This is the story of my experiment with eating a jar of peanut butter a day.
July 19 – Prep
As I was eating a spoon of peanut butter, I started thinking seriously about trying a jar of peanut butter a day challenge. Originally, I figured I’d kick it off on the first of July. Then I realized that trying to continue this all the way through the end of July might conflict with some of my other plans. I knew I needed to start sooner.
July 25 – Start
During the day, I got this sudden urge to workout. I already had a fresh jar of peanut butter handy, so I decided I might as well begin.
I took some pictures, forgetting a few crucial poses. I didn’t weigh myself. I didn’t measure anything. I just went for it.
It would have been nice to look back and see how much weight I actually gained, but really weight doesn’t matter. It’s all about proportions.
June 26 – Doubt
I only made it to the second day before I considered giving up. I struggled with the stickiness. I didn’t know how to get the peanut butter down.
It didn’t help that during those first few days, I underestimated how much peanut butter I needed to eat during the day to finish by the evening. This meant I had to stay up late trying to down spoon after spoon of peanut butter. Not a nice way to end the day.
July 5 – Struggle
Try eating a jar of peanut butter in one hour. The sickening distaste and bloat from the peanut butter is similar to what I felt through most of this experiment, day in and day out.
Until the second week, that’s when the difficulty peaked. The first time I wanted to quit, on June 26, it was because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the experiment. This time, I was just worried I wouldn’t be able to last another day.
I got sick, of the taste, of the salt, of the stickiness. My body couldn’t handle it anymore. There was no way I could finish my jar for the day. My stomach couldn’t keep it down. And I was shot mentally too.
I quit for the day, almost for the month.
July 7 – Epiphany
I struggled until I realized that one of the reasons I was having so much extra trouble was because I was transferring the peanut butter from jar to jar. I didn’t want to lug around a full jar each day, so I would scoop half a full jar into an empty jar and carry that around.
Transferring the peanut butter, though, changed its consistency. Right out of the jar, it stayed fairly solid. After a transfer, the peanut butter turned extra sticky. That extra stickiness made it extra hard to get down, which affected my taste buds and then my stomach and then my whole outlook on the experiment.
Once I fixed that one problem, the jars became more manageable.
July 19 – Churn
There comes a point with any difficult experiment, any endurance challenge, where you’ve worked out all the kinks you’re going to work out. You’ve become as efficient as you’re going to get. It’s just a matter of putting your head down and kicking it out.
That’s where I was July 19. I’d found the rhythm. I knew how many scoops of peanut butter I needed to eat during the day in order to finish by the evening. I knew how to drink enough water along with it so I wouldn’t make up in the middle of the night feeling dehydrated.
It’s a good place to be. But it’s still hard, like the end of any marathon.
July 25 – Finish
I cheated slightly at the end. I had an off day scheduled for Sunday, but since I’d missed a day in the middle of one of the weeks, I didn’t really deserve the off day. I took it anyway, but I stretched it out.
Over the last three days, I just finished off my last two jars of peanut butter. Really, by the time I got to only three jars left, my usual allotment for a week, I pretty much just figured I’d quit when I finished those three jars.
Turns out, it ended on the last day anyway, exactly 31 days after I started.
All I can say is, if you’re going to try this, psych up for that second or third day and get ready to hit a wall two weeks in. Unless you’re a die-hard purest, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break for a day. Just don’t take two in a row. It’s way too hard to recover after that.
Otherwise, enjoy your peanut butter.
