It’s about 8pm on Saturday, Jan 8th, 2011.  And I’m exhausted.  This weekend I am the primary speaker at the Rapid Results Marketing Bootcamp in Toronto. So I was up at 6am (very uncharacteristic for me) and spent most of my day on stage. In addition to that, Toronto had some of the heaviest snowfall this morning that it’s had all year. I don’t know if it’s the humid cold, or the lack of warm food and meat, but I have been coooold.

Today was a bit of a tough day.  I had a lot of realizations about food, my habits, and my surroundings.  Here’s my video for day two of the ease in.

Day Two:

I wake up just after 6am.  I really couldn’t get to sleep last night. It was a combination of working late, and not being able to sleep (right before bed I remembered that I had some cookie dough in the fridge that I had been looking forward to.  And now I’m not going to be able to eat it. I argue, bargain, and rationalize with myself until I recommit to the ease-in process. Bollocks!). So as 6am rolls around I am not feeling particularily rested.  And I feel sooooo cold.  I hop in the shower and stay there for probably 22 minutes. That’s the same amount of time it takes me to run 4.5 km.  Makes me feel like I’m not getting anything done, but at least I’m warming up. I get dressed with the thought in mind, “Which shirt-tie combo is going to go best with my mohawk? I’ve got to dress to impress today!” I settle on slim blue pinstripe suit, edge slim white shirt, red plaid-ish skinny tie. I am way to tired to notice that my shirt is disgustingly dirty.

Out the door a little late with my plan in hand.  Hit the grocery store on the way to the subway, buy some fresh fruit, fruit/veg smoothies, and some veggies to snack on.  What really happens though? Halfway to the grocery store I decide to double check my train time, and find out that I had been looking at the weekday schedule, not the weekend schedule.  I have no time to buy food! I hop in a cab and tell him to step on it. I catch the train on time, and grab a health smoothy from a coffee shop at Union Station.

I realize shortly after that I’m a little naive if I think one smoothy will tide me over until lunch… but it does.  The rest of the day features me drinking a tonne of water and peeing every 45 minutes. Chipmunk-bladderitis I like to call it. I could get liquid food for lunch so instead I order a salad.  Mediterranean with no dressing, and no feta cheese.  Can you say BLAND!?! But diamond in the rough here we come, the olives taste like never before!  I am blown away by how good they are. How have I never noticed just how delicious these bloody olives are? Wow! They are literally PACKED with taste.

Everyone else in the room is eating pizza. I’m proud that I don’t have the urge to follow suit.

The rest of the day goes by.  I drink more water. Once I get back downtown I stop at some place I’ve passed by a million times, but never noticed before called Jugo Juice. I utter a few words I never thought I’d ever say, “Um, I’d like the 24oz Max Veg please.” Carrot, beet, celery, green pepper, spinach, and cucumber.  I was shocked to see how much veggies they fit into that cup! Again, I find the drink bearable, but bland as bland can be.

Soon these oranges will be orange juice!

On the way home I find another place I’ve never noticed before, “The Fresh Fruit Market”. Now this place is located in the heart of the Gaybourhood in Toronto, so it might be a bit of a play on words. Nonetheless they have oranges appropriate for juicing! I buy a bag and get the heck out of dodge. Back at home I peel them and get them reading for juicing!

So in case you were wondering, that’s day two.

How am I feeling?

Pretty good actually. I’m surprised that I’m not dead dog tired right now.  I have felt generally hungry all day. And there were a few hunger pangs that came up when I smelt some fresh baked bread. I have definitely noticed a few things so far.

  1. When I eat just raw unprocessed foods, I really feel like I’m giving my digestive system a break. The food that is going down my gullet right now is well broken down. I wonder what my stomach even has to do?
  2. Vegetables are BLAND! Salad without dressing is boring. Veggie juices are almost tasteless (except for the last half inch… that part’s disgusting!). I just about had a mouthgasm from a freaking black olive today!
  3. Baked food has never smelt so good before! I walked through the buffet area at the hotel this morning just to smell the waffles and toast.
  4. I take food for granted. Until now I’ve never really thought much about where I’ll get my next meal. Now I am thinking that all the time.  It’s exhausting. But it really gives me an appreciation for those places that provide me the alternative to have healthy choices.
  5. My brother wanted to meet up with me tonight to watch the wild card games for the NFL playoffs at a bar. When I told him I was on the cleanse that kind of killed the mood. We didn’t meet up.

My outlook moving forward?

I actually believe that today and tomorrow will among my toughest days (and I haven’t even started the cleanse yet!). This is because I am spending both days on stage, in a convention centre. The rest of the cleanse I will be working from home. That will make it much easier to prepare food, and control my day. The other day I anticipate to be hard is day 5 of the lemonade diet.  I will be on a plane for 5 hours that day. And because it’s an international flight, I have to be there 2 hours in advance. Which means no lemonade for like 8 hours! I’ll deal with that when I get there.

As crazy as it sounds, I’m actually looking forward to getting into the Lemonade Diet portion of The Master Cleanse, and start getting these toxins out of my body. In the last few days I found out that lots of people in my life have done this cleanse before.  I had no idea! That’s kind of cool.

If you’re doing the ease-in or lemonade diet right now, please be sure to leave a comment and let me know how you’re doing. If you have questions, post them in the comment section as well, I’ll be sure to respond.