Tapioca has met its match

Remember last week when I said my cleanse wasn't that hard or intense?  I am now retracting that statement whole-heartedly.  I was probably still coming off my holiday food orgy so I didn't miss anything in my diet yet.  This weekend I went to a very nice restaurant named "Milo's City Cafe" in NE Portland.  It is one of my favorite places to get oysters and I love them to little bits.  Once I sat down at my booth I instantly thought of how nice a cool glass of white wine would be to wind-down from my Friday when I suddenly realized I wasn't allowed alcohol.  Oops, never-mind.  Then I thought, well maybe I should get a nice dessert to reward myself because I wasn't allowed the wine.  DOH!  Then like a bolt of lightning I realized I wasn't allowed that anymore either.  

I've been on this cleanse for 12 days now and I still am having a hard time with this.  It just leads me to recognize how often I am putting these things into my body without ever really thinking about it.  The whole weekend was a repeat of that short internal conversation with myself.  Suddenly I was staring longingly at basically everything at Trader Joe's, from the kettle corn to the tapioca pudding (it looked kinda sweet and it's pudding right??).  I had emailed my friend earlier telling her of my January challenge and she replied in shock that she would simply die if she gave up "booze, sugar and caffeine" for lack of any other food.  After giggling at her reply I realized just how true this statement might be for me.  What is embarrassing is that I think of myself as a relatively good and nutritional eater.  Yes, I do have a sweet tooth but I also LOVE beans and eggs and this kale my sister makes.  So why all the problems now with January?  

I have yet to have refined sugar, I am as dry as a desert in high summer and I am no longer ingesting any caffeine and THIS IS WORK.  I will continue my journey until the end of the month because more than anything it is a game of wills now.  Stay tuned, tapioca is a tough competitor.