Juicy Fruit

I was thinking of the theme song for the bubble gum Juicy Fruit this morning. I don't know why but I was humming it in my head with the wrong words of course. In my head it was something like "juicy fruit dum de dum dum juicy fruit... uh yeah... juicy juice?" I was intermittently taking swigs of my mean green while doing so; I suppose that was what brought it up. You don’t taste as sweet this morning my friend… I ran out of apples. We were down to two one was about to turn the other had a few days left. I thought about using the better one or both even but I thought better of that decision and left the better one for Mike. So there I was being nice to the big lug and then I got a text saying “thanks for leaving me some apples…” Can you taste the sarcasm dripping off that apple?! Asshat, I left you the better apple! So is this what it’s gonna be? We’re gonna be fighting over apples now? Pssssh better not!

So how am I feeling these days…? Well I’ve been sleeping pretty well. Haven’t been waking up most nights which is just fabulous, but I also overslept yesterday. I woke up to the sound of my alarm, thought 5 more minutes and woke up nearly an hour later. This would in fact be a problem because I carpool to work and my ride would be at my place in about 10 minutes. I called her and told her I’d be late. Skipped the shower (I know I’m sorry coworkers, aren’t you glad I sit down far away from everyone?!) but made some juice. Priorities man! The night before I fell asleep at like 8pm with a headache but when I woke up yesterday the same headache was still looming around. You dirty little bastard! It wasn’t bad enough to keep me from work but it was bad enough that I lacked any sense and was pretty much worthless in the office. I rode Mike’s bike home after work, a dumb story about why it ended up at my office. But anyway, I rode the damn thing home. So tired, that bike wore me out. It sits odd and I had some serious exhaustion going on in my legs. Nothing like riding a cruiser I’ll tell you! So I got home then had to climb the stairs with the bike on my shoulder. Propped that sucker against the railing and went inside where I proceeded to throw myself on the bed. I swear I was seconds from puking and fainting. Blood sugar was running high (thank you pad thai) and my head, well it was still pounding. Other than that I felt fantastic! Ha ha…

So once Mike was showered and feeling fabulous we were off to Armando’s for dinner. BYOM is typical around there so we stopped for some steaks. Mike ever adorable picked up a package of filet mignon that contained 2 small steaks. I was like ok that looks good, where’s yours? He pulled that POS bite of knowledge about the palm of your hand sized serving. I asked if I could at least have a “his palm sized serving”. Also filet mignon wasn’t wrapped in bacon thank you very much! He caved and grabbed 2 rib eyes, though significantly smaller than anything I’d have previously agreed to. Nearly half the size of what I usually eat. I eat a lot of red meat.
Dinner was filling. I was surprised, I didn’t eat more sides than I usually do and I had half my usual portion of steak. I was sure I’d be looking around at the plates around me to see who I could pick off of.

My headache went away and I enjoyed the evening all around. It’s always so nice when you don’t feel like you have a rock growing inside of your skull. I was really worried about getting enough sleep cause we were out til almost 11 and I wasn’t asleep til nearly midnight. Not enough sleep makes Zu-zu a mean mean person, and also a worthless employee. This morning I got up when the alarm went off. I was kind of traumatized by yesterday’s antics. I got moving pretty quickly, got myself dressed, juice made and juicer cleaned. Just in time to meet my carpool buddy. Not a bad start to the day, let’s keep this rolling!

So I was thinking good and hard about this juice thing and the logistics of it and whatnot. I need to have a plan in place before I start otherwise things will go downhill very rapidly. Today I’m craving a big greasy burger. For one I’m gonna have to ease myself off that red meat. But I know it isn’t going to happen. I’m going to eat myself into oblivion and will just go cold turkey when the time comes. Tuesday August 9^th will be day 1 of this holistic, veggie crack, possibly psychotic undertaking. In the meantime we continue replacing breakfast with veggie juice. I like it, normally for breakfast I’d be chomping down on some sort of 90 calorie fiber bar (usually 2) with chocolate and nuts, following that up with some random nuts from my desk or the half bag of potato chips that I’ve been stashing for a rainy day. In a real emergency there is also a bag of beef jerky which has been there well past its use within __ days of opening. It won’t kill me, I’m sure, but it sure tastes funky!

So we (and by we I mean I), started looking at the quantity of produce that will be required for said undertaking. Math this early in the day should be illegal along with working. So I busted the mean green recipe out of my head. It didn’t want to come out but after some serious cajoling and threats of imminent death it came out.  It shouldn’t be so hard considering I just made it! But my early onset of sometimers aside, I got it and then I tried math. Mean green consists of:

·         1 cucumber

·         4 stalks of celery

·         2 apples

·         1 bunch of greens (I’ve been using dandelion and chard) or kale

·         ½ lemon

·         1 thumb sized piece of ginger

So each time you make this recipe you get about 32 oz of liquid. The reboot calls for 16-32 oz of juice 6 times a day. So if you do the math, rather I do the math because I already did… One would need 3 cucumbers, 12 stalks of celery, 3 bunches of greens and 1 ½ lemons for a day’s worth of Mean Green. Multiply that by 2 for both of us and I’m starting to wonder how to fit that many veggies in my fridge for one day let alone a week at a time! Of course there are other juices we will make, some days we will drink more than 16 oz at once. The variants are endless! Ok well not endless but you get my drift.

Won’t you be starving, you ask? Hunger my friends, is a state of mind. I had my first drink at about 8am and by 10:15 I thought I was going to chew off a limb. Hunger pains willing me to open that drawer and eat some of those wonderful smoked almonds. Do it Zu-zu, feed us… Chew, chew, chew, swallow… oh sweet filling feeling in the pit of my stomach. But you just gotta keep on trucking! 20 minutes later I had forgotten about the hunger I was experiencing. That’s right! The hunger pangs went away. They always do you just have to wait. I’m not being starved I’m getting plenty of nutrients they’re just not dense like my fat belly would hope for. And as a reward, I got round two of juice, the last for today since I only juice once in the a.m.

That presented another small challenge that I will need to figure out. All these small things, luckily they are just small, but they add up. I have estimated that I am awake for approximately 16-17 hours of the day. I try my damndest to sleep 8 hours a night. So I’m awake 17 hours a day and have 6 juices to make up my entire day. That means that I will be drinking a bottle every 2.5-3 hours. I work a 10 hour shift 4 days a week so I’m in the office 10.5 hours on those days. So I’ll be having 5 of my 6 drinks in the office. How am I going to cart around that much juice on a daily basis? I suppose I can use a gallon sized jug and measure out my portions. Ok I can handle that. Or I can carry 5 16oz water bottles or I can pick up few more bpa free bottles that hold like 32oz. Although the gallon jug will be the cheapest and easiest method, it’s just not fashionable! Yes please laugh at me! Oh the complicated shenanigans we find ourselves in.

Am I getting scared that when the moment comes I will cave like the house of straw the first little piggy built? I really don’t think so. I’m feeling very confident in this. I have a plan and a goal and a support system and I have Mike. I especially have Mike. Through THICK or THIN, we’re gonna stick it through together. Let’s just hope for thin down the road!

Juicy Fruit is gonna move ya!

Green Eating

So you've seen the pictures of green goo that Mike and I have been ingesting, and you've been wondering what the hell are those two chunky monks doing? It really isn't as scary as it looks, I promise. Last week Mike and I watched "Fat, sick and nearly dead" and if you haven't heard of it you should go to your netflix queue or go here. And if you don't go there then I'll give you a really quick synopsis. Fat Australian comes to the states to go on a full on 61 day juice fast. He chose America cause he wouldn't have the distraction of everyone he knows or something. So he started by seeing a physician and getting a dirty bill of health. He then started this fast that like I said would last 61 days. It was some hardcore stuff! He drove across the country talking to people and showing them what he was doing. Part of the reason he started doing this was because of a condition he suffered from pretty much caused by bad diet. It's pretty uncommon so it was surprising when he ran into a truck driver who had the same condition. This dude was pushing 440lbs when he first appeared. Joe the guy who was doing his fast offered the dude his help but dude was like nah that's some crazy shit you're doing and I can't. So Joe finishes his 61 day fast and gets an amazingly better check up and goes home to Australia where he just keeps living a healthier life. Then one day he gets a message from the truck driver who decided he needed Joe's help. So Joe goes back to get the truck driver started and they keep in touch by phone and stuff but the truck driver keeps at it. He even tries to get his brother on the bandwagon. While Joe's story was crazy cool it was the truck driver who really struck a cord for Mike and me but especially Mike. Like holy fuck, if this guy who is over 100lbs heavier than Mike and 2x as heavy as me can do it than why can't we? The guy literally lost like 100lbs and went from being able to walk for 5 minutes to this dude who was in the best shape of his life and was running! Running!!

So Mike and I went out and got a juicer and then we went to the farmers market and bought a ton of veggies. I came home and emptied the fridge, which honestly needed it anyway. It had stuff in there that probably could have killed us if not severely maimed us. Once it was all done, cleaned out and everything replaced with a healthier alternative it was awesome to stand back and look inside of it. It was so colorful and organized and healthy! It was like we were watching the Cribs episode for someone who wasn’t either of us. I was still a bit or a lot skeptical of this idea of making juice from veggies. To me veggies have always been something to be eaten slathered in ranch or if cooked then coated in melted butter. But putting them through a juicer and drinking the odd colored extracts? Yeah not something that had ever come to mind!
While I was busy doing some stuff, Mike got to work. I could hear the machine going wild downstairs. I was afraid. I was even more worried when I saw him emerge at the stair case. Huffing and puffing, sweating and holding three ominous looking glasses of what can only be described as GREEN. I sat there considering it and preferring to entertain myself with the task at hand instead of jumping in and getting my taste buds wet with this pond water.
At Mike’s insistence I finally did it. I took a frightened sip from my glass and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. There was the zest of the lemon, the mild background spice of the ginger, and the refreshing cucumber. You can vaguely taste some of the celery; and the kale, well that just blended right in. Because it’s being juiced and not blended you don’t have that sludge consistency but really just a juice. I drank all of it and was glad that for once I hadn’t fought Mike tooth and nail to avoid eating or drinking something.
So our plan is to ease our way into this fast. We’re replacing a meal a day with the juice and when we get back from California and subsequently Meatgasm 2011 then and only then will we begin our fast. Neither of these is a last hurrah meal, just plans that have been in place prior to this fast thing came about. Meatgasm 2011 is the trip to Seattle we’ve had planned for a few weeks now. We’ve all been Jonesing for some Brazilian BBQ for a long while. It’s not cheap, but what says love more than a bunch of scantily clad men feeding you endless amounts of meat? As far as my trip to Cali… well that without a doubt means good food. And lots of it.
For those of you who are wondering if we will be doing more harm than good, fear not! Mike is seeing our doctor today to run this by him before we go all buck wild on the beetus train to hell. We are still getting a good amount of fiber, maybe more so than we would with our typical diet of red meat and carbs. The bad kind of carbs that is. We have been working on eating smarter and fresher but you know when the urge sets in and you just want a greasy burger. Sometimes it is too much to resist. As far as a serious spike in sugar is concerned; we are using very little fruit. Like I mentioned, our fridge is currently holding things like celery, cucumbers, kale, dandelion greens, spinach, broccoli, carrots and lemons. While some fruit does go into the construction of the juice, I am keeping track. We have a scale which also gives out nutritional readings for the foods weighed on them so it makes it easy to keep track of the carbs going into each mix. So long as I’m keeping my pump apprised of the amounts I will be ok. I have been careful to continue checking my blood sugars to avoid spikes or serious lows and so far so good. Of course as mentioned, Mike is talking to our M.D about this and if he says it’s a no go then that’s the end of it. We don’t want to jeopardize our health; on the contrary we are hoping to do more good to our body. Clean out all the years of toxins and start clean.
So there you have it. These are the shenanigans the Jones’ are up to this week.

Dear Dan

In just a few minutes we will be marking a year since you made a decision to end your life. I don't know if you truly understood the repercussions of your decision. I imagine that the pain you were in at that moment made it impossible to clearly see there was another resort. Did you consider the pain you would leave behind? Did you consider how deeply you would impact the lives of all of those who considered you a friend? Everyone who has ever loved you?
When I think of you I"m torn between anger and guilt. I'm angry that you did this to all of us. I'm furious with you. You were such a smart man, such a caring man. And I feel guilty for considering the pain you left behind while considering that you had to be in insurmountable pain in order to do such a thing. I want to punch you in the gut and I want to hug you and breathe you in as though I might never see you again. I miss your humor, your sarcasm and cynical ways. It wasn't all roses with you. I think in death we always choose to hold steadfastly to the good memories and ignore the bad times. But without the bad we couldn't have the good. I can remember some of the ugly days we had. I remember you made me cry but you also made me smile more times than I can count. You made me laugh when all I wanted to do was continue crying. And even as I sit remembering you and crying, I smile for those good times.
I want to know why. I know that knowing your reason won't bring you back. Still I want and need to know what you were thinking in those last hours. I simply cannot fathom what could evoke such an action. I dream that you're here, that it was all a long terrible dream that we couldn't bring ourselves out of. You are never far from my memories. I find myself surprised by grief. It finds me while driving, out of the blue on a perfectly good day. Suddenly I'm a sea of tears. It isn't fair, you are my friend and I am entitled to grieve. Where do we go from here? I've learned that grief isn't one size fits all. I read recently "time doesn't really heal, it only makes living more bearable".
I want to yell to the heavens, demand that they return you, but it's been a year and you're not coming back.