The Summer of Self Improvement -- The Detox: An Update

Claire Nereim's lovely new work, Seasonal Vegetables of California...it relates to the post. I promise.


So this week there has been success and there has been, umm…failure.

The success was (surprisingly, as I thought this would be the hardest part) on the sugar and alcohol front. In fact, you might even say I've been a bit of a no sugar/no alcohol machine, as with the exception of one (teeny, tiny…a crumb really) homemade brownie early on and a few sips of a lavender, lemon, gin concoction (which sounds sort of medicinal, yes?) on our date last Saturday, I’ve not slipped up at all.

And I’m happy to report it’s paying off. I feel great. Like super-power great…loads of energy, sleeping really well, (slightly) looser jeans. So definitely worth it.

I’ve also started drinking a (supremely disgusting, but seemingly effective) daily “green” shake, which pretty much consists of some green veggie powder (that I’m envisioning includes every single item represented in Claire’s incredibly lovely calendar above…see the connection?) and some cranberry juice swirled together in the blender and consumed as fast as possible, with my nose plugged. Totally gross, but again, makes me feel great, so worth it…

Ok, now onto the failure, otherwise known as “the shopping.” I’m sad to report that I have thrice cheated. Not huge cheats, but a cheat is a cheat, so no excuses. And they all occurred last Friday after my super virtuous dinner at La Duni with Bryan and the girlies. It was like abstaining from the warm chocolate pudding cake and expertly muddled mojitos was just too much to handle, causing me to break during the short walk from restaurant to movie theater during which time I was sucked into the vortex of cute that is Peek and bought three new things for the girls.

Things they didn’t need. Ugg.

But I haven’t given up. I’m still committed to staying the course through the end of the month, despite my upcoming work trip to Germany, as there’s nothing like a little foreign travel to set the consumption drive in motion. (Luckily my boss has scheduled back-to-back meetings the entire time I’m there…really I think he’s just looking out for me. He knows if I was set free in town, I’d surely break the hiatus. Thanks Chris ;-)

So onward I go…wish me luck.