We went into it so confidently, my family and I. We got the cookbook, It’s All Good, and set out to do the detox week, Gwyneth’s dairy free, tomato free, caffeine, everything but protein and greens free week.
Meaning that we had to somehow follow the diet with the food we had in our house, which was, at the moment, scarce. You can’t really make beet green pumpkin soup if you don’t have beet greens and pumpkin. We were, however, also unwilling to grocery shop, because we didn’t want to spend $400 on a lot of food we would probably have to throw out at the end of the week when we went to the beach. Gwyneth has expensive taste.
My dad, who had eaten two days worth of junk food the night before in “preparation” to cleanse, was out in the first two hour. He was not about to drink juice that is the color green. He had coffee and eggs and went off to work grumbling about the ridiculousness of celebrity diets.
My sister, waking up at twelve, declared that she would not be joining us after all and made a ham sandwich, My mom and I had a little more resolve. We made green juice from ingredients in our garden for breakfast, we had an avocado for a snack, and then we determined that, in fact, we were still hungry, and it was not yet lunchtime.
My family is not made up of the kind of people who are cool with being hungry. My mom at this point declared the diet a farce. “She’s not a nutritionist, she’s just skinny.” I agreed, my stomach grumbling, “Who has time to soak their almonds for half a day? The point of almonds is that they’re low maintenance.”
We have done diets together before, we’re good at holding each other accountable, but it quickly became clear that neither of us have the resolve to live like Gwyneth Paltrow, who looks constantly as though she’s had the essence of kale infused into her spirit. If you do, more power to you, enjoy your wet almonds.
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