nerd with sex appeal

My friend Sheila @ Livewell 360 reminded me about how awesome checking things off of lists is.

I fucking love checking things off of lists.  

So much so that sometimes I’ll do things that aren’t on lists, then write them down just so I can check it off.

Must do more of this.

I just completed a 5 1/2 day juice fast.

My FB inbox has been blowing up with questions from friends so I figured it would be best to just write out my experience.

First, here’s why I did it:

I have a very extreme and addictive personality.  I don’t really do things in moderation.  I’m either full on or full not on.  

I’m either super healthy or killing myself slowly.

When I learn new things, I pretty much drop everything else to focus on that one thing…

Is it the best way to live?  Nope.  But it’s the way I’ve been operating for some time now so I’m just trying to make the most of it.

Anyways, for the past 3-4 months… and even more so in the past month, I’ve been in the “killing myself slowly” phase.

Too much shitty food, too many fatty lattes, too much adderall (no bueno.  But I’ve had an unusually hard time focusing the past few months.), too much alcohol, not enough exercise.  

But the real catalyst for deciding to start the “detox” — I found myself smoking cigarettes!  (WTF!)  I’ve basically been nauseated by the smell of cigarettes for the past 10 or so years since I quit.  

But for some reason, I ended up buying a few packs (and enjoying them immensely.)  Gross.

So I decided it was time to kick all that shit.

But as I said, I need an extreme plan or it doesn’t stick.  I can’t just “dip my toes in the water,” so to speak.  So I decided to just dump all of it at once and to do it a big way…

Let me just say that I wouldn’t have gone this route had I been training hard and taking care of myself…  I don’t believe it’s some magical solution.  I don’t even know if I believe in the actual “detox” effect.  

I didn’t really feel any different throughout the whole thing.

But I am certain it was extremely beneficial in another way… which I’ll get to in a sec.

Here’s how mine worked:

There’s this really awesome juice place just outside of my favorite Broga (Yoga for Bros) studio.  I’ve been enjoying their green juice and almond milk for about 6-7 months now…

It’s called Pressed Juicery and the shit is delicious.  

They offer a few different “cleansing” plans.  One for newbies, one for semi-experienced and then one for more experienced folks…  

I took the Cleanse 1 program (link)

It looks like this.  I drank the juices every day, in this order.

1. Green based drink
2. Root based drink
3. “Detox” drink
4. Green based
5. Root based
6. Almond milk

You can’t even imagine how delicious these things are though.  For serious…  I’d been drinking them strictly out of pleasure for quite some time so I figured it wouldn’t be all that painful.

And it wasn’t.

How I felt:

The 5 days was surprisingly easy.  On day 2 and 3, I had a mild headache.  Maybe that was adderall or caffeine withdrawal, I don’t know.  It was a minor annoyance though, that’s all.

I was never really hungry, never tired, never sick, never noticed any of the “brain fog” that some people told me about.

In fact, I had some pretty legit yoga sessions during the 5 days.  Didn’t feel quite as explosive..

I basically breezed through the entire thing.

On days 4 and 5, I did actually end up eating a fairly large salad consisting of sprouts and a few slices of cucumber.  I was told this would have no effect on the detox and I just wanted to chew something.  It wasn’t me being “hungry” that inspired this… just me liking food and wanting to stay sane.

So there’s that.

I was a little disappointed in that I never really felt as “amazing” as some say they did.  Around day 4, I was told to expect to feel fantastic:  clear-headed, light, and vibrant.  That didn’t really happen.

So that was kinda shitty cuz I was looking forward to it.  But maybe that was my problem… I should’ve just let it be.  But hey…

So what was the point?  Was there any benefit?

I believe there was.  Kicking all of that bad stuff in one fell swoop made it much easier than a more moderate approach.  In fact, I don’t think I would’ve succeeded without doing something major.

I eliminated:

• Gluten
• Dairy
• Nicotine/Tobacco
• Alcohol
• Amphetamines (adderall.  Not meth.)
• Caffeine
• Sugar
• Shitty carbs
• Late nights

Killed them all.  100%.  In 5 days.  So that’s pretty rad.

Would I do it again?

Sure.  But only for the same reason.  To get myself out of a rut.  A smarter man would just change so he doesn’t find himself in one of those “ruts,” but hey — I’m not that smart.

If I was to do it again… I’d go full on California and get a colonic.  But I wasn’t ready to have a hose all up in my undercarriage this time.

When I’m on point:  training hard, eating well and doing my thang…  I see no reason to do it.  I would end up miserable because my strength would be down and I’d be putting myself through mental anguish thinking about losing all my pretty musclezzzz!

But that wasn’t the case.

Oh yeah:  I may have partaken in a very small amount of [organic] pot smokage.  Probably not the best idea ever…  but it was organic!  Give me a break mom!  I’m a grown ass got damn man.

So that’s whasup.  I’ll update this post if I think of more… or if you have any questions — hit me up in the comments or on Facebook.

PEEEACE!