One Day More

After several hours of perusing the interwebz for information prior to my juice fast, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really only need copious amounts of the following items on hand:

1. Apples
2. Spinach/Kale
3. Celery
4. Carrots
5. Ginger

Everything seems to revolve around those elements, with things like lemon and cucumber getting tossed in occasionally for good measure. Granted apple-spinach-celery-ginger has been my breakfast mainstay for a while now, so perhaps this worries me as too easy. I’ll keep things like grapes and cilantro on hand as well, just to mix things up a bit.

The biggest challenge will be juicing at work if I live through Wednesday. They say you should plan on drinking at least a gallon of juice a day, and with each “batch” I’ve made ending up about 2 cups, I need to have at least 8 servings per day and I feel like at least half those will be at the office.

If I thought I was unpopular before, I can’t wait until I’m sucking green sludge from a mason jar. That’ll impress the kiddos.

I’ve also informed my coworkers, all of which are female, of my effort. They all seem impressed, a bit concerned (particularly about my protein intake, which I shall now look up and my flash research shows that spinach and kale are actually substantial sources of protein so I’m good) but all in all quite supportive.

4 days is the minimum, 10 days is the goal, 14 for gold ranking and then I can force my wife to do it at some point.

I know a majority of the battle is mental. Even the guy from the movie said it took a bit of effort for him to accept that he will just not be eating solid food anymore. He sat outside of food stands and restaurants, sitting right across from fat Americans munching on chicken fried steaks, and didn’t implode by some act of God. His Australian resilience impresses and terrifies me. He must be channeling the spirit of koala bears or something.

Half the challenge is juicing, another challenge will be writing.

I want to blog every day through this, keep FB and Twitter and the rest of the digital peanut gallery up to date on my efforts. This will help give me some accountability, though I know through dozens of previous exercises that’s still only as effective as I decide it is. The psychology is simple: tell people you are going to do something and your brain will have a harder time resisting it than if you had just made an accord with yourself.

But what if you don’t really care what others think? Or what if no one is really holding you to any of this?

Then I’m on my own. Just me, fresh juice, a mason jar, and a shitload of produce.