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!