Most people celebrate getting older with cake alcoholic beverages… unless you’re a genius like me and decide to go on a juice cleanse starting three days after your birthday.
Which means that on your birthday, you are only allowed to eat fruits and vegetables. Great idea.
In fact, here is what our latest Costco haul looked like: 
We went through one 10-lb bag of carrots in less than a week. Is this why I have an orange-ish glow?
So this vegetable diet might pose a birthday dinner challenge — who gets to the bathroom first? what to eat?
Well, if you live in the Bay Area, where there are more Japanese restaurants than college kids starting their own companies out of coffee shops, the answer is easy: you eat shabu-shabu!
We went to Shabuway in Mountain View and ordered the vegetarian meal — and I tell you in all seriousness that, after seeing this, I wasn’t missing the beef at all:
In case you haven’t had shabu-shabu before, here’s how it works. You get a plate of vegetables (and a plate of very thinly-sliced beef, if you’re a meat eater at the present moment). Then you cook all that yourself by dunking it in a pot of boiling salty or spicy water. 
When ready, take out of the pot, let on a plate to cool down, then dip in the sesame or soy sauce and eat. With rice, if you aren’t on a vegetable-fruit pre-cleanse fast, you lucky thing.
Kids have lots of fun at this restaurant, because they can cook their own food for once, and hardly anyone notices when they make a mess (because we all make a mess):
In all seriousness: I never thought quitting meat (if only temporarily) would be so easy and I don’t miss it at all. Do I miss eggs already? Yes. My usual four cups of coffee? Ohhhhhh.
Wanna see what I have instead? 
Turned into this:
It’s very refreshing (and sweet), but like I said: I feel like I’m starting to acquire an an orange-ish glow. As for levels of hunger… ask me on Monday?
Today’s workouts:
Did an unintentional “unplugged” workout today by forgetting my cell phone in the locker. And ended up on a spin bike with a broken pedometer for the cycling portion. The universe wanted it this way?
I’ll run tomorrow and possibly swim on Monday morning, and then I’m super curious whether I’ll be able to haul my butt to the gym on Tuesday evening. Stay tuned!
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Is the big day today? Happy birthday! And I agree…don’t miss meat at all, but eggs and yoghurt would be devastating to cut out!!
It was on Friday, but by the time I got around to put up the blog post on Saturday, most people saw it on Sunday… and as a result, my birthday is now three days long. I like it! 🙂