Maple Syrup is Expensive

I’m finishing up Day 4 of my master cleanse, and I would just like to say that Grade B pure maple syrup is absolutely delicious but incredibly expensive.  I go through a $13 bottle in a little less than 2 days.  I’m on bottle 3 on Day 4!

When I started this cleanse I really thought that 10 days would not be a big deal at all.  But for a girl who loves food – going 10 days without chewing seems absolutely miserable now that I’m in the throws of it.  I decided I need to set my sites on the halfway mark, which is tomorrow, Sunday, Day 5.  I imagine that setting a goal of 10 days for me is like smoking a pack of cigarettes looking out on a half marathon.  And even though I train for half marathons, I definitely focus on finishing each mile.

That being said, because of some conflicts in my schedule, I am afraid to say that I will only be doing this Master Cleanse until Wednesday, making it a full 8 days, which still seems so far away!  I weighed myself this morning, and have lost 2.6 lbs since I started, which is A LOT for a girl my height (5’3″); my skin feels nicer too.  I also felt more energized this morning and was able to do about 50 minutes of lifting at the gym.  So far I have been able to work out everyday, but the first two days I felt completely more exhausted than I do today.

Now I’m drinking the Senna tea for the 5th night in a row.  At first I thought that the tea tasted fine, but now I have it brewing with mint tea and I added a little maple syrup to mask the taste.  I don’t know if this is totally off limits or not, but I’m trying the best I can.  It definitely helps that I bought two different types of Senna and two different types of Mint teas.  I feel like I’m getting a variety!

Some bad side effect that is beginning to manifest itself is that my teeth are getting a little sticky.  I’m wondering if this is a mix of the acidic lemon juice and the mass quantities of sugar I am putting in my body.   Maybe I will go do some research…

Master Cleanse Day 1

So I decided to start the master cleanse today for the next 10 days based on my friend Stephanie’s good experience from it. I figured I haven’t tried a fad diet in a long time, and you can do anything for 10 days. Based on the premise that I need to kick my chocolate eating habit in the office, and basically all dairy and sweets in general, I embark on this experience.

I went to Whole Foods last night and bought two bags of lemons and two bags of limes (Steph suggested limes as a way to mix it up with the lemons), two boxes of Senna tea, two boxes of mint tea, a big bottle of Grade B Maple Syrup, some Cayenne Pepper and a lemon juicer (another suggestion from Steph). I squeezed about 2 cups worth of lemon juice and a half a cup of lime juice. I calculated that if you are suppose to put 2 tbsp of lemon juice in each 8-10 oz glass of the lemonade, and you’re suppose to have 6-10 glasses of the lemonade:

2 tbsp/glass x 8 glasses/day = 16 tbsp

16 tbsp x 0.25 cup/4 tbsp = 1 cup

The last calculation says that a 1/4 cup has 4 tbsp, so if I need 16 tbsp a day of lemon juice, that is the equivalent of 1 cup total per day. Therefore, I squeezed enough last night, and I made 32 oz. worth to take with me to work. BTW, it says to put 1/10 tsp of cayenne pepper – WHO HAS 1/10 TSP MEASURING SPOON?

I drank the Senna tea and went to bed. I woke up at 6 am this morning and made my first pint of salt water wash. According to Wikipedia the salt water acts as a top-down enema. And, according to Steph’s blog that I read this morning, I made it totally wrong. Its suppose to be 2 tsp of salt in 1 quart of water, and I put 2 tbsp of salt in the quart. Well, I paid for that…my stomach has been hard as a rock all morning, even after doing a 1/2 hour of yoga, drinking a lemonade and a couple glasses of water.

Finally, I made my way down to work (I walk 8 blocks downhill) and I felt like my intestines were pulsating (sorry if thats TMI).

And, too much cayenne pepper in today’s batch. wish me luck!

Things to Do with an Old Desktop

My friend Callie is going to give me her old desktop.  She was waiting for e-waste day but I want it to do something cool with; now I’m just trying to think of what cool things I can do with it.

My initial instinct is to  gut the monitor and make it a planter, thoughts?

A Cooler Implementation of Step by Step Instructions

When you search step-by-step instructions online you find that most web-based implementations of instructions are the same: steps with associated text and photos appear in order, all on one page.

The first search result is Instructables which is a cool site in itself.  It does instructions similar to what I am imagining in that each page contains a picture with instructions, and then a “next” or “back” button to navigate through the instructions.  Unfortunately for this site, they have way too much content on each page, and they’re not using some combination of xml and javascript (i.e. ajax) to have a smooth transition from one step to the next  (the whole page reloads each time you move to the next step).

If you have any suggestions for how I can implement this, please let me know!