Do You Wanna Detox?

Here we go again. Today marks the first day of the 21-Day Detox Challenge. I'll be around for the ride again, but this time around Preethi, who writes a fun and educational blog called "The Skinny on Manhattan", will share her experiences with you. Here's her first post. Enjoy!

Do You Wanna Detox? 

This is what  I foolishly asked my husband, hoping for a positive response to doing Ariane's 21-day Detox Challenge. I just thought he was in need of a little maintenance. And considering he hadn't been working out and admitted to devouring an ENTIRE box of doughnuts recently, he clearly was in need of getting his sugar cravings under control. And I told him so.

"Are you doing it?" he asks me.

Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of putting myself through it. After all, I was working out regularly and eating reasonably well. And even though Ariane's detox has nothing to do with cleanses or juices or starvation, it scares the hell out of me - mainly, because of the 'no sugar or alcohol' rule. I might get by without the sugar. But not a single glass of wine for 21 days? Hells no. 

Well - surprise, surprise. His response: "I'm not doing it if you're not doing it."

It was so annoying to hear. After all, it's not like he'd be doing me a favor. He'd just be taking care of his own health. Didn't he want to be in charge of that? Were all those cookies and brownies worth the belly? And the low energy? And the health risks in the years to come?

And that's how any number of arguments have started. I sit and write a blog about staying skinny and Tubby Tubberton here celebrates that with a cupcake. I want to say I'm tempted to tell him to do as he pleases - it's his life. But I can stay quiet all two and a half minutes. After all, I'd like this man to be around to annoy me for the rest of my life.

And so here I am. About to begin detox with him tomorrow. Here's a picture of my last tea spoon of sugar in the best skim cappuccino in Manhattan:






























I'll be blogging about my experience every other day to document where this takes me, so be sure to check back. I'm really quite afraid of committing to this. The only thing that has me slightly excited is the number of people who've made serious dents in their body fat with this diet. These are people who have exercised regularly and eaten decently before (and who look great) but simply weren't able to lose a lot of actual blubber and change enough of their body composition from fat to muscle. The other saving grace is that I'll still be having a balanced diet (no high-protein, low-carb stuff). I'm hoping both my husband and I will come out of this feeling great with our sensitivity to sugar re-set so we'll need less and our energy levels will be high and we'll learn some better life habits. And of course, it wouldn't hurt if we looked super svelte by the end of it all. 


The Slim & Strong Detox Challenge is conducted by Ariane Hundt of my favorite Brooklyn Bridge Boot Camp. You can visit her site for more info. I should be bitching about it plenty over the next 3 weeks as well.