspicion I'm going to get the party bug as soon as it's over. Look out SF.

So here I am with ONE MORE DAY to go! Well, if you count today, it's really 2 days. After I parted ways with Mickers yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my friend Wayne and his Canadian visitor. We wound up at this new wine bar, which just about put me over the edge. I don't think I've ever had such a difficult moment on EITHER Cleanse as I did when those Zin flights showed up. Luckily, our waitress knew all about the Cleanse and offered to bring me some mint tea, which I gratefully accepted. God bless San Francisco. In what other city is your cocktail waitress likely to know the ins and outs of the MC?

After my day out, I spent yet another night chillin' with my lemonade at home where I saw a commercial for National Easting Disorders Awareness Week. If ONE more person asks me why I'm not eating, I might just say I'm fasting in solidarity with those who are fighting an eating disorder. That's probably more believable than fasting for Ash Wednesday, which fell smack in the middle of my 10 days.

Anyway, it's almost time to eat again! Since today is a Sunday, I have some time to hit the store and get my ingredients for the Cleanse breaking soup. I'm planning to make the veggie broth from scratch, which I've never done before. And I'm going to use my trusty slow cooker. I'll report back on the results. I just hope it's not too challenging to cook when I'm not allowed to eat. So much for taste testing.

Day 5, Part 2: Mickers, Enough With The Cleanse, Time to Get Dirty!

I must say, I really packed in a lot on Day 5. The cleanse is like liquid crack. I get all this energy and I go with it. After the morning's fun with the salt water and dreaming of restaurants, Laurs and I went to Crossroads Trading Company with my bags of clothes that came from last weekend's Spring cleaning. This is the fun game of seeing how fashionable you really are. When they see something the like, they open it up and examine it: the collar, the stitching and if they want it, it ends with a number being thrown into the calculator.

All my dress shirts were entered into the calculator in a matter of seconds. But when it came to all my favorite T-shirts, they passed on them, all of them. Oh well, I couldn't be that upset, I walked out the door with $60.00 and Laurs found an amazing wool coat while I was doing my trade-ins.

Next, I was off to work, for a solid 4 hours of organizing and client appointments. After work, I swung by Out of the Closet. Its funny how they have it set up at this store. You are giving them things for free for them to put out in the store. But, unlike Good Will, where the drop off is in the front, they make you walk all the way through the store to very back to drop things off. Usually I wouldn't complain, but I had three garbage bags in my hands overstuffed with clothing and that extra 100 yards was agonizing after walking a block with these bags from the car.

After my Out of the Closet excursion, I joined Adam for tea at Cafe Flore and watched him eat a lamb burger(my favorite item on the menu). It was pure torture for few seconds, but I pressed on with my mint tea. We went on to pick up Celeste Marie who surprised me with an amazing Valentine's day gift. A book of postcards called "The Secret Lives of Men and Woman" compiled by Frank Warren. This book is a collection of postcards sent to Frank Warren with peoples deepest secrets... the one I love is "I exchanged sex for a cab fare" and the postcard is a picture of the meter that says $0 blow job.

We picked up CM's friend Erika and were off to see Blood Diamond and I must say that little Leo has grown up and is HOT! It was quite the action-packed gory movie. We learned that during scary parts, Erika covers her eyes, Celeste curls up into the fetal position on her chair, Mickey half covers his eyes, and Adam has stone cold emotions and doesn't flinch. After dropping the ladies off, Adam and I rallied to go out.

After 5 days of the Cleanse, it was time to get DIRTY! Adam, Stephen, Cory and I went to show our faces and get down at DIRTY, my friend Sean's dance club at the Cat Club. It was a blast. I saw people I hadn't seen and while and the music was great. I was doing fine up until someone started talking about a lady with a cart outside that had hot dogs wrapped in bacon. In the words of Elle Woods, OMIGOD!. That is my favorite heart attack pleasure of all time. Deep breathes, Mickey, deep breathes! I lasted about an hour and I was wiped out, arrived home a 1 am and went straight to bed.

What a day!

Day 5: Mickers AND Day 8: Laurs

Its Saturday morning and we are slowly working our way through the morning salt water ritual. In an effort to take away the emotional pain, Laurs and I started looking at menus of restaurants that we would like to visit once the Cleanse is behind us. So far here is our list:

1. Nopa (Mickey has a gift certificate!)

2. Millennium (Lauren has a gift certificate!) Side note: This is a veggie restaurant and I usually turn my nose up at these, cause veggie tends to mean sacrifice, but this menu looks amazing!

3. Cafe Gratitude Side note: This is not only a veggie restaurant, but goes a step further, in the tradition of Maddy and serves only RAW food (all raw fruits and veggies, nothing cooked above 116 degrees). All the items on this menu have ridiculous titles that follow the form "I am____" i.e. " I am satisfied," "I am peaceful." Last time I went with Lauren, the only thing I had to say was "I am God damn still hungry!" Lauren was "ungrateful" for my comment, and asked that I keep it down, for fear that the freaky waiters (that gawk at you while you eat) would hear my cynicism. She loves that place...

4. Salt House - This little gem is the sibling of Town Hall Restaurant, which I love, love, love. Wait did I tell you how much I love this restaurant? Salt House looks to be just as great as their original creation. We are so getting the Shellfish Plateau, which includes fanny bays, buckley bays, and miyagis (both Laurs and I love us some oysters).

Please let this diet pass quickly. I'm now drooling...

Note from Laurs: Good morning! I'm still here at Mickers' place. We just finished our salt water and are about to launch into the day. Just a quick note to say that we're NOT going to overeat at any of these restaurants, so help me God. We weighed ourselves last night and this morning and we're each down 5 pounds!

Day 7: Laurs AND Day 4: Mickers

Here we are--together! This is Laurs and I'm here with Mickers at his house. He rescued me from a sushi restaurant where I was stopping by to say hi to a friend. The sushi looked DELICIOUS and Mickers pulled up not a second too soon, like a starving knight in shining armor.

At the moment, Mickers is zipping around his apartment cleaning and organizing. Apparently, he has all kinds of energy while on the Cleanse and precisely zero tolerance for clutter. As I type this, he's scrubbing his stove top, recounting his day's adventures. I just learned of his horrific experience walking by Subway and Hot Cookie and the bagel shop. "All I could picture, Laurs, was the pesto bagel with veggie cream cheese, some red onions and a tomato, toasted of course." And he didn't BELIEVE me when I wrote about my superhero sense of smell. Touche. Note: I will NOT be walking anywhere NEAR Hot Cookie. That place has Cleanse-breaker written all over it.

Off we go to snuggle up on the couch and watch Sarah Silverman's Jesus is Magic wiith our mint tea. Later in the evening, we'll spice things up and switch over to the chocolate Senna. Racy.