Juicin' Juice: Day 6 of 10

The wife did indeed go back on her juice fast today. She took the leftover salmon and veggies she'd not finished back to work with her, just in case, but she also made a mass quantity of a very nice fruit-based juice this morning that had no yuck-factor.

Meanwhile, I was left with a cauldron of the less-than-nice juice's she made over the past couple of days, that I can't bring myself to pour out. I drank a glass of it for breakfast and it was pretty awful. At lunch, I tried again but only made it half way before accidentally pouring the rest of it into our countertop compost bin. At least the nutrients won't go entirely to waste.

I made a replacement juice that was pretty nice. However, the afternoon brought more thoughts of the sort of food I'd rather be eating. During a trip to Wally World, the smell of the chicken fingers at their deli was intoxicating. And it sucks that the veggie and fruit aisle is right there by the deli. I bought some of the standard juicing fruits and veg and then branched out into some beets and a couple of starfruit. I then went home and was determined to make another of my soup-like juices.

I juiced half a red pepper and then one of the beets. I've never liked beets. They taste like dirt. I've even given them second and third chances, but no matter if they're salted, peppered, wrapped and roasted on low heat for two hours, they still just taste like dirt. I tried the beet juice raw with a spoon. It didn't taste like dirt. It was earthy, by all means, but not dirty. Actually, the bright blood red stuff was very sweet. I didn't think it would work well in a savory juice, so I then added pear, grapefruit, celery and starfruit to the mix. When it was finished, it was the sweet equivalent of the nasty savory juice the wife had been unable to finish. I got a glass of it down, but almost regretted it. I put the rest in a container and stuck it in the fridge.

So pretty much the whole day was spent drinking nasty, unwise juice concoctions.

The wife came home and confessed that she'd eaten one tortilla chip with salsa at work that day. The whole office was doing chips and salsa, so she allowed herself the one. I told her that was fine, but that I would rat her out on the blog.

"Do you think we should just do a nine day fast?" she asked.

"Why?" I said. But even as I did, I could feel my heart warming to the idea, particularly after my day of shitty juice.

The wife's reasoning was that she would have to go back to work on Thursday, which would be Day 11 of this 10 day fast and thus the first day of solid food. What fun would it be to head back to work for three days and not be able to go out to dinner to celebrate. (I had wondered about that, myself, but had already planned to give myself a free day on Thursday and eat some of the things I've been craving regardless.) Plus, she said she was now well and truly sick of drinking juice, even the good stuff, and was ready to have an end of it. She knew we were perfectly capable of making it the full 10 days if we wanted to, but she didn't really want to anymore. She didn't want to stop drinking juice altogether, mind you, as it's been her goal in this to incorporate the stuff on a daily basis for nutrition's sake. She didn't want to pig out on junk; she'd be perfectly happy to eat stir fried veggies and salmon, as long as she could have some food. As much as I wanted to say, yeah, let's quit after six days, then wait for midnight and make a McDonald's run, I knew that as a team partner in this it was my job to try to keep us on track. Moments of weakness could be expected, but as much as we both wanted to have a rest from juice, I felt responsibility to stay on program and encourage her to as well. Plus I'd already started blogging about the whole thing (Damn my ever-typing fingers!) and felt a responsibility not to bail on it unless I had to.

I tried to be encouraging and point out that we'd already made it 6 days, what was four more? It was really like three days, if you thought about it hard enough. She wasn't buying it.

Meanwhile, my body was seized with a fit of itching like you wouldn't believe. I don't know that it's food-related, either, because it had been a while since I'd had any juice. Fortunately, the wife offered to scratch my back for me and that was bliss.

As we went to bed, it still seemed an open question as to whether or not we, or at least she, would remain on the fast come the morning. I had to admit, though, that the idea of waking up and heading to Shoney's was tantalizing.