Graduation!

Today is the last day of my 92-day juice fast!  yay! 

I feel really, really good; very strong and healthy.  I've lost 57 pounds, which is wonderful.  But I'm also very glad it's almost over -- I miss eating.

But I don't miss the way eating made me feel -- heavy, heartburn-y, unable to sleep at night, and out of control.  So, starting tomorrow, I'm going to ease myself into a nutritarian diet.  I don't want to lose all this healthy progress.  Yes, I want to eat again, very much!  But I also want this to continue -- the weight loss, the energy, the healthy glow, and the peace that comes from knowing I can do and am doing something good for my body for a change.

what I'm drinking

It turns out most of my favorite fruit juices have pineapple in them.  This one I made tonight -- yummy!

1/2 a pineapple
1/4 a lemon
2 cups red grapes

Soooooo delicious.

I also made this for tomorrow morning, and I had a sip to test it:

2 apples
2 pears
2 cups red grapes

Oh, yes, most of my favorite juices also have grapes in them :)

what I drank today

I've lost 55 pounds so far!

Today I had two vegetable juices and a fruit juice.  My vegetable juices are pretty much the same:

Base
4 apples
6 carrots
6 or 7 stalks of celery
1 cucumber
1/4 a lemon or lime
8 oz red leaf lettuce or spinach

Then I add one of the following: a slice of red or green cabbage, 1/2 a bell pepper (any color), or a tomato.

This morning I made two veggie juices -- one with red cabbage and one with green cabbage.

I also had a fruit juice -- 2 pears, 2 apples, 1/4 of a lemon, and 4 oz spinach (spinach changes the color of fruit juice, but not the taste, and it's VERY good for you. :)

Oh, and I made another fruit juice for tomorrow morning: 3 carrots, 2 oranges, 1/4 of a lime, and 4 oz of spinach.  Carrot may be a vegetable, but it goes into a fruit juice at least once a week because it's so good for you and a little sweet.

Not ALL my fruit juices have greens or sour citrus in them; it just so happens that all of today's did.

as requested

after 47 pounds....



So I had Todd shoot this one in the same location as the first photo, for comparison....but the little darling was being particularly clingy.... sorry!

yum

Had the BEST juice last night.  1/2 a pineapple, 2 pears, 2 apples, and a cup of green grapes.  Just wonderful.

Day 50

Weird expression on my face....

Down 36 pounds as of yesterday.... can't really see it, yet.  Still wearing the same jeans I was wearing at the start of the fast.  I mean, they're looser, for sure, even straight out of the dryer, but I can still wear them.  Also, I'm still quite bulgy in the waist and hips.  <Sigh>

Day 42

249 pounds this morning -- that's 31 pounds lost so far.  I felt REALLY good most of yesterday, even better than normal.

82 degrees and sunny yesterday.  It's Michigan, in April, no less.  A week ago it was snowing.

Day 36

I did actually weigh myself yesterday, I just forgot to post.  253 pounds, which means 27 pounds lost.

We found our camera!

Summary of the first month

It's time to sit down and reflect on all the things I've learned in the first month of juice fasting, the experiences I've had and the changes that have taken place.  Whether my kids allow me that time or not!

Weight Loss
I may not have wanted to admit it at the beginning, but this fast has forced me to come to terms with my motivations, and the number one reason I'm doing this is for weight loss.  Period.  I want to be able to shop at regular stores.  I want to wear shorts in the summer.  I want to live without the word "obese" hanging over my head.  I want my husband to feel proud of me again.

So far, I've lost 26 pounds.  26 pounds in the first month.  I have every expectation that weight loss will slow as the fast progresses, but as long as I'm still overweight (and I certainly am, by any standard) it will still continue.

Finally, I am able to see some changes.  I think yesterday was the first time I've been able to look in the mirror and say to myself, "Oh, I do look thinner."  More than that, I feel thinner.  A month ago I felt too big for my bones, too big for my heart.  Getting up and walking around from a sitting position was sometimes more than my joints could take.  Climbing stairs with Tara in my arms would bring on shortness of breath, mild chest pains.  I could barely hold her in my lap -- I barely had any lap to speak of.

Energy
This is probably the most dramatic change that has taken place, most astonishingly because it happened right away.  For nearly my whole adult life, I've been plagued with chronic exhaustion.  Sometimes just getting off the couch has seemed like too much effort.  I can't tell you how many times I've declined doing things out of doors because I just didn't have the energy.  I've also been overweight most of my adult life, so it's easy to understand why I thought those two things were related.  However, the fact is that this exhaustion lifted around day 3 of my juice fast.  At that point I had only lost around 4 or 5 pounds, and most of that was water retention.  And yet, I felt my body humming with energy.  I've been doing a lot less just sitting around in the house during the day, and I have sufficient energy for all my tasks. 

The regular peaks and valleys of energy that I'm used to are gone.  I've always loved mornings because that has been the only time of the day I could count on to not feel utterly wiped out, but now, it's as if the whole day is one long morning.  It's become my habit to watch Glee while juicing, and repeatedly I find myself dancing along -- yes, me, dancing! -- to my girls' delight.  Now the thought of getting out of the house doesn't seem overwhelming, and we're able to go on more outings as a family.

Sleep
This aspect is simply fantastic.  At the beginning of the juice fast, I was waking up in the morning feeling like I'd just come out of a coma.  I was sleeping so deeply that it was a little bewildering.  That lasted about a week.  Now my body seems more used to deep, refreshing sleep; I think I've "caught up," so to speak.  I'm getting better sleep than I have in years.  During my pregnancies I was getting up around 4 times a night to use the bathroom; but even after Tara was born I just couldn't seem to stay asleep.  I would still have to get up multiple times, use the bathroom, and then not be able to go back to sleep.  I would get up for the day at 5am and play computer games, thinking I just needed less sleep than the average person, or that I was somehow unable to sleep in the early morning hours.  (Then wondering why I was so tired all day long!)  I refused to drink anything after 5pm, hoping to keep my bladder empty so it wouldn't wake me up so early.  Now I realize it was probably a digestive issue!  Now I'm going to bed at 10 or 11pm, and sleeping soundly until 7am or later.  And this after drinking all day long and right up until bedtime. 

Black Days
Every so often, I have a "detox day."  For awhile it was every Monday (don't know why), and sometimes twice a week, though I don't think I had one at all last week, so maybe they'll be spaced out further as the fast progresses.  These are the days I just try to live through.  They suck.  I feel pissed off at the world, nothing can please me, I have headaches, muscle aches, I'm ravenously hungry, and very, very tired.  Sometimes I feel cold as well, a deep bone cold that I can't get rid of by wearing a sweater.  In the shower, I scrub my skin and it just sloughs right off.  My arms break out in acne.  On those days, I don't want to drink very much juice, even though I'm starving.  Sometimes I can force down my regular 16 cups, sometimes I drink much less, perhaps only 10 cups.  At times I luck out and a black day falls on a night when I'm not working, and then I go to bed right after the girls do, at 7:30 or 8pm!  Food cravings are particularly bad on black days, and it seems unbelievably unfair that I have to make 3 delicious meals for my daughters and husband and withstand all those wonderful smells and not eat. 

It helps to know that detox days don't come all that often, that they can be survived and they pass, and the next day will be sunny and wonderful again.  I've also noticed my weight loss tends to accelerate right after a black day, so it gives me something to look forward to!

Scale Day

23 pounds lost now -- 257 this morning.  I look at myself in the mirror, and I see the person I expect to see, the way I thought I looked when I weighted 280.  Hard to believe I could have carried another 23 pounds on this body just a few weeks ago!

Day 22 pic

Cleansing Days are the Pits

Ugh.

Headachy and irritable yesterday.  Leg muscles and hips achy.  Hungry.  So tired.

Then, to top it off, my afternoon green juice was nasty -- can't figure out why, it wasn't a new recipe or anything.  Forced myself to drink 2 cups, then threw out the last 3.  Had 3 cups of melon juice I was planning to drink after that, but I didn't.  Just went to bed as soon as the girls went down, 7:30pm.

Just in case I forget to mention this later, MOST days are NOT like this.

Still at it

Haven't posted anything at all for the longest time.  Juicing is tough these days -- food is such a temptation, and making 3 meals a day for the girls doesn't help.  Had another cleansing day yesterday -- irritable, hungry, sore muscles, tired.

260 pounds -- down 20.

Day 15 pic

Todd says he can see a difference; I can't yet.

Just checking in

263 this morning.  17 down now.

Muscles sore again today -- a bit tired all over.

Can't get no....satisfaction!

Juicing doesn't satisfy ANY mental or emotional dimension of hunger.  The only thing it does satisfy is the actual hunger pangs themselves.  On any other diet that I've been on, I have attempted to satisfy the cravings for one food with another food -- you want mashed potatoes thick with butter and gravy; you eat a steamed sweet potato instead.  You want ice cream; you eat a bowl of frozen berries instead.  The extent to which the healthy food satisfies the yearning for the craved food is the extent to which you feel satisfied after eating... and frankly, the success of the diet depends on this.  You go weeks and weeks without satisfying the cravings for certain foods, but the cravings are still there, and willpower wears thin.

This is totally different.  No matter how strong my desire for any food is, the ONLY thing I can do is simply deny it.  There is no substitution, no partial satisfaction.

Some juice recipes, mostly good

I've discovered a juice that I really enjoy drinking first thing in the morning.  It's 2 apples, half a lemon, and a very large handful of spinach.  It can be made the night before and stored in the fridge; I've had it the past 2 mornings and it just hits the spot.

Made a juice entirely of watermelon last night; it was good at first but didn't keep well, after an hour or so it seemed to... sour.  Also made a juice of 3 carrots and 2 oranges; I really loved that one, and so did Todd, which says something.

That was bizarre...

Feeling badly most of the day.  Hungry in the morning, and irritable.  Just...off.   Can't really put a finger on what exactly was off, though.  Muscles achy, and tired.  Emotionally, too.  Just want the day to end so I can sleep.  Haven't felt that way since, well, since this fast started.  Cold, and shaky.  Todd came home for a couple of hours this afternoon and asked me what I wanted most for him to do.  I said, "Watch the girls so I can take a nap."  Crawled into bed and shivered.  I think I finally slept, but it was a very, very light sleep, because I never lost that alert feeling.  When I tried to get up after an hour, it was like lifting a ton of bricks.  Moan.  Still shaky, still cold... Went downstairs and started making some juice.  Not hungry at all. 

Now, later in the evening, the symptoms have mostly worn off, but I have that quiet feeling your body gets after an illness.  Was that just a detox episode, or what?

Day 7

Hungry most of the day yesterday.  Went shopping -- my first attempt to buy enough fruits and veggies for one week!  The only thing that is really obscene is the number of apples I go through.  At the check-out counter, the couple behind me asked if I was buying for an organization.  "Nope,"  I said.  "Just myself."  I have to say, I did NOT enjoy shopping on an empty stomach.  I felt like a priest in a whorehouse.  And it didn't help that I had accidently left my thermos of juice in the car. 

Monday is going to be Scale Day for me.  271 pounds this morning.  9 down -- a whole hell of a lot still to go.  Even though I have lost more than a pound a day, I have to say I am a little disappointed.  I think I was expecting to lose more in the first week.  Ah well, weight loss is weight loss, and whether I lose 50 pounds on this fast or 100, I will still have a new body in June.

"Moar"

I want to write more, I really do.  But I get precious few moments during the day when I can actually sit down at the computer without tandem whining interupting my train of thought.

Tonight's green juice doesn't have any carrots -- not my favorite, but for variety's sake I need to mix it up.  So, 3 apples 1/2 a lime, a whole bunch of spinach, a very large chunk of red cabbage, about 1/2 a head of celery, 1 cucumber, 1 tomato, and a quarter of a red pepper.

I'm feeling great.  It's actually a bit disturbing how good I feel.  I think I expected more hunger, and I know I expected more of a... painful... cleansing process.  Like more headaches and headcolds, weakness, irritability, etc.  But then again, all that may be coming down the pike.

Tonight Todd made dinner for the girls while I ran to the store for more apples.  Yay!  Cooking is hard for me -- all those lovely smells, and a powerful urge to taste what I'm making.

A better juicing schedule

So I figured something out.  That last juicing session of the day was really hard to fit in.  From the time I start making dinner for the girls (around 4:30pm) until Carly is tucked in at 7 or 7:15, I'm pretty much non-stop working:  cooking, feeding, washing up, straightening up the toys, putting girls into pajamas, etc.  And after I've gotten both girls into bed and actually have 45 minutes of "me time" before work, the last thing I want to do is go back DOWN to the kitchen and spend that time juicing and cleaning up after myself.  So today I made my last two juices at 3pm.  It means that last fruit juice won't be fresh, but if that's the price I have to pay for sanity, I'll pay it.

Humming along

That really sums up how I'm feeling today.  Without the highs and lows in blood sugar that I'm used to from eating a traditional American diet, my emotions and energy are on such an even keel.  It's really nice, actually.  Like switching from fighting through rush hour traffic to driving, alone, on a 4-lane highway, with cruise control.

I'm not yet juicing as much celery and leafy greens per day as Angela recommends.  In 3 days of juicing, I've gone through 2 heads of celery, 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 2 (small) heads of romaine, and nearly a head of red leaf.  However, I do feel that I am drinking very nearly as much leafy green juice as I can right now.  For example, I juiced a romaine heart this morning in my fruit juice, and it took an entire pineapple to mitigate the bitterness so that it was drinkable.  I think if I focused more on spinach and less on green leaf, I could get more down, but it still wouldn't be half of the 2lbs (yikes!) recommended.

Had another dizzy spell today, at the exact same time as yesterday's.  12:40pm.  Very strange.

Okay, by request...

Feeling pretty good, even though I'm technically not supposed to yet.

Had a dizzy spell after lunch today.  The girls' lunch, that is.  I, of course, had juice, but since I drink juice all day long, it can't techinically be called "lunch."  I was sitting at the computer and all of a sudden felt a buzzing, light-headedness and a strong urge to hold on to something as the room spun around.  It passed, though, and I've been fine since.

I absolutely hate the way my mouth feels.  There is a think starchy whiteness coating my tongue and the backs of my teeth.  It goes away after brushing, only to return shortly.  I'm not sure if it's caused by the juice itself or from an empty stomach or the cleansing process or what, but I have been forewarned, so it's not alarming.  Can't remember if it's supposed to last the whole fast, though, and I hope not!

Have decided I do not like the taste of green leaf lettuce or romaine in my juices.  Red leaf is okay, as is spinach.  I think I may have to limit myself to those two greens for the duration of the fast.

Orange "green" juice

Small variation in my standard V8 recipe -- big improvement.  More carrots, more apples, slightly less green pepper.  Much, much better.  Calling it "green juice" seems ridiculous, though, since it's bright orange in color.

Headache still hasn't gone away, but it's not debilitating.  I've had much worse.  I was expecting much worse, to be honest.

I feel.... empty.  It's not altogether unpleasant, but it's not comfortable either.

Day 2

Bit of a headache this morning.  To be expected.

I made a wonderful juice last night.  Half of a lemon, 2 oranges, 2 pears, and half of a pineapple.  Sunshine.  Yum.

Another juice, another trip to the bathroom

Getting a little tired of having to p** so often...

Made this one for lunch: 1/2 of a honeydew melon, 1 grapefruit, 1 cup green grapes, and another quarter head of green leaf lettuce.  It's not fantastic, but drinkable.  Green leaf is definately more bitter (bitterer?) than spinach, and the sour grapefruit does nothing to mitigate that.

Took a 12-minute walk around the neighborhood this morning.  It didn't take much to get me out of breath (oh, the shame!) but then again, walking on snow and ice is nearly as strenuous as walking on wet sand.

I'm not terribly hungry now, and I seem to have more energy than normal.  Perhaps I'm just so used to the heavy, wiped out feeling I normally get right about now (yesterday I was snoozing on the couch at this time) that anything else feels like the jitters!

Oh, and that Day 1 photo is dreadful.  I should look at that for a few minutes when I need more motivation!

Please excuse the mess

So, this is me, today... no make-up, and my hair is messy.  And there are toys on the floor, but hey, with two kids under 4, that's almost a constant state of affairs.

Day 1 -- or "Thoughts on Prison Food"

I've always wondered about that last meal they serve to death row prisoners before execution.  You know, where they let them order anything they want.  Why do they do that?  What's the point, exactly?  Is it to make them happy?  There are more meaningful ways to do that.  I wonder what the convict feels -- does he look forward to that last meal, knowing it's just that much closer to his death?  Does he enjoy eating it?  What does he feel when it's over -- knowing that he will never eat another bite of food in this life?

Morbidly enough, I thought about that last night when I was eating dinner with the girls.  We had hot dogs and tater tots, steamed carrots and home-made cookies with milk for dessert.  It was nice.  I did enjoy it, but it was weird thinking, "Well, that's the last food I'll eat until June."  It looks crazy typed out like that, and I wonder if I'm insane for considering it.  In truth I have no idea how hard it will be, and I've never been long on will-power.

I'm sure I will miss regular meals, but I won't miss the heart-burn I got last night before bed, and the hot-heavy feeling in my stomach after eating that saps my energy, makes it next to impossible to get anything productive done without dragging.

So here I am, the next morning, sipping my first-day green juice.  I made a V-8 concoction with 2 cucumbers, a quarter head of green leaf lettuce, half a green pepper, an eighth of a head of green cabbage, 4 carrots, 1 tomato, 3 apples, and  half of a lemon.  I was shooting for 4 cups, and made precisely 5.  It occurs to me that I could have put some celery in, but that would have made it "V-9."  Well, I'll make another green juice this afternoon.  Note to self:  don't forget the celery.  Lots of it.  The last thing I need today is sodium withdrawals.

Wait a minute! I haven't STARTED yet....

Feeling very out of sorts today.  I haven't been getting enough sleep, so I'm tired, crabby, weak and have a headache.  Sounds like the beginning symptoms of juice cleansing to me!  But wait, it starts tomorrow. 

I'm sure that I will lose some weight, in fact, gobs and gobs of it, I hope.  So today I stepped on the scale for the first time since they made me do it during my prenatal checks over a year ago.  Do I have to say the awful number?  I suppose I do.  I weigh 280 big ones.  Ouch.

I also did some web surfing last night (one of the reasons for this hung-over feeling today) and found a very informative and motivational website: http://www.juicefasting.org/  They are very pro-raw food as well.  One thing I loved about their site was an approximation of the "stages" of cleansing your body goes through on a juice feast, like, "From day 3 to day 7 you'll probably be feeling..."  I will probably read that every day.  They pretty much stick to recommending a 30-day fast, though.  To get me past 30 days, I will probably need Angela's book, which I have yet to order...

I think I'm going to need another fridge....

The juice feast doesn't start until Tuesday, but I'm doing my big grocery shopping trip tomorrow.  Aside from food for the girls and Todd, this is what I've got on my list...does it sound like enough to get me through the first 5 days of juicing?

4 heads of celery
12 cucumbers
4 bags of leafy greens
4 bags of apples (about 10-12 apples in each bag I think)
4 bags of carrots
12 lemons/limes
2 bags of oranges
2 bags each of red and green grapes
2 pineapples
12 pears
12 grapefruit
2 each of honeydew and canteloupe
2 each of different colored bell peppers
1 head each of red and green cabbage
12 tomatoes

If I run out of anything early, I will go shopping on Friday or Saturday night, because Todd doesn't have work or classes then.

Here's to you, kid

So today is my birthday.  I'm 34, which isn't so old.  I'll always be younger than my husband, which is immensely comforting, oddly enough.  But this day really brings home to me why I need to do this juice feast.  Because I can feel myself dying.  My health is falling apart.  This heart beats too fast; I get winded going up the stairs, these legs that used to jog 15 miles a week can barely hold my weight when I stand up from a chair.  If I don't actually have knee problems yet, I will soon.  I can no longer sleep on my back, just as if I were pregnant.  I'm chronically exhausted.

I don't want to die young.  My family needs me.  My girls need me, not merely to stay alive but to show them how to live.  And I need me, too.  I only get this one body; no trade-ins, no returns.  Can't abuse it and then swap it for another.  Rescuing this body is going to take a hero, and I need to be that hero.

So here's to you, kid.  You're going to live.  Happy birthday.