Let me start by saying that a cleanse seems a little bit weird and over-the-top to me. I mean I’m not up for coffee colonics or having my medians recircuited, and a cleanse is almost in that category for me. And yet here I am. I’ve been convinced to give it a try. You can do anything for ten days, right? Today is the big day for me and (thank heavens I have someone to do this with) my husband. We’ve started our cleanse. Not the lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper kind of cleanse as in Kelly-from-The Office cleanse. This is a paleo-zone cleanse, as in Paleolithic, caveman diet. You gotta eat like a caveman for 10 days.

Here are the rules:

1. No fried foods, refined sugar, corn or white starches, or bread

2. No wheat products (i.e. bread or crackers)

3. No dairy (i.e. cheese, yogurt, milk)

4. No alcohol

5. No coffee or soda

6. Eat veggies: salads during the day and steamed at night will scrub your system (choose spices over dairy/sugar based condiments)

7. Eat fruit: fibrous and low glycemic choices (i.e. apples, grapefruit, berries)

8. Eat healthy fats (i.e. avocado, nuts, seeds, olives, olive oil)

9. Eat clean proteins: feed muscle and reduce appetite (tuna and salmon will aid in cleansing; eggs/chicken would be secondary options; stay away from processed lunch meats)

10. Eat clean carbs if needed (quinoa, hummus, oatmeal)

11. Drink water: try for 1 gallon a day

I just ate 5 raspberries as I was typing this, and yes, I counted them. I think it’s completely insane to count five raspberries. It’s like Tyra Banks saying, “Ooh, I just ate half a celery stick and one macadamia nut. I’m so gorged.” Or my friend Lisa who I always tease about her lack of appetite, “Oh, no thank you, I couldn’t eat a half a pickle.”

Last night we went to Costco and spent $400 on “cleansing” food. I really hope the food lasts at least the 10 days of our cleanse, maybe even two weeks. And I hope we eat it all before it goes bad. If it does last, it really won’t be that expensive compared to our normal food budget. If you’re willing to spend $5 on some good ice cream then you should be willing to spend $5 on strawberries right? Cut out the ice cream and there’s your five bucks. (I know I can’t cut out the ice cream forever, but at least for 10 days.)

The most expensive things we bought were frozen wild salmon (don’t eat farmed), which was $29.99 for about 12 servings; canned tuna, which was $11.99 for eight regular sized cans; top sirloin, which was $17.36 for about 16 servings; beef stew meat, which was $16.74 for about 12 servings; frozen shrimp, which was $11.99 for a 2 pound bag (about 70 shrimp), Canadian bacon, which was $8.39 for two bags, each about 4 inches long; grapefruit, which was $10.99 for a huge bag of at least 20 grapefruits; and for the amount, the raspberries, which were $6.49 for 12 ounces (about a 10” x 5” container).

Wow, that seems like a lot of meat that is going to rot in my gut—not clean me out. We don’t eat a lot of meat, especially red meat. I rarely buy it, but I might get a hamburger when I go out. So we shall see if I overdose on protein or balance my hormones and metabolism and appetite and all the other miracles that this cleanse might bring about.