Lenten Promises

For Lent this year I decided to give up Facebook. I'm pretty sure that won't absolutely kill me. But, I can't really be sure that the other decision I made won't.

You see, I've decided, for the second time in my life, to embark on a cleanse.

A cleaning. A readjustment. The creation of circumstances in my body such that my colon becomes more like a Slip N Slide than the interior of a grease vat.

Are you tracking with me?

For 21 days, I am going to devote myself to eating nothing more than vegetables, fruit, and protein shakes, with a daily (yet paltry) 1/2 cup of grains.

The makers of this regime, just so they don't have to attend court weekly to defend their company against murder suspects who have declared themselves "temporarily insane due to diet" and just HAPPENED to be using the makers products and plan, added a couple of tablespoons of "good" oil to the routine, hoping to keep mass murder to a minimum. Especially around drivers of Blue Bell Ice Cream trucks.

Those grains? The mere 4 ounces worth? I will savor like it is beluga caviar and I am eating the last tablespoon of the stuff available to mankind.*

And I'll be taking 21 "cleanse" pills daily, pills made of fiber from MORE vegetables and fruit and probably sawdust.** And drink so much water that you'd think I was a camel about to embark on a thirty day trek through the Sahara Desert in July.

Trust me, though. I won't develop some clever hump on my back. No, I'll be running to the bathroom every 14 seconds for the next few days until my bladder decides "OH CRAP. She's on some water kick again. Better stretch out a bit and stop sending pee-pee signals."

Can you tell that I do this cleanse because I know it's good for me? And not because, at least for the first week or so, I enjoy it?

Once I'm over the proverbial hump, life is grand. My body will recoil at the thought of sugar and big hunks of meat and lowly carbs made from white flour.

But, RIGHT NOW? Day one, breakfast? All I can think about is coffee. And hurting Mike. Who keeps asking me questions about the cleanse ("Did you include your greens? Have you taken your pills.") And who just announced, before eating anything this morning "HEY! I've lost four pounds."***

Looks like Jesus may not be the only one in the history of the world to end Lent on a tree.



*Never had caviar. Not sure I ever will. But, when I eat my brown rice at night, I feel like I've won the food lottery and have received the gastronomic equivalent of the best tasting food on Earth.

**Though that isn't exactly listed as an ingredient on the pill jar.

***Yes, he was joking. But I had a lovely mouthful of shake in my mouth and I was determined NOT TO SPIT MY SHAKE OUT. That could have been the 10 calories between starvation and fulfillment later in the day.