Dear Dr. Oz:
I’ve never seen your show, but I was trolling the internet looking for a quick cleanse and found your 3 Day Detox Plan. I practically eat desserts for a living (seriously) and the holidays are coming up, so I figured that 3 days of clean living and detoxifying could do me some good. I was keen to ‘restart’ my metabolism…even though I am not really sure what that means. I asked my husband if he’d like to join in. “Why?????” I thought I had failed to provide a convincing answer, until a few hours later he texted me. “I’m in.” I think he felt sorry for me, or maybe secretly he had been contemplating jump-starting his metabolism too.
I printed out your handy dandy shopping list, and just like you said, I did indeed find everything at my local grocery store. I felt so virtuous in line at the cash with my $100.00 in healthy stuff. Who could blame me for casting a couple of disdainful looks at the other shoppers with carts full of toxic foods – meat, cheese, bread, ice cream and other assorted ‘poisons’.
Maybe going out on the eve of the planned detox was not such a good idea….a red wine and foie gras hangover was not relieved in any way by your morning detox tea. But you never said it would. That was just poor planning on my part. We drank our lemon/stevia infused green tea while pretending it was coffee. Your detox tea is nothing like coffee. Nothing.
What do you pay the people in your videos to say they love the smoothies? It must be an awful lot – no? I went back and watched the videos on-line again – I did notice you never got them to drink them on air. Good planning Dr. Oz. Nicely played.
The breakfast smoothie seemed promising: banana, raspberries, almond butter and spinach(yikes!). Man that recipe makes a lot. My blender overfloweth. I gagged on its pale pink healthiness and resorted to plugging my nose and chugging it. One smoothie down – barely. I focused on keeping it down – all morning.
Operationally, the lunch smoothie was a challenge. It’s not so easy to blend an entire cucumber and 4 stalks of celery. And a cup of kale. And a whole apple. And other super healthy things. Toxic free ingredients are quite voluminous in fact. The required coconut oil available at my local grocery store comes in a shampoo bottle and smells like suntan lotion. Seriously Dr. Oz – that can’t be good for me – can it? Quite amazing how the recipe made a drink that was also chewy. It took me an hour to drink/eat it.
Around 4:00 we were starving. I noted that we were allowed to have our favourite drink as a snack. I was pleasantly surprised I could have a glass of Chardonnay mid-afternoon, until rational thinking kicked in and I realised you meant my favourite detox shake. I could not bear the thought of the gag inducing breakfast shake, and I had practically just finished drinking/eating the lunch shake, so we improvised. OK. We cheated, big time. We had a cup of black tea (with milk and sugar) and a handful of homemade granola. Sweet bliss. Best granola I have ever had.
Before “dinner” and, frankly, the term is incredibly misleading, I washed and prepped all the fruit and veggies for the remainder of this three day extravaganza. I needed to make this smoothie making as easy as possible, I was fearing already I was about to abort the mission. I clearly did not feel as happy and as energized as the liars guests you have on your show.
The dinner shake, with the mango, blueberries, kale and coconut water was indeed my favourite as many of your fans indicated, but I could only drink a mere half litre of it. Employing diversion tactics, we headed out to see Skyfall in order to avoid thinking about food. We purposefully saw it at a theatre that serves terrible popcorn. I am happy to report that in all 2.5 hours of the latest Bond film, nobody eats a single crumb of food. Driving motorcycles on rooftops, hanging off elevators, chasing bad guys through the London Underground – and he never even stops for a quick bacon butty. Maybe he too was on your 3 day detox plan. Thank goodness for small miracles.
Please forgive our granola indiscretions, we kind-of-sort-of plan on being more virtuous tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Hungry in Toronto
Dear Dr. Oz:
The dis-enchantment with the smoothies continues. Day 2 was tough. I leaned on my product development skills today and made some improvements to the shakes. Note, it also helped that I did not wake up with a hangover today, maybe you should add that to your handy one page guide.
I replaced the water in the breakfast shake with coconut water and it was 500% more palatable. I did not even gag once. I increased the almond milk in the lunch shake, and although still chewy, it sort of went down easier. Cam went a little overboard when adding the suntan lotion, but the shake tasted good and if the sun ever comes out again, our insides should get a good tan.
We fell down again at the ‘your favourite shake’ part of the day. Picking which of these shakes is my favourite is like asking me to choose between polishing silver and flossing Charlie’s teeth for him. We substituted a single (I swear) chocolate chip cookie. Paisley was making these cookies ….and I defy anyone to resist them, even you, Dr. Virtuous. Stop reading and go make those cookies right now. Go. Your blender will not miss you – I promise. They are likely filled with toxins – but who cares.
I am not gonna lie. I am not starving, but I am constantly dreaming about food. Oh. Wait. Um, come to think of it I am always thinking about food. Huh. OK, so I am thinking about foods not served in a glass. Drinks that are not chewy. ‘Cause in my opinion chewy drinks are just not right.
Six smoothies down, only three to go.
Resentfully yours,
Hungry in Toronto
Dear Dr. Oz
Final day.
I jumped out of bed this morning – I could feel my clean, toxic free blood coursing through my veins. I was looking at the world with a clarity never before experienced.
Not.
Somehow jumpstarting my metabolism was loosing its appeal. Maybe my lazy metabolism was not so bad after all.
I modified the breakfast shake a little more, by replacing the banana with a poached egg, and the raspberries and flax seeds with a nice rasher of bacon. Instead of pureeing in the blender, I served it on whole grain toast. It was the best ‘smoothie’ I have ever not had.
I didn’t do that! Dr. Oz – did you think I would cheat? OK, besides the granola and the cookies? Could you just let that go?
I actually enjoyed my lunch time lawn clippings shake…..it seems, on the upside, the more deprived you get, the closer you get to actual starvation, the more anything starts to taste good.
Cam caved at dinner – he could not resist the toxic filled Bolognese spaghetti I made for the kids. I sat and watched him inhale a huge plate, and smugly sip/chewed my last scrumptious slimy avocado blueberry smoothie. Yummmm…..
I did it, I completed your three day torture plan. I wonder how long I will be clean and toxic free? Hopefully at least 10 years.
Satisified with completeness, and putting my blender away until margarita season,
Hungry but mostly detoxified in Toronto
