My experiment was to spend ten days on my new TeraCleanse™ diet, to see if I could resist eating, even with delicious food dangling inches from my face [Read Part 1 here].
TERACLEANSE™: DAY 7
Starting weight: 153 pounds
Temptation food: FUNYUNS
No idea what my real weight is, since I weighed myself with twelve pounds of clothes today (gotta love New England winters). My body is also trying to conserve energy by not producing heat, so my hands and feet are like those of a corpse.
Day 7 turned out to be the worst day, the Heartbreak Hill of my marathon diet. I was incredibly hungry, fantasizing my family and friends turning into food items, like you see in cartoons. Worse, my Food Hat™ had Funyuns dangling before me.
Friggin FUNYUNS.
Do you know how amazingly good those things smell? Anyone who does not believe in God should try fasting for seven days, then spending an hour being tempted by Funyuns. That's all it takes to realize THERE IS A GOD, AND HE TAKES THE FORM OF FUNYUNS.
Having a religious moment.
TERACLEANSE™: DAY 8
Starting weight: 148.5 pounds
Temptation food: TRIPLE-PORK SURPRISE
Finally, the weight comes off! And just in time for today's three-layer Meat Hat™.
You have no idea how much self-control this took.
I threaded sausage links, sausage patties, and bacon onto my Food Hat™, which was much more difficult than it sounds. Greasy meat kept sliding out, landing on the floor. When you're handling juicy, well-cooked meats with your bare hands, how do you not lick your fingers? But I did not. I may have smelled them several times, breathing in their smoky scent, but never once did I Google "sausage porn."
Okay, maybe once.
For some reason, this photo came up.
TERACLEANSE™: DAY 9
Starting weight: 148.5 pounds
Temptation food: SPONGE CAKE
All week, I had been laying down mental sandbags, telling myself I would make it to the end without cheating. Today the floodgates of temptation opened up in the form of a giant, fresh-baked sponge cake.
"Made the old fashioned way" -- with the Bubonic Plague?
Oh, with delicious-smelling ingredients!
This was the biggest temptation so far, worse than a Funyun and Meat Hat™ salad. Remember that scene at the beginning of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Charlie, the poor starving orphan, goes outside the Wonka chocolate factory and tries to eat the air? That's what I tried to do, except as soon as I opened my mouth I found my teeth resting on the cake.
Ladies, have you ever heard of a game called "Just the Tip"? This was the food equivalent. "It's doesn't count if I just lick it," I thought, which is a line I think I used on someone as a teenager.
NO. I shut my mouth, and spent an excruciating hour shopping for new laptops on eBay, looking over the top of a sponge cake. If Funyuns are God, then sponge cake must be one of the heavenly hosts. I guess that's why they call it angel food cake. [Sound effect]
TERACLEANSE™: DAY 10
Starting weight: 147.5 pounds
Temptation food: CHOCO-KEBAB
Nearly ten pounds in ten days. That's the glory of the TeraCleanse™. You just don't lose weight this quickly without major surgery, or an amputation.
I drank my final quart of brackish seawater this morning, then went to the store to pick up my final batch of lemons. I nearly danced for joy down the aisle, looking at all the food I would be eating the next day. As I did so, I felt a little air bubble slip out -- then realized with horror that it was not an air bubble, but a mud puddle.
Sure, it's fun at Burning Man, but not in the middle of the supermarket.
See, this is why you must stay near a bathroom for a full hour after you drink the saline flush. I looked for a bathroom, but like all supermarkets, it was hidden behind the markdown bread rack. And where was that?! Nowhere close enough, I'll tell you.
I waddled to the register, checked out in shame, and did the March of the Penguins all the way to my car. I managed to make it home before I Tucker Maxed all over the inside of the car, and for that I will always be grateful.
Then I put on a hat made out of chocolate bars.
Patent also pending.
The Choco-Kebab™, as I call it, was the final temptation. Who can resist chocolate? This was much more than a chocolate bar; this was ChocoVision™, a 360-degree panorama of chocolate. It was a feast for all the senses, except taste.
All right, it was a coat hanger with chocolate bars.
I don't know why they call these things "Fun Size." Shouldn't fun be LARGER?
I put on a couple of marshmallows to round out the Choco-Kebab™, and put on the hat. It was unbelievable, a smorgasbord of cacao. I had Snickers, Milky Way, and several Three Musketeers. I had, like, Nine Musketeers.
Mmm ... Musketeers.
I couldn't see a damned thing in ChocoVision™, which of course is the point, but the coat hanger kept spinning around and knocking me in the head. I was being bludgeoned by chocolate, which would be a tasty way to die, but highly annoying under the circumstances.
Even though it was a crude prototype, ChocoVision™ came with another discovery: ChocoWhiff™, an all-encompassing scent of chocolate that makes you want to bang your head on a radiator in frustration.
ChocoVision™ and ChocoWhiff™ were my greatest tests. It was incredibly difficult to make it through the hour. I tried watching TV, but I had to hold my head at a weird angle and peer through the slit, breathing through my mouth. I looked like Stephen Hawking, only without the brain.
The final weigh-in.
Once you've done something difficult in life -- running a marathon, or overthrowing a totalitarian regime -- it's not as difficult the second time. You know you can do it, because you've done it.
So it is with the TeraCleanse™. While I could hardly say this experiment was fun, I knew that I could make it to the end without cheating. I think most people give up during the Master Cleanse, because they're not convinced they can do it. Most of our limitations are self-imposed. All you have to do is fool yourself into knowing (not thinking) that you can do it, and you can do it. That's the secret of life. $9.95, please.
If you're interested in doing the Master Cleanse, you can read the original book here. If you're interested in our improved GigaCleanse™, you can get that here. And if you're interested in the TeraCleanse™, please have your head examined.
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