Nine Days to Go: Week 2 of the Cleanse

Half way through week 2 of the cleanse. According to the book, change is happening internally, but I won’t necessarily feel it. It all depends on how “out of balance” my body was before the cleanse. Well, I guess it wasn’t too out of balance because I haven’t noticed much of a difference in the way I feel now and how I felt before the cleanse. It helps that I participated in the Elimination Week, preparing my body by taking out sugars, white flower, caffeine and alcohol from my diet.

It also could mean my pre-cleanse diet wasn’t as bad as I thought. I wasn’t eating as many fruits and vegetables, but I did drastically decrease the amount of white processed flower in my diet. I switched to decaf coffee. I started drinking more tea. I snacked on almonds and goji berries. I ate cereal with soymilk instead of regular milk. Maybe it’s those small changes that I had already made that’s making it easier for my body adjust to the cleanse diet.

In any case, I have nine days to go, and I’m going to see this thing through, darn it. Last night I attended Foursquare’s first birthday party at Lincoln Station. I knew there’d be alcohol. I knew there’d be cake. What I didn’t know is that it would be chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, my favorite. And also pizza, my other love. And the ultimate: Chocolate. Lava. Crunch. Cakes. All for free to celebrate one year since the birth of the latest social media craze.

When they brought in the chocolate sheet cake adorned with candles that spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my friend Julie pulled me away. “You need to stay far away from that,” she said. But I wanted to look at it. I wanted to bend down close to it and take a whiff. I wanted to be naughty and stick my finger in the frosting. I took a picture of it and uploaded it to Facebook. “Help!” I pleaded to my Facebook friends.

“Hurry! Go outside and have a cigarette!” My cousin Vince jokingly responded.

The pizza wasn’t as hard to resist. After all, it was Domino’s. But the small boxes carrying two chocolate lava crunch cakes to take home almost killed me. The thought crossed my mind. Maybe just…one…little…bite.

“I wonder if I can take the molten cakes home and freeze them,” I said to Julie. But I figured by the time the cleanse was over, I might as well just walk to Domino’s and purchase fresh molten cakes to bring home. Or even better, treat myself to a gorgeous dinner at Quartino, which not only offers molten cake for dessert, but also hot, fresh donut holes with honey and chocolate dipping sauces. Mmmmm.

“Stay strong!” My Facebook friends encouraged. “You can do it! May the force be with you, sista!”

So last night I resisted. I persevered. And I went home with no chocolate lava crunch cakes.

Nine days to go.