I was sold. I wanted to try it. But it seemed like his lifestyle was more conducive to a week-long starvation than mine. It seemed like a really good challenge though. What to do?
Aha! I know what I would do. I will modify it. Instead of a water diet, I'll just eat veggies for one whole week. (I don't like veggies.) I will make it just as simple, but not quite as challenging.
RULES: The rules of my veggietox were that I was only going to allow myself to eat raw fruits and vegetables. Nothing processed, cooked, or artificially flavored. How hard can that be?
I looked at the calendar for a week where I had no weekly obligations. About a month away, I noticed January 31 through February 5th would be a good veggietox week. It was on.
The week before the veggietox, I started "training." I limited my diet to lighter foods. More veggies, less heavy meats, and a lot more water. By the end of the week, I felt ready. I bought some veggies from the local supermarket and took them home for my experiment. I got enough for about 3 days of fasting. I figured that I would know by day 3 if I will make it or not.
January 30 - Went to my sister's house because my parents were visiting. Ate everything that I was going to go without that night. Noodles, rice, meat, etc. As the night closed in on the midnight hour, I had a couple of snacks but when midnight rang, I didn't touch any of them anymore.
Day 1 - I left my sister's house excited about the week to come. I thought this would be easy. I went to sleep and woke up at around 9:30AM. "Good", I thought. I slept through a good chunk of the morning. Less veggies to eat today. I check my food rations. I had a leftover bunch of lettuce that I could eat. I like lettuce, that would be a good start. I eat whatever lettuce is in the fridge which is about 10 or so leaves. Calorie count = negligable. Still, it was crisp and cool and it wasn't that difficult. This is going to be easy.
I go to my sister's house again as my parents are still visiting. There are apples and grapes on the counter. Awesome! I eat the fruits heartily. Not hungry yet, I feel satisfied. The rest of the day seems a blur.
Day 2 - First day at work. This is the real test. Just remember... Drink plenty of water.
First meal = banana. After I finish the banana, I open my carrots. I eat carrots for the next 2 hours or so until lunch. For lunch I go to the San Francisco Salad Company and I get a spinach salad with apples. The apples are too tart but the spinach is awesome. I eat that. The rest of the day, I eat carrots. This is easy. I don't feel weak, I feel great in fact. My afternoon snack, I eat a tangerine. A very good tangerine in fact.
Day 3 - I decide to add celery to my midmorning meal. I eat a banana, celery, carrots, salad, and a tangerine again. Again this feels great. For dinner, we go to Kakaako Kitchen (a local restaurant). Unfortunately there is nothing that fits my veggietox. I eat stuff off my girlfriend's salad.
Day 4 - Same as day 3. I eat a banana, celery, carrots, and a tangerine. I try to eat bean sprouts for my midmorning snack but it had a weird texture to it and I threw them out. I didn't have time for a salad today. I still feel pretty good but I am missing the taste of cooked food. For dinner, I eat a house salad from Zippys (a local restaurant). We go to Costco to buy more veggies. I buy a veggie platter that I ration off for the rest of the week.
Day 5 - I eat my banana for breakfast. This is the highlight of my day. I bring cherry tomatoes that I plan to eat for my snack. It is waaaay too tart. I stop eating that and I go to my second package of food - cauliflower. Just to let you know, raw cauliflower sucks. I eat about 6 or 7 small pieces of that and 3 pieces of broccoli. I didn't have time to get lunch today but I go outside of the office looking for something. The smell of the cooked food around me smells so good that I can't imagine eating veggies from anywhere. I just go back to the office and eat the rest of my carrots.
For dinner we go to a bowling alley. Bowling alleys are like bars. They serve fried food. Delicious fried foods. I am feeling really weak. I eat a house salad and a pear. My girlfriend eats french fries and saimin. It smelled so good.
Side note: On day 5, my girlfriend said that my eyes looked yellow. I checked online and I may have a mild case of B12 deficiency.
Day 6 - Almost there. I realized yesterday that I lost my track. Up to this point, I had lost about 7 or 8 pounds at least and it had become a diet. My intent was to veggietox. Not to diet. I tell myself I would eat a lot today. I eat the same foods (carrots, salad, tangerine, and watermelon). I am back on track. I put a couple of cucumber slices on the salad and it tasted like ash. Everything is starting to taste weird.
We go to Bad Ass Coffee Company to watch Pete and Kelly Stuck in the 80's (highly recommended. Super fun to watch). My friend tells me that I look orange or yellow and that I look sickly. I tell her I am veggietoxing and that I am probably low on B12.
Day 7 - The last day. I wake up around 10AM and I am feeling weak. We go to Big City Diner and there isn't much on the menu I can eat. I eat a house salad. I don't feel satisfied. I would rather eat my girlfriend's Paniolo Chicken Salad. After "brunch" we go to Toys n Joys. I step out of the car and feel woozy. I need something to eat. I go to 7-11 and pick up a banana. It doesn't help.
We go back home because I am afraid I am going to pass out. I eat an apple and some carrots. I am feeling better now. It is around 2PM and the countdown to midnight begins.
5PM (7 hours to go) - My original thought was to pick up some fast food and bring it home for my celebratory feast but I changed my mind and decided to eat my favorite food - fried chicken. We plan to go to Anna Millers, eat my fried chicken there and have a dessert after.
8PM (4 hours to go) - I have an awesome, colon cleansing, body lightening experience. One week of nothing but raw fruits and veggies have just left me.. (sorry, too much information?)
10PM (2 hours to go) - Why is the time moving so slowly? Are we running in basketball time? Where 1 minute ends up being 15 minutes in real time? I am soooo craving real food. Plus, almost all of my carrots are gone! I'm watching the Blue Mountain State marathon on Spike. The food commercials are killing me.
11:30PM (30 minutes to go) - I was planning to leave the house at 11:45, but I can't wait. I figure by the time I get to the restaurant, get seated, and order my food, it will easily be midnight. We leave the house.
11:40PM (20 minutes to go) - What the?! Where was the traffic?! We are here early. Thats okay, it is a Saturday night, there is probably a waiting list to get in.
11:42PM (18 minutes to go) - OK.. No line.. We are seated already. It is still kind of busy. Maybe we can order and it will take 15 minutes for the food to show up. At least the waitress isn't here yet. That will kill some time.... "Why hello.. Can I take your order?" Dammit.. She is here. I order my fried chicken, portuguese bean soup, and cornbread.
Maybe the food will take 15 minutes to get here.
11:50 (10 minutes to go) - Soup and cornbread arrives. It smells sooo good. I gotta stare at it for another 10 minutes.
11:55 (5 minutes to go) - Fried chicken shows up. Dammit! 5 more minutes. I gotta go to the bathroom or something. I leave for a minute.
4 minutes to go - I come back and stare at my food.... and my watch. Why wasn't there one more red light on the way over? Damn you temptation!
3 minutes to go - .......
2 minutes to go - I start looking over the desserts to figure out what I want to eat after I eat this meal Scooby Doo or Cookie Monster style.
1 minute to go - Hurry please!
Midnight - YES!
12:15AM - Done...
I order a chocolate haupia pie.
12:20AM - Finish dessert. I feel sick now.
CONCLUSION: This was a worthwhile experience. I didn't feel the benefits my relative talked about when he did his week of water detox though. I felt less bogged down and "cleaner" after the week though. I realized that if I needed to do this again, I could. I would supplement a multivitamin though. I DID cheat 4 times though - I mistakenly ate roasted nuts and olives. I also drank protein twice. Even though I had about 500 total calories per day, I did not feel as weak or sluggish as I thought I would feel. I would suggest something like this to anyone who wants to challenge themselves but are worried about doing a pure detox. Make sure you supplement though. I was worried about the comments my friends were saying about my skin and eyes at the end of the week.
In the end, I lost at least 10 pounds. The day I finished was Super Bowl Sunday and when I weighed myself on Monday, I had gained back about 5 pounds. I am assuming that accounts for water weight and probably some muscle loss. I went to the gym twice during this time and I felt lightheaded once. My strength loss was prevalent but minimal considering the type of diet I was on. (I can normally do like 225 lb good mornings but only managed a difficult 205 lb on Thursday) I also didn't feel mentally fatigued, stressed, or dumber. Although my girlfriend said I was weirder than usual.
