Let's Get Mikey!

If you're 40ish like me you remember these commercials for Life Cereal. Kids find a new cereal, they don't want to try it, they spy their little brother and say "let's get Mikey, he won't eat it, he hates everything!"

I'll be your Mikey.

I'm famous for falling for ridonkulous advertising claims. All you have to do is tell me it's going to:

1. Make me skinnier

2. Make me look younger

3. Not give me cancer (i.e. sunless tanning products)

4. Make me feel healthier

5. Help my sports performance in some way

The crazier part is that I actually go into this like Mikey. I expect it NOT to work, I fully assume that I'm wasting my time and money, but I'm holding on to what if? What if my sun spots actually went away? What if these flip flops gave me J Lo's ass? What if?

So I'll be sharing some of these experiences, services and products with you in the future and I'll give them my own rating. If before and after pictures are appropriate (and not completely humiliating) I'll share those as well. It may even save you some time, money or effort in the future, who knows? If nothing else it will help me justify my gullibility.

So here's experience #1. THE CLEANSE. People are talking about cleanses all the time. I've been curious in the past but was not interested in a juice-only cleanse, or drinking cayenne pepper lemonade or doing anything that's going to make scary things come out of my butt.

But in this months issue of my "Experience Life" magazine that I get from my gym there was an article entitled The 7-day UltraSimple Slimdown. It's based on the book The Ultra Simple Diet, by Mark Hyman, MD. I've been feeling a little puffy lately and drinking too much of the vino, so I thought that I'd give this a shot. Thing is, it's really a 14 day program because for the week prior (days 1-7) you cut out caffeine (ouch), alcohol (gasp), processed and refined carbs & sugars and trans fats (ok).

I'm on day 9. Here's how it's been so far.

Day 1 & 2: OK. You're allowed up to 2 cups of regular green tea so the caffeine withdrawl wasn't horrifying. I (embarrassingly) am an almost daily drinker (couple glasses of wine) so not reaching for the wine at the end of the day was TOUGH.

Day 3: Felt much worse than days 1 & 2. Totally had to drag my ass out of bed. I was literally falling asleep at the computer that day. I never do that. Mood - pissy. My kids actually started begging me to drink coffee again. I'm not kidding. "PLEEEEEEASE, just have some coffee!"

Day 4: A little better than the day before. Still feeling cloudy.

Day 5: This was tough because it was Friday night. Mama wants cocktails on Friday night. Mama is pissed to be drinking decaf tea.

Day 6: Got up and went to the outdoor pool for a swim and then a run. I have to admit that not being the slightest bit hung over on a Saturday is a good thing. Went to Whole Foods to get all of the stuff for the real "cleanse" for week two. Came home with $150 in groceries to a house with no power. Not drinking at this moment took a measure of resolve that's hard to describe.

I cut all of the veggies (that go into a broth) up and put them into an ice chest with bags of ice so I didn't have to open the refrigerator - power outage 101. I put the fruit in there too and called it a night.

Day 7: Power back on. Went to a friend's lake house for the day. Hard not to get road coffee. I love road coffee. Road water just isn't the same. Came home and cooked the vegetable broth (a cubic buttload of veggies!) that is going to be one of the mainstays of the cleanse. Actually pretty proud of myself for making it this far.

Day 8: Began the day with hot water and the juice of a half of a lemon. Followed by a cup of green tea. Then an "ultrashake". The shake consists of rice protein powder, ground flax seed, flax seed oil, borage oil, almond butter, berries and a little bit of banana. All mixed with water and ice. Not horrible. It's not sweet but not bitter and surprisingly filling.

The plan says that if you haven't had a bowel movement my 10 a.m. to take two herbal laxative products. Let's just say that this hasn't been a problem so far.

Morning snack: 1 cup of the cubic buttload of vegetables broth. Raw veggies & a little organic hummus.

Lunch: 2 cups steamed veggies, 1/2 cup brown rice, UltraShake

Afternoon snack: Broth (that now makes me gag a little each time I drink it) and a few more veggies & hummus.

Dinner: Grilled chicken breast rubbed with a little olive oil, sea salt and pepper, 1/2 cup brown rice, sauteed spinach with garlic. And whoopee - more broth :(

Dessert: Nice try.

By the end of the day I wasn't hungry at all but I felt like absolute shit. Like I had the flu or something. I took a bath with Epsom salts and lavender oil before I went to bed (part of the cleanse) and I felt better. Woke up feeling pretty good, which brings us to....

Day 9: Weighed in maybe .5 lbs less than yesterday. One thing that is remarkable to me is that I'm really not very hungry. I had to teach spin this morning and was a little worried that I wouldn't have much stamina, but it was OK. I have to teach again tomorrow at O'Dark Thirty so that will be interesting.

I will keep you posted and let you know if Mikey liked it!

5 Freakin' Years

Everything we owned in the world was on a truck. Including our cars. I had locked up the house we loved for the last time and said goodbye to the garden with the blueberry bush that my son loved to graze on, the garden shed that looked like a barn complete with its own imaginary cow that lived inside it ("Po-Pa-Pee"). I said goodbye to my parents who lived a mere eight blocks away. I said goodbye to the zip code I'd lived in more or less since 1972.

We were moving to Jersey. Five years ago today we left one of the most desirable places in the country to live (Portland, Oregon) and moved to freakin' Jersey. The boys were five and 18 months - mind boggling.

Our day of travel flat out sucked. There were thunderstorms (Thunderstorm? What's a thunderstorm?) on the East Coast that delayed us for 5 hours in Seattle. We got into Newark after 1 a.m . Then had (insert snarkiest, most sarcastic voice here) AWESOME service at the rental car counter. We got lost on the way to our corporate housing and ended up paying a homeless man in Newark to at least point us in the right direction. We put the kids down at 3:30 a.m.

There are so many stories from those first few months. I was moved to tears more than once in the early days because it seemed so foreign; there was what felt to me like a lack of humanity. I'd never lived somewhere so scrappy, so cutthroat (at least on the freeways) or where people are so DIRECT. In many ways it was more of a culture shock then when I lived in Denmark.

But here we are five years later and you know what? I would do it all over again. Here's why:

1. Change is good. I really believe this now. I was content and happy in Portland. I was also deathly afraid of change. I could have easily stayed there for the rest of my life but I think I would have woken up one day at 60 or 70 and realized that my fears held me back. I have a resiliency now that wasn't there before (and it takes A LOT to make me cry).
2. I know my kids. Before we moved I worked flex time (which usually pushed more towards full time). I had a nanny that knew the parents at my sons preschool better than I did. Part of the decision to move included the fact that I could stay home with the boys. I will never, ever take this for granted. I've been a class parent every year, on the PTA board and involved in my kids lives every single day.
3. Friendship. When I was balancing work with two tiny kids I had very little time to cultivate friendships. I was in survival mode much of the time. I have made some of the best friendships of my life here and have enjoyed the company of some of the most amazing women I've ever met (and their husbands are pretty great too). I continue to meet interesting people from all walks of life that I never would have had the opportunity to had I stayed in my own little corner of the world. AND I value and cherish my longtime friends more than ever. Thank god for facebook and frequent flyer miles. It's easy to take our friends for granted when they live a mile away. Move 2500 miles away and you'll cherish every minute.
4. The gift of time. Having room to think and breathe has been a true gift. I'm never without a to do list (or a dirty something) but I don't have the time constraints of my former life. I feel much more creative, more balanced and more in tune with my own strengths than ever.
5. Perspective. We like to think we are one, united country and in many ways that's true, but there are stark differences from region to region. I came from the wide open west, founded by pioneers with a live and let live mentality. Those roots are still evident there (i.e. why of course there's a naked bike ride through Portland every year, why wouldn't there be?). There's three times as many people in Jersey than Oregon in WAY less space and an immigrant mentality that still pervades - I gotta get mine (my seat on the train, my place in the grocery line, my spot in the front row of body pump) before someone else nabs it. When you stop fighting this and embrace it and the people that surround you, it gives you a perspective and an understanding that is somewhat peaceful. I get them. I'll never be like them completely, but I get them.

Those are the big 5. There's other good things about Jersey and LOTS of things I miss terribly about Oregon but I feel so lucky. Lucky to love people all over this country. Lucky to be loved.

So when change hits you in the face, take a deep breath and open yourself up to the possibility of it. You just never know what might happen.