Adventures of an Amateur Detox-er, Part 1

 When Kris Carr, badass wellness warrior and pioneer of the Crazy Sexy Detox, came into the office a few weeks ago to strategize about our upcoming cleanse, I thought I had it in the bag. I loved her energy, I was in line with her logic, I agreed with everything she was saying. I devoured the fresh salads we were treated to, and the juices, oh the juices! I thought – how hard could this be? I already try to steer clear of meat, I’m not caffeine-crazy like some (most) of my colleagues, and words like ‘quinoa’, ‘nutritional yeast’, and ‘lacinato’ do not scare me. That stuff is old hat. Bring this thing on!

 But that was three weeks ago. Between then and now I’ve done, well, not a whole lot. I did take a nice little vacation to the mountains, where I ate the sort of meaty and starchy comfort foods that cozy cabins and snow on the ground lend themselves to. I also drank quite a lot of whiskey and beer. Delicious, microbrewery (some even organic!) beer, but alcohol nonetheless. I returned from my trip to a house with no food in the fridge and no money in my wallet, so I spent the next week or so eating out of boxes and cans from my pantry. And then there was the taco competition… and the trip to Eagle Rock brewery….

The way I see it, there are a few pretty serious roadblocks to eating well when you’re in shoes like mine. That is, mid-twenties, relatively poor, and with a social life that revolves around taco trucks and beer. But, miraculously, I think the universe is conspiring to help me get on the detox wagon. Almost everyone in my neighborhood is doing one version or another of a cleansing diet. Ashley across the courtyard is doing Junger’s Clean program, juicing up a storm and eating only one solid meal a day. Ryan and JP down the street are doing an intense elimination diet (with multiple-day fasts every two weeks!), and Dan and Heather around the corner are going vegan (again) until further notice. (They’ve all lost weight, look great, and won’t shut up about how ‘alive’ they feel, which is a miserable thing to hear when you are hung over, eating cold leftover pizza for breakfast, and feel like death personified.) Dan called me up, offering me the chicken breast out of their fridge: “We can’t eat it, we’ve gone vegan (again). But it shouldn’t go to waste - you want it?” Having as little money as I do, and loving food like I do, it was very hard for me to pass up free chicken. But, I was going to detox, damnit. All my beer-drinking, street-meat eating co-conspirators (not to mention half my office) had gone the way of the cleansing diet. Hadn’t that been my plan, too? How had something that seemed so simple slip away from me so easily? And really, what self-respecting adult eats pizza for breakfast? “No, Dan. No chicken. Today I turn over (and eat) a new leaf.”