If you ever want to see your bowels produce something akin to baby shit, do a cleanse.

Me and the bestie (that’s the new vernacular for best friend, I just go with the flow, dawg) decided that we were fed up with being mopey and stagnant, and I thought it might be a good idea for us to start fresh, together. There’s nothing like annoying accountability to make you do what you said you were going to do. Its one thing to let myself down; I’m rife with disappointments. It’s another to have to tell someone you suck balls and are lazy. She’s going to ask me later if I ran today, and more than likely I’ll respond with a text like “NOT FUCKING YET. LAY OFF!!!”

Interestingly enough, we actually both eat pretty healthy. We’re vegetarians. I specifically was a practicing vegan until I moved back to Florida in October and decided not to shun the free pizza with cheese on it that would become available, especially since I was poor and living in between two people’s houses. And, oh my God, who doesn’t LOVE cheese? Noms. Especially on pizza, one of my favorite foods in the world.

Besides that, we eat plenty of vegetables, some tofu, whole grains and whole grain breads, and lots of fruit. Typically when I go grocery shopping I pick up: almond milk, frozen steam-in-a-bag veggies, Claussen kosher pickles (you need those in your life, fyi), mushrooms, spinach, hummus, soy yogurt, granola…and a 12 pack of beer. Whoops.

Dude, I love beer. I love the way it tastes. I love how it’s cold and bubbly and hoppy, all up in your mouth when you get off of work when you’re all sweaty and gross. I love going to bars and talking smack with my friends, over beer. And I don’t just love Yuengling, I love all kinds of microbrew beers. I’m a beer snob. Thus my problem. If I don’t watch myself, I’ll end up with a beer gut. I’ve seen girls with them, and ew, it’s not attractive. I can’t get a ripped tummy if there’s a layer of calories, namely beer carbs and sugar.

I also love coffee. This one is easier to cut out (for a cleanse, anyway) because I don’t have a coffeemaker, or instant coffee, and for me to get my hot black java fix I have to drive somewhere and buy an overpriced cup of it.

The purpose of a cleanse (also referred to as a detox) is to cut out all the bad shit for anywhere from 1 to 7 days. Bad shit is: caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol, tap water (eyeroller), processed/refined foods, meat, dairy, and shitty oils/fats.

What you’re left with is: fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, if that.

Me and Julie both smoke like chimneys, and we both knew better than to try a cleanse that cut out alcohol (my other best friend), caffeine (a mutual good friend of ours), and not have some kind of vice. We’d be at each other’s throats the whole time. And I love her, and I don’t want her to die. I don’t want to die either. Yes, its that extreme. Us not smoking while doing a cleanse together would have ended in our death. Thus, we opted to have a vice, and smoking it was.

So, Sunday afternoon, after we both got to bed at 5:30 A.M., we headed to Whole Foods, the hippie grocery mecca of Tampa, at about 1pm. Thus began our journey through the produce section, searching for things like arugula, rainbow chard, pea sprouts, endive, and jicama. Sample of our typical banter:

“What the FUCK is that? Are we supposed to eat that?”

“I don’t think I know HOW to eat that. Wait, it says here we’re going to juice it.”

“Oh, sick.”

“They don’t have rainbow chard. All they have is Swiss, and green. Green LEAF, specifically.”

“Pick one. They both look like they’re going to taste like shit anyways. I don’t care.”

“Oh, gawd, look at that lady. That’s why I want to quit smoking. Ugh, her skin.”

“That’s not a lady, thats the Grim Reaper, stupid.”

“Wanna do a shot of wheatgrass?”

“No.”

“Hey, it’s not bad, if you get past the fact that I’m drinking something that was probably shit on by a squirrel.”

“Now I definitely want some wheatgrass. That looks like sewage.”

“Ooh, look, samples of Sour Cream and Onion POP chips. I won’t tell you if you don’t tell me.”

“Done. What the hell is a POP chip anyways?”

“Apparently the great minds that have sent us to space have figured out you can pop a potato, like corn.”

“God bless America.”

“Ready to go home and drink shit?”

“No.”

“Sweet, me either. Lets hit a thrift store on the way back.”

“Word.”

We eventually made it past our ADD and got back to my apartment, the designated spot for the cleanse. We knew we wanted to sweat it out by a pool, and my pool is like a good volleyball serve away.

That morning we both drank a concoction of water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and Celtic sea salt. What we now call the ELIXIR. In case you didn’t know, consumption of peppers can clean you out, which is why you often see them in cleanses. It makes your digestive system go “Oh, shit” (fucking puns, I’m full of ‘em) and empty itself. When we got back to my apartment we made the Sassy Sausalito Salad, which consisted of arugula, endive, raw almonds, romaine, and what the author idiotically refers to as an “Addictive Tangy Dressing”, which is lemon juice, flax oil, and salt. Seriously? It’d be addictive if there was a freaking BUMP in it.

Over that day and the next, we made a ‘Heavenly Juice’ (juiced chard, cucumber, apple, sprouts), ‘Blissful Broth’ (simmered onion, celery, squash, and some herbs then blended in a blender to aid digestion), and a watermelon salad that was actually pretty fucking good. I never used to really care for watermelon. I didn’t NOT like it, I just didn’t see why people went apeshit over it. Now I know, when you’re sweating balls in your apartment with no A/C on purpose, watermelon tastes like heaven.

We did a lot of laying around, because detoxes sap your energy. You’re removing your usual daily consumption of carbs, sugars, and caffeine. It’s not bad to remove those things, just doing it overnight like we did, like most people have to do with a cleanse, makes your energy levels wonky as fuck.

We did a lot of bitching, like me: “Whose fucking idea was this? Shit, mine. Well, fuck you anyways Julie. Stop smiling.”

Julie: “I want to eat something that has fucking TEXTURE. And I’d like to feel full for more than 20 minutes, Jesus.”

Me: “I know, right? If we’re having MSG swings I want it to be because I’m eating deep fried tofu goddammit. I don’t even know what I want to eat right now. I just want something to freaking CHEW. FUUUUCK.”

Later that night Julie went home and showered and I showered. It felt SO AMAZING. And I looked in the mirror and felt fabulous. I had some color in my cheeks from the sun, my body was a little achy from the pummeling I had given it earlier that day, and although I hadn’t lost any weight according to the scale, I felt slimmer and better.

Since we made a ‘One Day Wonder Cleanse’ last for two days, that night we decided to go out and eat something that we could chew. Got some Vietnamese food, and then we hit the bar that is conveniently/distressingly located a block away from my house. And I ordered us….vodka and soda, with a lime. God, when you want a beer, that beverage tastes like SHIT. The first one went down quite bitterly. I bitched the whole time. Next round, added a lemon. And then I stopped caring. Because, I asked for it. Gotta take it.

So, now I’m ‘clean’. Yes, I pooped. A lot. No, nothing colon shaped came out. But I definitely pooped more epically than I had been pooping. I feel better. Am I doing it again anytime soon? No. Hopefully it won’t be necessary. If I keep up with a new regimen of eating better, I won’t have to. Remembering a cleanse will keep my ass in check. Because it sucked.

If you want to be an idiot like me, check out Super Cleanse by Adina Niemerow. Don’t believe her when she says something tastes good, she’s full of shit.