MC, Day 10

DAY 10!!

(Or, the Day That I Succeeded.)

I love accomplishing goals. Seriously, I do. I am a very strange and OCD person (who among us isn't, really?) and I like to know that I can accomplish things. I will make little checkboxes on my notebook for work and check things off, because it makes me feel satisfied.

Working in VFX is a big cycle of relaxation, panic, and finally, catharsis. But those cycles take a long time (I'm usually on a single movie for 6 - 9 months). I like little goals that I can tackle daily or weekly or monthly. Drink at least a liter of water a day. Check! Sort through my clothes and really throw out the ones I don't need. Check! Get to work by 9:00. Um ... working on it.

So yesterday, the whole day, I basked in my sense of fulfillment. I had finished something that I was very reluctant about and unsure of. I didn't think I would be able to do it when I had first started, but I did! It helped that I also was able to write a little function in Excel that made one of the producers love me forever, because I am a nerd like that. Mostly, it was about the final day of the cleanse.

I had decided, after the Disneyland fiasco, that pineapple juice was exactly what I needed and wanted. It was, in a word, perfect. It has some vitamins, plus it's enriched with Vitamin C so I don't get scurvy, it's delicious, and it is tart, similar enough to the lemonade I've been drinking for the past ten days that my body won't go into shock.

One thing that I did after I was really sick the week before this cleanse was to eat yogurt as soon as I felt better. I don't like sweetened yogurt, because I don't think it tastes like yogurt- it's congealed milkshake. (I also have a thing where I think oatmeal should be SALTY. Like rice porridge. So I eat plain oatmeal with salt or soy sauce, none of that brown sugar flavor for me, thanks.) Plain yogurt, specifically Fage, delicious Greek yogurt, is perfect. Though dairy is bad for someone who's been ill with some undetermined stomach ailment, yogurt has bacteria that is supposed to help. I ate the Fage (2%- full-fat yogurt is too rich for me). I never looked back.

So my very unscientific reasoning was that I could ease back into the real world with pineapple juice and yogurt for a day and then try soups.

At the end of Day 10 (yesterday), I went to the grocery store. I needed to buy some yogurt and some pineapple juice and a small can of pineapples. I worried for a moment that all the roasted chicken, pre-made cookies, chips, shrimp cocktail, and aisles and aisles of produce would make me a lunatic that bought everything in sight. I doubted my own willpower as I walked from my car into the air-conditioned haven of food.

Apparently, I should not doubt my own ability to resist temptation. I breezed past the bakery section, felt no pull towards the fried chicken, and walked past all the cheeses with just one backward glance. I found yogurt, pineapple juice, and a tiny Dole tin of crushed pineapples. Off I went.

Of course, I forgot to eat the yogurt and pineapples this morning. I'm not used to remembering that I have to eat! To make up for it, I had pineapple juice at work. And it was perfect- got me started but didn't get me too hyped up, and a couple hours later, I'm still happy.

I work very close to a Trader Joe's, so I'll probably go get some yogurt for lunch. I'll peruse to see if they have canned pineapples in juice (not syrup).

In reading the billions of food blogs that I've found in the past couple weeks, I came across The Daring Kitchen, which includes the Daring Bakers and the Daring Cooks. They have a challenge each month to bake/cook a specified recipe, as stated by the host, a different blogger every month. I kind of want to try it, but I'm scared. What if something comes up that I hate? What if they want me to cook (horror of horrors) mushrooms??

So October's Daring Cooks challenge is pho, a Vietnamese noodle and soup dish that my parents LOVE. I think I'll try it this weekend, while I'm at their house, and see what happens.

Did anyone ever want to see what the delightful lemonade medley looks like? I snapped a picture of the very time I had to make the stuff.
























This was made with mostly limes and just a bit of lemon. I make two small glasses with everything but the water, then let them sit together overnight. I mostly do this because I hate those little floating bits of cayenne pepper, and I feel like maybe the acidity of the lemon/lime juice will help them dissolve into smaller specks. Then I pour each glass into a liter bottle and add water. Yum.

I was actually terrified this morning of eating. Outright fear. I'm so afraid that something bad will happen to me once I am re-introduced to food. It's very strange, and I hope I get over it in the next few days.

Thoughts about the Master Cleanse:

PRO:

• I've never been so aware of everything. My senses of smell and hearing, in particular, seem insanely sharp. Somehow, the way I see things is different. Colors are crisper, truer, and I'm more observant (I was already freakishly observant, so this may not have been a good thing).
  
• Thriving on so little sleep is wonderful. It's like my day just got four hours longer, so I can do more stuff! Okay, do more useless stuff.
• Saving time on anything food-related. Another two or three hours added to my day!
• Best sleep of my life. It could be described as "deep slumber."
• Noticeable improvement in respiration. I used to wake up with a stuffy nose every single morning that gradually dissipated throughout the day. No more stuffy nose!
  

CON:

• Worst. Cramps. Ever.
  
• Aching. My joints, back, legs all ached. Not too terrible, but not ideal.
• Low energy. It's not that I was completely out of commission, but I wasn't eager to walk places that were two blocks away.
  
• Constantly cold. Brrr.

So would I do it again? YES. I've read all kinds of stuff about this cleanse- t's not good for you, it doesn't provide enough vitamins, it's detrimental ... blah, blah, blah. I feel cleaner and somehow taller. I don't know if it's a placebo effect or what, but it does seem like toxins have been scared away and I am free to start with a fresh slate. I like it.

I am now on a quest to maintain and healthier lifestyle, particularly when it comes to food. The making of movies is known to breed terrible eating habits. Craft services is always full of junk food, from tarts and cookies to chocolate and gummy bears. We work late and end up shoveling crappy burritos or burgers down our throats. It's no wonder that so many people in this business are in such bad health- between working up to 16 hours a day and eating nothing but fried food, how can anyone stay healthy??

I'm going to try to break out of the horrible production-schedule slide towards high cholesterol and stay on solid footing with fresher foods, more packed lunches, and less of the greasy Chinese or over-buttered pasta that we get fed.

This is going to be even harder than the cleanse.