(NOTE:  I wrote this yesterday so tomorrow has become today.)

Tomorrow I begin the “Cooking Light 3-Day Detox.” I’m preparing by trying to eat up all the sweets still remaining in my house after the holidays, but my husband and I are heading out to a party soon and I fear I will fail to finish everything.

The first step in the program is to look over the magazine’s list of forty-three food items and go shopping for the ones you don’t have. I’m thankful I had many of the ingredients, which meant I only had to spend seventy dollars at the grocery store for the ones I didn’t. Seventy dollars for three days for one person, and that doesn’t include the chicken breasts I still have to buy.

But no one said detoxing came cheaply. Which reminds me of a cleansing treatment popular twenty years ago — it may still be, but I don’t hear about it any longer — called colonic irrigation. Now that kind of detox sounds downright nasty, like the enemas kids in my generation had to suffer through. I’m thankful to whichever medical expert persuaded our mothers to give up this folk remedy early in our lives.

My last supper (from NY Day party)

This detox diet consists mostly of whole grains, vegetables, chicken and fish. Unlike some detox treatments, this one has no strange ingredients, no eye of newt or toe of frog.The only sugar comes from the frozen mangos and bananas on the first morning, which will offer an interesting contrast to my daily Trader Joe 72% dark chocolate bar and my nightly helping of ice cream or tapioca pudding.

Although this is not a weight loss diet, I hope to lose at least one of the eight pounds I’ve gained since June, when my husband and I ate our way through Scandinavia via its many smorgasbords. “Restrained” did not describe our behavior when presented with fifteen starch choices; six chicken, beef, sausage and fish dishes; seven types of bread; and fourteen desserts twice a day for almost three weeks. Everything but the lutefisk (which smells like ammonia and likely tastes worse) called to us from the warming trays nestled together on tables covering miles of ballroom-sized rooms.

Ever since I made my decision a week ago, I have poured over the magazine’s menus for each meal and wondered if there will be enough food to keep me from being tempted to cheat. A half cup of brown rice pilaf and two cups of kale? I’d rather the measurements were switched. And speaking of kale, it looks like I’ll eating a lot of it. I guess they expect you to fill up on that plus fresh parsley and cilantro, walnuts by the teaspoon, and spinach. I tell myself I can make it through three days. But my story stops there. Any internal monologue about what happens after that is missing.