Detox Day Twenty-One

I did it. I even avoided going to Twin Peaks tonight to make sure I finished correctly. I made some vegetable soup, from scratch. Not too bad either.

It's been a wild ride. Tomorrow, I'm set up to get a Jamba Juice for breakfast and a buffalo chicken sandwich for lunch. Maybe pizza for dinner. And Tums all the way through.

I'll weigh 200 pounds in no time.

Detox Day Nineteen

This isn't a diet anymore...it's a personal challenge from the universe to myself. Can I go three weeks without anything but fish, chicken, turkey, and vegetables? And with two days and change left, I'm now very confident that I can. Just seven meals and less than 56 hours to go.

Because this isn't necessarily about being that much healthier, apparently. I had my health screening this morning, and my numbers aren't a whole lot better than they were in August. I realize it was only two and a half weeks, but any impact that I've had was simply fixing any damage I did in Delaware and over the holidays.

It isn't about a lifestyle change. I'm going to go back to eating, for the most part, the same diet I was eating before.

And it certainly isn't about helping my social life, as my friends have continually teased the fact that I can't eat anything...their reward for having to alter where they go when they eat with me.

It's just a challenge...can I do it? And if I ever think I need to do it again, will I have recorded evidence that I already did?

Because as annoying as this process started, it hasn't been terrible. It's been annoying to keep the kitchen stocked with fresh fish and vegetables (and expensive). It's been annoying to get up and force myself to drink a gross protein shake every morning. And it's been really annoying to see a bunch of delicious food that I can't eat. I imagine Sunday will be like the first meal after being sick for a while...way better than usual.

But I've also bought some Tums just in case my stomach disagrees.

I'm ready for it to be over. But I'm proud that I've been able to get through it. And I'm hopeful that I can alter certain things (soda consumption, beef consumption, sodium consumption, etc.) in favor of a healthier lifestyle.

Detox Day Fifteen

One week to go. This time next week, I'm going to be off the diet and enjoying whatever foods I want. I've already decided that, one week from this exact moment, I'm going to be enjoying a nice Jamba Juice. I haven't had fruit in a while, and I love me some Jamba Juice. It's a nice healthy on-ramp to my normal routine. After that, I want some Carmine's pizza, a Jimmy John's Vito, a Ginger Broccoli with beef from Pei Wei, and a Twisted Root cheeseburger.

In fact, I have a couple weeks worth of foods that I want to eat again. But....is that the point of this?

Tucker told me that one of the big things that can come out of this is getting off of soda. My response is...I like soda. And while I've kicked any "habit" for Coke that I might've had, I'm not going to stop drinking it. And only because, deep down, I really don't want to. It may be be like a smoker who says they don't want to quit because they like smoking. But I do...I just like the taste of soda and how it goes with different foods.

And there's a chance that I'll eat so poorly in March that my diet in February is irrelevant. And, in that case, what was the point? Am I just torturing myself for no reason?

I hope not. I hope that I'm doing some good. Two weeks without sugar, without (for the most part), processed foods. About 90% of what I've eaten in the last two weeks, I've prepared myself. I've eaten a couple salads from chain restaurants, a cup of vegetable soup, and a couple fish dinners, and a Genghis Grill bowl with a tomato-garlic sauce.

Either way, no beef. No soda. No bread. No dairy. No fruit. A lot of vegetables, a lot of fish, and a lot of water.

I hope that the predominant thing that this accomplishes is an alteration of what I normally eat. I'm still going to drink Coke, but I don't drink it at home anyways. When I drink it, it's usually out to eat...and I'm going to dial down what I have with lunch at work (which I'd started doing every day). I'm still going to eat cheeseburgers and pizza and chicken fried steak and Italian sandwiches....but I'm going to do my best to work in more fish and vegetables and water.

Because I wasn't "unhealthy" before. I've lost about five pounds so far...which is almost all water weight, I'd assume. I look and feel a little bit better, but it isn't a remarkable change. I had a health checkup at work in August, and my numbers were fine. I have another one on Thursday, and we'll see if 18 days of the diet will have any impact on those numbers.

If there's any noticeable changes, I might have a change in heart. I might try and have a variation on the Tucker diet (where he's vegan six days a week and allows himself one day to be "bad"). If not, I'll do some sort of hybrid.

And I think, at this point, that's good enough for me.

Detox Day Eleven

I reached the halfway point at noon today. And while the last few days have been okay, today was a real challenge on a couple different fronts.

First of all, I was studying for a test last night, and I went to bed really late (for me). Late to bed and early to rise were difficult, and I'm finding less and less motivation every day to wake up and drink my stupid shake every morning.

Secondly, one of my main concerns coming into the diet was how I could handle lunch at work. There are loads of restaurants near my work, but I can only think of a couple that even fit within the parameters. Like I said before, I eat a lot of sandwiches and pizza and Chinese food at work. And while there are healthy selections of each of those things, none of it works with my guidelines.

So I've been trying to bring my lunch as much as possible. An easy thing to bring has been salad, but the diet gives specific dressings...and I've tried (and disliked) three of them. And the problem with bringing lunch to work is that there is nothing that I can eat in the building. The building's store is full of junk food, and the vending machines are even worse. So I was forced to eat a "less than delicious" salad as my only source of food.

Lunchtime is now depressing.

And, thirdly, I had the aforementioned test today. And it was more difficult than I'd anticipated...and, thus, took longer than I anticipated. Getting out at 8pm, I was starving. And I thought about places that I'd stopped at on my way home from class in the past (Pei Wei, Jersey Mike's, Chipotle, etc) but none of those places really works. So I had to come home and cook something. By the time I settled down to eat, it was about 8:45.

And I'm getting tired of fish. And vegetables. And water.

Just ten full days to go. Just six more workdays to go (I have Monday off). But it feels like forever.

Detox Day Seven

One week done.

If you want a word to describe the process, it would be "struggle." It's definitely been hard, and I'm really glad that I'm already a third of the way out of the woods.

As I said before, I've eaten what I wanted for my entire life. If someone was eating a delicious pizza nearby, I'd get one. If people were ordering Italian food, I'd order with them. If someone wanted ice cream, I was happy to join them. It really never mattered.

And that was the point of this, in a lot of ways. I needed to ween myself off foods that were bad, and I'm definitely doing that. Seven days of salad, broccoli, asparagus, cucumbers, and peppers. And while I've had a lot of delicious fish, chicken, and turkey...it's still been very difficult to find any joy in eating. I told Ashley that lunch time at work had become depressing, and it's true.

But I feel like this is going somewhere good. I'll hopefully lean up a bit, feel healthier, and lose cravings for some of the bad things I still eat.

There's still a long way to go. And it isn't going to get any easier.

Detox Day Two

I don't think this will be a regular, daily diary into what I'm doing on this diet, but I wanted to say that I hit a "wall" today. I'd read that it's very common for people on this diet to feel sluggish in the first few days with a headache. Well, that happened to me today. At the very end of the work day, I felt really sluggish with a decent headache. It was to the point where I really thought about taking a nap in my car just 25 minutes before my class was supposed to start.

With negative symptoms, I did what I do - I looked it up on the Internet. I read about the "myths" of a detox diet. How a lot of scientists don't think it does any good. And how some people think it can do harm. So I looked that up too....and a woman actually had a stroke doing a similar diet.

Ugh...why do I do that to myself?

But as soon as I got into class, I felt a little better. So maybe it's just a bit of a headache from the detoxification process, a complete lack of sugar and caffeine (perhaps I'm a bit addicted?), and a lack of sleep.

So I'm pushing ahead. Had more coconut oil, more cod liver oil, more fish, and more vegetables. Tomorrow, I'm supposed to eat out twice - for lunch and dinner. That should be interesting.

Detox Day One

Notes about my first day on the detoxification diet.

1. I miss sugar. Ice cream would've been great tonight.

2. I'm supposed to have a tablespoon of "good" oil with every meal. The two that were suggested were coconut oil and sesame oil. It is really gross to drink oil by itself.

3. Lunch at work is going to be difficult. I will typically eat a sandwich at lunch, but I can't have meat or bread. That's going to suck.

4. I'm also going to have to wake up 30 minutes early to make my breakfast shake. I don't like that either.

But all in all, one day down. Twenty to go.

The Great Detox

I would consider myself to be pretty healthy. I don't eat fast food (and I haven't since June of 2007), and I do a pretty good job of staying active. I play tennis a lot (but not as much as usual), and I'm at a pretty good weight. And when I had a health evaluation at work in 2010, it came back pretty solid.

But recently, I haven't felt super healthy. Maybe it's because I haven't been working out as much. Or because I'm getting lazier with what I eat. It all started in Delaware, where I wasn't able to cook for myself as much as I would've liked. Lunch was a lot of fried foods (I had a lot of General Tzo's chicken and cheesesteaks), and dinner was out of my control a lot. When I got back, I made a concerted effort to eat better, but with work and school, it's hard sometimes.

I decided to try and be vegetarian for lent, but I'm not sure that's what I need to do. On the Ticket, they always advertise a health plan (I will tell you which one only if it works). It's a bit expensive, but I've always wanted to try it. It's supposed to help you lose weight because it's a combination of healthier foods and working out (sweating) at least 20 minutes a day.

But, for me, it's not about losing weight. I'm at about 170...which I think is a good weight for me. The diet, for me, will be about detoxification. Getting rid of free radicals in my body, getting the right kind of fats, and eliminating a lot of the bad stuff. There will be no sugar, there will be no dairy, there will be no wheat, there will be no fruits. A lot of vegetables, lean meats, and a protein shake in the morning.

I've never followed a diet before. Outside of giving up fast foods, I've basically eaten whatever I've wanted for my whole life. And I'll be giving up a lot of the things I eat and drink for the next three weeks.

But I'd like to feel healthier. I'd like to eliminate cravings for bad foods. I'd like to sleep better. I'd like to feel less stressed. And all of these things are promised, according to this plan. It promises to help you as long as you take it seriously.

Well, starting tomorrow, I'm going to take it seriously. And, of all days, I'll be starting it on Super Bowl Sunday. It's not only an ironic day due to the gluttony that tends to happen on that day - it's also a day of significance for me for another reason. So a rebirth on this day will be fitting.

The first few days of it are supposed to suck. And that will be interesting. I'm supposed to meet a friend for dinner at a bar on Tuesday (day three)...which will be interesting since I'm not supposed to have any alcohol. And Lane's birthday is going to fall during the three weeks (her birthday will be, approximately, day fourteen), and I'm sure I'll have to give a lengthy explanation to all of her friends why I'm not drinking that night.

But it should be interesting. I'm going in with an open mind and a hopeful heart. I'd like to feel better, and I'm hoping this will be step one of doing so. And if it works, I'll give some nice publicity for the five of you who will read this. And the hundreds in the Netherlands who apparently check this place out.

Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day, and Encore is showing the movie "Groundhog Day." A lot of you have probably seen the movie, and I'm sure a lot of you like it. You probably remember it as a cute Bill Murray movie where his character, Phil Connors, relives Groundhog Day over and over again. Over the course of the movie, after re-living the day again and again...he learns to be a better person. And it's only after he completes the day perfectly, gaining the love and respect of the town and getting the heart of the girl, he's able to escape the cycle.

But the movie is much more than that. Or, at the very least, it could be. My eyes were first opened to this movie a few weeks ago when I was reading the Wikipedia article on it. I've been wanting to write about it for a while, and I figure this was as good a time as any.

The passage that I liked mentioned the duration of time that Phil is stuck in the cycle. The movie shows about forty repetitions of the day, and I hadn't really thought about it much more than that. But the article says that director Harold Ramis estimated that Phil spent about ten years in the loop. An online article indicated that, at the very least, he spent eight and a half years in the loop.

But then there was the kicker. In the original script, it indicated that he repeated Groundhog Day 10,000 times before he got it right. That's 27 years...longer than I've been alive. And that's not all - people commented on some of these articles with bigger thoughts - that Phil spent hundreds of years in the loop. Maybe thousands.

When you think about the day in those terms, it gets more profound than a simple comedy.

Let's start with the basics. Phil is a cynical man who doesn't want to be sent to cover the Groundhog. He's arrogant and spiteful, and he's the classic Scrooge character that is in need of a magical way avenue to turn his life around.

Of course, after learning what's happened...he tries to benefit from it. He stops trying to be good, and he tries to capitalize on his predicament. He uses his wealth of knowledge to seduce the town hottie, robs an armored car, and learns the town's secrets. When he realizes he truly wants his producer Rita, he spends each day building the perfect day with her. Every time he makes a mistake, he re-calculates and gives it another try the next cycle. He eventually gives up on that, though, and falls into depression.

Trying to end the cycle, he steals the groundhog and drives a car off a cliff. He kills himself.

After that fails, he decides to go on the right path. He tries to rescue an old man before he realizes that he's truly meant to die on February 2nd. He learns to play the piano. He learns to ice sculpt. He learns French. He truly meets and befriends everyone in the town, and he eventually wins Rita's heart. And that's when he wakes up on February 3rd.

The arguments that people generally use to break down his time spent in the loop is the time it would take to acquire the skills he learns. Learning French, learning to play the piano, and learning to ice sculpt all takes time. Months and years of time. It would also take time to meet everyone in the town and learn all about them. To memorize wind patterns for the robbery. To know exactly what happens all day.

And I can see the 10 year thing making sense. But what intrigues me is the parts in the middle. If a lot of time is missing, I think it's there.

In the lowpoint of the movie, after abandoning his attempts to win Rita, Phil decides that the only way out of the loop is to die. The protagonist of a movie kills himself. Over and over again.

We don't worry too much about it because he wakes back up each time. But let's not forget that Phil doesn't have suicidal tendencies in the beginning. He's driven to depression (and suicide) by the events themselves.

Now would re-living the same day over and over cause a man to kill himself? Almost certainly. But I imagine it would take time. There's enough for Phil to do to amuse himself before he decides that it needs to stop. You have to think that he tried everything and did everything before he'd go completely crazy. After all, it's only a loop in the sense that no one remembers what happened the day before.

He could've woken up every day and done something completely different, and it still would've been exciting to him. We know he uses the time to learn hobbies and gain knowledge - it's not like boredom would've led him to kill himself.

I imagine, if the movie were real, he'd only stoop to such a level after he'd exhausted his other options. After he'd done everything there is to do. And then, I imagine, he'd probably spend a few days thinking about it before going down that road. It would be a slow decline into depression...not something he just decides to do. Because Phil can't possibly think the death won't stick...otherwise, what's the point?

And he does it. And it doesn't work. But that doesn't matter. He tries it again.

And this proves that Phil is actually just depressed...not simply trying to end the cycle. If he was thinking death would end the cycle, the first suicide attempt ended that theory. If it didn't work in a car explosion, it wouldn't work by electrocution. Or getting hit by a car. Or any of the other attempts that are mentioned but not shown.

And he mentions things like getting stabbed and set on fire. These are not easy/quick/simple ways of dying - both of those are painful ways of dying. Proving that, not only does Phil want to die - he wants to feel pain.

And while depression might take a while to get going, it would take even longer to pull himself out of it. After Phil's decided that he wants to die, what would prompt him to decide to live? And that's the tricky question. Nothing really improves for him, and a lot of the ways that "normal" people pull themselves out of depression don't really apply with Phil.

So I'm guessing the only way he pulls himself out is the realization that there's no way out. And I'm guessing that would take longer than the movie implies.

If I had to think about it, I'd lean more towards the 27 years than anything less or drastically more. Although I really like the idea that he spends several lifetimes re-living the same day.

But one of the more interesting parts of the movie are the parts we don't see - the next day. The movie implies, like with Scrooge, that Phil becomes a better person and lives happily ever after with Rita.

But is that what would happen? After reliving the same day thousands of times, how would he re-integrate himself into the real world? How would he go from a world with no consequences to a world full of them? From a world where he's immortal to one where he ages and dies? To a world where, if he screws up, he doesn't get another chance?

Phil is able to live the perfect day after being given thousands of chances. How would he do in a world where you only get one each day? Would that drive him crazy? Perhaps, in fact, even crazier than the loop itself made him?

I think it would be pretty interesting to re-write the movie. Make it a bit more serious, driving home the psychological effects of living the same day over and over. Show the full spectrum of emotional reactions to the event...leading him slowly down the path of depression...and slowly out of it. And then how a person can react to that.

I read a theory a while back that "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" takes place entirely inside Cameron's head - like "Fight Club." A friend of mine said that it was a bit too much thought used on a movie that's just supposed to be funny.

That might apply to "Groundhog Day" too. But the movie is unique and touches on a lot of interesting topics - religion, psychology, and philosophy. It might just be a comedy, but there's a lot more below the surface. Or, at least, there could be.