The Preparations Begin

The driving force behind the creation of this blog was a means of documenting our lives, especially the exciting projects, the clever insights and of course, our longstanding quest for self-improvement. At this moment, we are both beyond a "healthy weight" and we've been feeling a need for a change. In the past, Weight Watchers has worked well for both of us - Deana is even a lifetime member because after her first child she did an incredible job taking off those baby pounds and maintaining her goal weight. But the intervening years have not been exactly kind to our figures. The combination of hitting the "middle age spread" courtesy of our 30's, a dwindling motivation for any type of physical activity and copious amounts of alcohol and fast food has resulted in maximum proportions. We've decided to take action.

Sure, a reasonable plan of eating less, choosing healthy food, limiting alcohol and exercising more is the *best* way to reach our goals. And we are definitely going to go that route....just not right now. First we decided that we need to something extreme to kick off our new lifestyle, something to detox and (hopefully) drop an impressive load o' pounds...hey it worked for Beyonce so why not us. Tomorrow we start "The Master Cleanse."

The Master Cleanse breaks down into three parts: an Ease-In, The Lemonade Diet and an Ease-Out. Both the entry and exit portions occur over 3 days and involve moving from solid food (fruits and veggies only) to just juice and then back to solid food. We are fairly confident that we can handle this. It's the Lemonade Diet that scares the shit out of us. For as many days as you can last (we are aiming for 5), you get to survive on a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper (Mmmmm - can't wait) with loads and loads of water, plus a fantastic "all natural" laxative solution each evening designed to remove all the toxins and sludge we've built up with our nasty habits. Sounds totally fun, right? Feel free to participate along with us. You can learn all about The Master Cleanse here.

All right. I'm off to buy produce (40 lemons - Yikes!!) and a juicer.