Vegetarian Living...

so its been a good couple of days since i ended the fast. it feels great that ive been able to maintain a vegetarian diet since last thursday and ultimately, 17 days in a row now. im also happy to find out that eggs fall under vegetarian, which to me is kinda odd, but as long as i can have my egg whites in the morning, im happy. ive been eating alot of veggie burgers (lots of BBQs the last few days), cereal w/ soy milk and my brother introduced me to my new favorite - BBQ'd sweet potatoes. slice the sweet potatoes like fat potato chips, microwave them in a bag with a little bit of olive oil and spices for 10 minutes and then throw them right on the BBQ rack... so good. antha and i went to the diner last night and i got a vegetarian panini sandwich thing. it was so much better than i expected. so yeah, eating veg isn't as hard as i once thought it was. sure it takes a little more thinking because its not always as available (like lunch at work), but if you get creative and dont mind eating "side dishes" as a meal... no worries. and i feel good!
beer. gotta love beer. been having a couple here and there, and no, i didnt get shitfaced after the first 2 beers i had. its weird though, once i drink 4 at the most, i lose all desire to keep drinking. this was the case all weekend... i think alot of it is from conditioning with the baby though. nothing is worse than a hangover when youre up at 5:30am and you dont get to go back to sleep until its dark out again. you do that ONCE and it never happens again...a little switch goes off in your head when you start getting a good buzz.
so yeah, ive been quite busy the last few days and other than being at work, i haven't really been on the computer. i'd like to try and keep this blog going though in the future. and not necessarily just food and diet related self indulgant drivel... see where it goes.

AND, today is Hugo's last day of his fast. i can't believe he did it, im actually beyond impressed and i hope he's proud of himself. if there was anyone more worthless then me when i started my fast...it was him. good job, buddy!

8/3...DAY 12, 10:15am

ok, so i drank my OJ all day and on my way home in the car i was seriously shaking and about to pass out...which is cool if youre doing 75 on the ocean pkwy. so i called antha and asked her to heat up some broth, boil some brown rice and cut up some veggies cause it was now time to test the waters. i could wait no longer, the OJ was not going to get me through the rest of the day into this morning.


my soup looked and smelled awesome... antha took a picture of the first spooonful, for posterity...



so i had one bowl of soup, about 2 cups and 2 rye crackers. it felt so good to chew, it was better than i could have imagined. after dinner we went for a long walk down around the marina, came home and put the boy to bed. woke up this morning and the "plumbing" seems to be working fine...i'm back to my old routine with no problem. had a rye cracker with a little organic peanut butter on it (pretty much smushed up unsalted peanuts in a jar for $7... but its been in the fridge for months now cause its so bland) and now im about to have some cantoloupe, honeydew and pineapple. i brought veggie soup for lunch and i made up a container of it to bring to my brothers house tonight. thank god i dont need to suffer through another BBQ with no food.... it feels good to get back to "normal" living. now i just need to maintain some of the willpower i proved to myself that i actually have. i think beer can be classified as a vegetable, no?

8/2...DAY 11. 9:30am

orange juice never tasted so good. so i broke out the ol' juicer, had my 2 bags of organic oranges (about 20-24 total) and juiced away. i cut it half and half with some poland spring and it gave me about 2 liters of fresh OJ. we've made juice before, usually a last ditch effort to save produce from getting wasted, and my one complaint is its SOOO damn messy. not so much the act of juicing, but the cleanup. pulp on everything. but hell, i wouldve cleaned up all the juicers on my street this morning if it meant not drinking that lemon asswater.
so the fast is officially over, although i didnt break down this morning and eat one of the pretzel nuggets thats been staring at me on the counter for 11 days. it was tempting but to go this far, i'd hate to screw up my system now and possibly prevent me from really eating this weekend. i DID bring my vegetable broth to the office though because i really dont know how im going to get through today on about half the juice im used to... i might make a cup of the just the broth, no veggies or rye crackers, and have that this afternoon if i feel good up until then. tomorrow ill have the broth with veggies and some rye crackers though.
thats about it for now i guess. everything is status quo... and thank god the salt water flushes are a thing of the past... i was almost on time to work today.

8/1...DAY 10, 10am

well, this is it. one last day of the lemonade. hard to believe i haven't eaten in almost 10 full days (as of this afternoon). i feel really good overall, as far as mornings go, this is the best i've consistently felt in a long time. the evenings get rough as hell, but i chalk that up to breaking the habit of eating dinner every day for, oh, my entire life. breakfast and lunch get skipped all the time...but dinner is another story. i dont have much else right now, just looking forward to weaning back into some solid food this weekend and starting to exercise again. i had read that many people dont suffer from asthma anymore after the cleansing. i havent used my inhaler in 10 days but im curious to see how it is running on the soccer field this weekend. my chest certainly feels wide open with no wheezing or anything, which is great. well, the assmouth is starting early this morning and i have a lot to do today. check in later...

199 lbs. this morning.