I’m not going to lie, in the months leading up to my official stop date for breastfeeding, I was picking up weight on a steady trajectory.  As I look back now, I yearn for that post-baby body when Triple P was about 3 months old.  I could eat pretty much anything and the weight still came off.  More importantly, those beautiful True Religion Jeans from my fab cousin fit perfectly.  Whoever said that they breastfed and ate anything and ate it twice and were skinnier after they stopped breastfeeding than before they were pregnant and kept the weight off is either 1) lying, 2) lying really badly and they don’t want you to know about their super secret diet secret unless it is anorexia and that’s just all sorts of wrong to begin with or 3) an alien from Mars and they’re trying to gain your trust  so they can eventually get you alone in a dark alley so they can EAT YOUR BRAINS!  Sorry, the zombie mania got to be.  At any rate, I am probably the biggest I have ever at this moment, even bigger than my drinking-a-Franzia-box-a-week-due-to-my-former-stressful-job body.  The weight this time is in different places and it really has started to drive me bonkers! This feeling of utterly rotten body image coupled with the fact that its so soon after the new year and every single darned magazine boasts headlines about losing weight as if its as easy as tossing the weight in the giveaway Salvation Army pile we all have drove me to look for a quick and easy fix.  Emphasis on the latter; the “easy” part for this lazy person.

I had read about the straight-to-your-door cleanses in one of those fantastic magazines with the “lose weight the easy way” bylines.  The “article” listed the most popular home delivery juice cleanses and I ended up googling them all and, quite unastonishly (what?  I make up my own words), they all are a bit too good to be true.  First, most won’t ship beyond certain geographic boundaries.  Second, the ones that do deliver to my location will charge me almost double the cost of the cleanses themself.  Third, and most importantly, is the cost of the actual cleanse.  Many of them average more than what some people spend over a few days to feed a family of 4.  Seriously, $65 a day for juice?  I *get* that certain fruits and veggies are more expensive than others and that, yes, organic versions of said fruits and veggies are costlier.  I’m not a math genius but I do know that $65 for juice for one day is, how do I say this?  bat.sh#t.crazy.  That’s typically what I might spend for dinner for the whole family on a night when I was feeling overly generous or picking up Chinese food (note: these two things can’t be one in the same because I’m pretty much the only one who enjoys Chinese food to the point where I am spending $65 for a dinner for 3.5 people. I really, really love Chinese food!). I then proceeded to google “DIY juice cleanses” while simultaneously (yes, I multi-task!) researching the cost of juicers.  I have always wanted one of those Jack Lalanne (RIP, Jack) juicers because they looked so cool in the infomercial and, let’s face it, being a cool kid has its merits.  The idea of being able to cut  up a cucumber, run it through a machine (zerrrrrbbbbbt) and then, voila: ‘magic juice’ was simply spellbinding; What kind of sorcery is this???  I still, however, couldn’t justify buying Mr. Lalanne’s machine (RIP Mrs. Lalanne too) because it still seemed too expensive and would take up space in my already space unfriendly kitchen.  I could, however, justify spending maybe $40 on a juicer and decided to do so, purchasing this lovely: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZDNKSS/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.  But wait, what would I keep the juices in?  Everything says you have to keep them in airtight, glass bottles.  This sounded like a ploy for me to buy those fancy, hipster glass&plastic creations one sees at Whole Foods for a wholelottamoney so I went budget friendly and got some of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XPISEO/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.  I also bought more Takeya pitchers because, if I’m gonna juice, I’m gonna do a whole bunch at the same time because, remember what I said above, I AM LAZY!!!!  The Takeya pitchers are especially good because they are airtight.  Oh, and they look cool too.  🙂  I’m planning on doing this juice thing next month when I’ll be super busy and burning the candle at each end.  I actually ended up finding a few sites that listed the recipes for one of the most popular home delivery cleanses so I will be using that as my base.  Why oh why is kale so darned expensive, by the way?

At any rate, the reason why I am so gung ho about doing my own version of the delivery juice cleanses is the fact that I recently did my really, really lazy gal’s cleanse this week using some juices that I bought from costco and sam’s club.  After reading about at-home juice cleanses, it became clear to me that the way most of these work is that, as long as you are still putting the same, or close to, amount of calories into your body that you would do on a normal diet day, you’re going to be okay.  You do have to drink copious amounts of water and avoid soda and coffee (also, don’t chew gum…trust me on this one) but for the most part, you’re just replacing your calories with juice and it’s much easier to sit at your desk drinking your calories that at least have fruits and veggies than trying to eat some gross diet food.  I ended up buying 4- 64oz. bottles of the following juices: Govinda’s Ginger Rush and three Odwalla products- Carrot Juice, Mango Tango and Original Superfood.  My plan was to drink 16 oz. of each juice, 1 time a day and then going home to eat salad and/or steamed veggies with some protein.  I didn’t really limit myself on what I finally put in my mouth for dinner but I didn’t eat any additional carbs because I was getting more than enough from the juices.  The Odwalla Superfood was way more yummy than I expected.  I had some trepidationg drinking it because, even though green is my favorite color, my history drinking green things hasn’t been that good.  The Mango Tango was also super delish, so much so that I had to force myself not to down the juice in one gulp.  I am usually not a big fan of anything mango unless it is either a) safeway select brand mango-pineapple salsa or b) pickled local style and soaked in red dye.  The Ginger Rush by Govinda is probably one of the most delightful non-alcoholic things I could ever drink.  Just writing that, I think that I should experiment and put some Absolut Wild Tea in it the next time I’m looking for something different.  There is the 1/2 full bottle in the freezer from before I was pregnant…..okay, different time and maybe a different post.  So, if you’ve noticed I really haven’t said anything about the Carrot juice yet.  There’s a reason.  Want to know what it is?  Well, CARROT JUICE IS THE NASTIEST THING I’VE EVER FORCED MYSELF TO DRINK….EVER.  The only way I could get through the carrot juice was the mix it with the Superfood and I felt bad for putting the super food through that.  I thought I was being rude and disrespectful.  I lasted 4 days through my juice cleanse and, while I didn’t weigh myself beforehand, I did notice that my clothes fit a bit better.  Next time, I will make sure I drink more water and be more regular in drinking my juices every 2 hours.  Until then, the goodies I bought at Liliha Bakery tonight are calling my name.

When I was little, the Disney Channel was a new thing.  They’d play the same programming over and over.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched The Parent Trap, Pollyanna and, my personal favorite, Summer Magic.  I thought Hayley Mills was the coolest even with her horrible bangs.  In between Ms. Mills’ films, they would air old cartoons from the ’40s and ’50s.  I assume that these shorts were treats shown before the main feature at the local cinema back in the day (way before my “day” at any rate).  It wasn’t just the style the cartoons were drawn in, the music that accompanied the images were outta this world.  I have come to realize that my favorites were part of an anthology Disney released called Make Mine Music in 1946 (Thanks, wikipedia.org!).  Watching them on youtube these days reminds me of the nights I’d turn off all the lights in the living room, and turn on our 24″ zenith (the one with the wood paneling and the buttons on the top right corner to turn the channel).  Before I did this, however, I would open the front panel and turn the knob for the “brightness” all the way down so there was little light emanating from the talking picture box. I would be so proud of myself, thinking that I was being sly because my parents wouldn’t see that the tv was on if it was dark in the living room.  Forget the fact that they’d see the flicker of the tv on the walls. At any rate, I’ll save my stories for my naughty small kid time antics for another time.  In the meantime, enjoy the cartoon. I wish they still drew them like this these days.

I like to call my daughter Princess Poopey Pants.  I think one can ascertain, for obvious reasons, why I refer to her as such but for those who might be a tad bit clueless, my daughter’s digestive tract is very healthy.  This morning I went through 5 diapers in a matter of about 30 minutes.  I like to chalk it up to the fact that I’m breastfeeding her and have been doing so religiously for the past four months.  Now before you either golf clap, roll your eyes or genuinely applaud my efforts, I never thought for a minute, *before* I got pregnant, that I wouldn’t do anything but breastfeed.  Although I had some major misgivings during those early, sleepless days when she was a newborn and wanting to feed at all hours and times, and considered formula for a split second, I haven’t regretted my decision to be my daughter’s food supply.  Sure it means being diligent in cleaning & sterilizing bottles and pump parts (I’m seriously a pro now), getting in an extra pumping session here or there so that she always has milk (whether it’s at 11pm or at 4:30am), and waking up in the middle of the night because my very small breasts are screaming out at me in pain because they are full of milk and have already leaked all over my sheets (do you know what dried breast milk smells like?  not very pleasant).  Regardless of the challenges, it has been worth it.  Even with the multiple diapers filled with poop of epic proportions.  The positive side to this, aside from all the health benefits that she’s supposedly getting, is the fact that her poop doesn’t smell as bad as formula fed babies.  Or so I’m told.  Regardless, any poop to me smells bad.  What makes it bearable is that fact that it’s coming from my precious Princess Poopey Pants and what’s coming out of her originates from me.  Kinda like some very odd circle of life thing minus Simba, Timon and Scar.