Blender Babes Juice Detox

Christmas vacation this past year was marked glutony. Together Joe and I rang in the new year carrying about 20 excess pounds of steak, conch fritters, alcohol, and all of the bloating that comes with those things. We both felt like doo-doo and needed a serious jump-start to living healthy again. That's why we decided to do the Blender Babes' Juice Detox.

This juice detox isn't your standard drink-more-juice-than-you-can-stomach + starvation diet. It's not even a "diet" so much as it is a dietary reboot. It got me interested because 1.) it's free and 2.) it require us to use our Blendtec a lot. I guess there's a number three, which is that I've never "cleaned out" my system and I really felt, after that vacation, I had never needed it more.

Blender Babes suggest using a Blendtec or Vitamix, but they say all of the recipes are also standard blender-friendly. In addition to the Blendtec we needed to stock up on about $50 of produce and some liquid stevia. You could probably spend less on produce, but I prefer organic. Side note on the liquid stevia: we had been led to believe that agave nectar is the way to go to sweeten drinks, but Blender Babes don't like it, I think due to the processing through which agave nectar goes before it gets into a bottle and to the grocery store.

Blender Babes offer an options pre-detox five-day place to gradually eliminate common problem foods from our diet; they suggest this to avoid shocking the digestive system. By the fifth day we were eating no meat, gluten, wheat, artificial anything, processed anything, dairy, soy, and caffeine. After the fact, we feel that we could manage the juice detox again without needing five full days to clean out our diet. If we do it again, we'll probably take three days instead.

On Friday we started the juices. In the morning we had "morning water," which is just a warm cup of filtered water with lemon and fresh ginger. Throughout the day we had six juices, all but one with a coconut water base and featuring a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, notably beets, jalapeno, and kale among a lot of your standard juicing fruits. Admittedly I cheated between the mid-afternoon and dinner juices. I was craving to chew on something so I had some almonds, a prune, and a carrot.

I thought I was done after one day, which is the standard amount of time to do the detox, but decided to give it a second go on Saturday since Joe was feeling it. Also, I hadn't pooped yet so I thought that maybe I needed more to get everything out of me. I enjoyed the juices a LOT on day two but by the evening I was struggling. Never was I hungry, but again I just really wanted to chew some real food. I gave in and instead of the dinner and dessert juices (numbers five and six respectively), I had a chicken salad. I felt terribly guilty, but I had also gotten very irritable, which made me feel more terrible for how unfriendly I was being.

On Sunday morning Joe and I had a 12-mile run on our marathon training schedule. We woke up, and weighed ourselves, both happy to have been down to our pre-vacation weights! This didn't all happen over the two days of juicing, but started instead during the five days prior. Also, I finally pooped on Sunday morning and I lost ANOTHER pound just from that. Yeah, it was quite a poop. Apparently there was a lot of nastiness just chillin' in my digestive system for way too long.

After juicing we are to follow the same regiment as leading up to the cleanse, only backwards. That made it a challenge to run 12 miles because we couldn't have any of our regular long run fuel--no Clif bars or shot blocks, no gels, no gatorade. We bagged up some almonds and managed to pull out 12 miles, even if they were a little slower than usual.

As we gradually shift back into our "regular" diet, I'm glad that I did this juice detox. It was really easy and I think I could definitely do it again and better--that is, without getting all whiney again. Today I feel good, especially knowing that the juices pushed out so much gunk. Also, beets do funny things to your poop.

Goodbye, junk food.

I have been eating too much junk. It's time to change that.

As busy as we got in the home stretch of grad school, Joe and I started a bad habit of turning to junk food: stuff like Taco Bell, wings and beer, and pizza became standard meals on the weekly. This happened in spite of the fact that we love cooking and have a lot of above-average quality tools in our kitchen.

After today, I'm done. A couple of weeks back I started to feel crappy. The stuff coming out of my body was abnormally smelly and irregular. TMI? Whatever, I didn't like it either. I figured that it would pass, but it still hasn't. Last night I had an awful headache that lingered into this morning along with some serious gastro-intestinal discomfort inclining me to stay home. It's got to be the shit I've been eating.

Last week we finally started meal-planning. That was inadvertent step one toward improving our diet. I'm still feeling like poo, though. On Sunday night I was grossed out by the stir fry I made and made a naughty trip to Burger King to appease my stomach. Last night I gave in an ordered some pulled pork at Max & Erma's. Oh, and a couple of beers. In two work days I drank three lattes. I have not been good to my insides.

It ends today. Beginning tomorrow morning I will:

1.) Start each weekday with a green smoothie. After all, we dropped a few Benjamins on a Blendtec back in August.

2.) Eat a PB&J and Greek yogurt for lunch at work. Joe makes the best PB&Js. I'm already disciplined in this respect but maybe once or twice per month I forget my lunch at home and end up making a run to Wendy's. It's so hard to order a salad sans dressing when they've got that awesome but terribly unhealthy spicy chicken Caesar salad.

3.) Come home for a snack of vegetables, chips and salsa/hummus, or nuts. No more ghetto nachos or Churchill's donuts. Goodbye, forkfull of melted sharp cheddar.

4.) Drink only one beer in a sitting. I really only have a weak spot for beer during trivia on Tuesday nights. Most often I opt for club soda in lieu of beer, but on those nights that I do drink beer, I end up having two of those tall mofos. I love you, beer, but you aren't good for me.

5.) Only eat when it is time to eat. This includes time for that post-work snack and a similar snack between dinner and bed.

Fortunately we've got a good foundation for all of this started because, aside from the cheese, we don't have anything in our house regularly that I classify as "junk food." Our fridge right now is filled with almond milk, a few beers, Greek yogurt, a block of parmesan, vegetables, soda (I've been fighting that battle for a few years), and hot sauces. Oh, and there is a pumpkin cheesecake in there that I baked earlier today, but I just made that to be a good wife and to keep me busy. Our dry food cabinet is mostly seasonings, grains, and snacks like Clif bars and nuts. A neighbor child actually once raided our kitchen and was whole-heartedly disappointed in our selection.

The problem I have is that it's all too convenient and normal for me to drive over to Starbucks or Chick-fil-a when I have a craving. The next time I get that urge, I'm going to do my best to mentally refer to this blog post.

No more junk.

What can you do to improve your diet? Is your fridge a shameful display of preservatives and hormone-ridden junk that is destroying you or an exhibit of fresh and organic nutrition for your body to love?

Social. a gastropub

On my second-to-last weekday of summer, I couldn't resist treating myself to lunch at one of Perrysburg's fantastic local restaurants. I got into my car, headed in the direction of Northwest Ohio's best destination for craft brew and eats, and pondered what I'd have. Over the past three weeks, I've enjoyed a Hanalei salad, hot barbecue and nuclear chunks, lots of fries (sweet potato and regular, the latter swimming in malt vinegar), a butter burger, a half-pound BLT, a smokey Italian beef sammich, and an array of beer. Waiting at an intersection, I began sweating in my attempt to decide what it was on which I'd gorge today.

Then, it hit me.

"Social. a gastropub," a few minutes in the other direction, opened a few days ago. I was curious, not anxious, in a way that I thought, "How cute. Another attempt at mimicking Swig." Last year Barr's Public House opened in Maumee, which I like just fine, but it turned me off when a cocky bartender inaccurately declared that "[They] are what Swig is trying to be." I have never left Swig not feeling fatter and happier than I was when I arrived, so I take any jab as if it is one unto me. Also making me not entirely enthused about "Social. a gastropub" was the name; I don't like misused punctuation and capitalization and "gastropub" is becoming a buzzword, its meaning being stretched and watered down. What really is a gastropub, anyway?

"Gastropub or gastrolounge refers to a bar and restaurant that serves high-end beer and food." Thanks, Wikipedia.

Furthermore, from my experience a gastropub serves those things in unconventional combinations, e.g. replacing the corned beef in a reuben with tenderloin of duck and the sauerkraut with a citrusy-soy slaw. With respect to beer, Great Lakes and Goose Island are too cool to be truly cool in the realest of real gastropubs. Basically, it's the 90s alternative rock of restaurant genres.

I got over my own nay-saying and made my way to Social. The interior has undergone updating from Arnie's; instead of dark, brown, and brassy, Social is dark, blue, and silvery. Tables are arranged long-ways, either to accommodate large parties or to encourage strangers to sit together a la German beer gardens. On this beautiful, wannabe-fall-summer-day I opted to sit outside at the bar. The wicker stools at the bar suck, or maybe the bar is too tall. Whatever the case, my butt sunk into the bowl-like chair and I felt like I needed a booster seat. This eventually made eating physically and mentally awkward.

Also awkward was the bartender who demonstrated a few times that she, probably like the rest of the wait staff, is still figuring out the menu in the restaurant's gastropub's first three days. It was apparent that she either had memorized the menu OR was skilled at reading upside-down. Her descriptions lacked details about the actual food and were mostly unconvincing opinions. "The corn bread with jasmine butter is really good! The pork belly, which is like bacon before it's bacon, is also really good! Our mac and cheese is really good and different!" I'm sure it's all really good.

I was alone and had nowhere to be so I made a tasting out of the afternoon. I ordered a Founders All Day IPA, which came in a hipster mason jar, and ordered the fried green tomatoes. They came out of the kitchen after just the right amount of time--not too long that I was sitting by myself unoccupied and avoiding conversation with the meatheads across the bar, and not too quickly, which suggested to me that they were making them fresh to order. I was surprised to see that they had been battered and deep-fried because my only prior experiences with fried green tomatoes were in Greenville, SC, and Atlanta, GA, where I got the impression that fried green tomatoes are lightly dredged in flour and herbs then pan-fried. I'm not going to pretend that really matters to me, though. Hey, I like Olive Garden and I don't care that it isn't "real Italian food." The tomatoes, served with a side and drizzle of ranch (possibly housemade, but I'm no ranch coinnoisseur) were definitely good, albeit very heavy. I packed up the leftovers, so let's hope that I'm wearing my sharing pants later when Joe is home.

It was tough to pick my entree. The fish tacos, which I think my bartender said are filled with rare ahi tuna, were calling my name, but I wanted to save those for a dinner visit. I'm a sucker for pulled pork, so I leaned toward that sandwich, but then felt guilty eating fries (their fries sounded amazing and I can't remember details other than garlic and parsley). I went with a bowl of cream of golden beet soup, which was the soup of the day that actually changes daily and is made from scratch, and the half-sized warm spinach salad. Again, the kitchen and wait staff did a good job of getting my food out to me. The soup was bomb. I dig beats beets, but had never eaten, nor heard of, golden beets. They absolutely have a different flavor from red beets, but they're also absolutely beet-y. It was a rich soup, though appropriate for a mild late summer day, topped with what appeared to be olive oil and flat leaf parsley. I scraped my bowl dry.

The warm spinach salad was not as happy. I ordered it without egg, but I can't imagine that's why it didn't hit the spot. Rather large for being a half, it was a pile of baby spinach topped with crumbled bacon and honey mustard dressing, surrounded by small roasted potato quarters. I didn't notice which part of the salad was warm, other than the potatoes. Potatoes are my friends, but these potatoes left a lot to be desired; a bit dry and simply salted and peppered. How about some butter and garlic? The honey mustard dressing looked right, but tasted like all mustard and no honey. With each bite, I hoped that the bacon would overpower the flavor of French's, but with each bite, I was disappointed. In full disclosure, I did pretty much lick that plate clean, but that was just because I was trying to eat everything there to rub the mustard aftertaste out of my mouth.

Feeling completely like a fat kid, I asked about dessert. The bartender knew that there was some kind of cobbler, but she didn't know what fruit was in it, and she mentioned strawberry shortcake. She scurried inside to inquire about the cobbler then returned after a few minutes to report that it had lots of berries, which she did rattle off. Although she didn't know if the strawberry shortcake was on actual shortcake or plain biscuits, I wanted it because strawberry shortcake is a dessert that can never be not delicious. After a few minutes, I had a stack of three shortcakes, easily six inches high, with some kind of cream and strawberry slices in their own juices sandwiched between. The entire bar oohed and ahhed and I made a valiant attempt at putting a dent into it. As good as it was, my stomach obliged, "No more, Krista! No more!"

An appetizer, soup, salad, dessert, and a beer came in at just over $30. I don't recommend going to Social and ordering that much food without some assistance, but I'm not at all disappointed in my overall experience. When Joe gets home today I'm going to work on convincing him that we need to hit up Social for lunch this weekend. Also, we're going to be fighting over those fried green tomatoes.

Back to the above "gastropub" rant: Is Social. a gastropub really a gastropub? Most of the beer was on point and the chef is attempting funky things with standard (pulled pork), hokey (I didn't mention the fried bologna), and "high-end" (lobster mac and cheese) ingredients. I approve of your name, Social. a gastropub (excluding the punctuation and grammar flubs).

How does it stack up to Swig and Barr's Public House? Although they are all in some way "gastropubs," the menu here is completely different from that at Swig. I think with some time for the wait staff and experimentation with the menu, Social will find their wheel house just like Swig has and they will tweak it to perfection. The menu is significantly larger than Barr's, but it isn't too long with overwhelming options, and the atmosphere is a lot less pretentious.

Unfortunately, Social. a gastropub doesn't seem to have a website. Find them on Facebook, or just drive over to the former location of Arnie's on 25 in Perrysburg, and tell them that someone is blogging about them!