Turns out this juice fasting thing isn't so simple. I didn't expect it to be easy in some ways. The hunger and such was expected. But I didn't expect to dislike the juice so much. Now, there are things you can do. You can add apples and pears to anything and try to make anything taste at least drinkable. But after experiencing it and doing a lot more reading, we've decided we did things a bit wrong.
When I decide to do something, I want to do it RIGHT NOW. Whether it's buying nail polish or a new house, I want it when I want it. If I decide to change my life, there's no time like the present, right? Well, perhaps not with juice fasting. We should have taken our time. A phase in period is recommended, where you eat a totally or mostly plant based diet for a week or more before starting your fast. P'shaw, I don't need it. Uh, wrong. John ended up with a severe headache that wouldn't quit and I could barely drink the juice without vomiting. It seems our systems were so used to processed crap and sugars that our bodies freaked out a little. Nothing horrible, mind you, we didn't need medical attention or anything. We did decide, however, to take a step back and reevaluate.
We did fast for 36 hours, during which I lost 4 pounds. Four pounds in a day is crazy, even for someone my size, and I'm a big girl. We also found an amazing breakfast drink, which I'll share now because even if you have no interest in juice fasting it's a delicious and super nutritious breakfast alternative.
6 carrots
1 large red pepper
1 lemon
2 large navel oranges
Holy yumminess! I'm drinking it right now and mmmmmMMM! It's the most beautiful bright orange and inspite of being mostly veggie juice, it tastes like fruit juice. I'm not kidding, start drinking this for breakfast!
After a few hours of hashing it out, we decided to break our fast and to instead replace one meal a day with juice and totally change our diet otherwise. We aren't going totally plant based as neither of us has any desire to be vegetarian or vegan, but we're done eating crap. We also realized that juice fasting in the dead of winter in Kentucky is extremely expensive. We intend to do at least a 3 day if not longer once the farmers markets open later this year.
We went through our pantry and threw away everything that was white or processed. We kept a few things simply because we thought they "weren't that bad" and we aren't in the financial position to just throw away perfectly good food. And don't worry, we're not throwing away good food, we're donating it.
I want to talk about one thing specifically. Now, we only fasted for a little over one day, right? You would think that nothing would have changed. That's what we thought. Wrong. Last night we were hungry and one of the things we kept was some Ragu pasta sauce. The ingredients weren't great but we only had one jar and figured we'd just never buy it again. Holy crap. It was revolting. Just one day without refined sugars and that sauce tasted like someone had poured sugar on our spaghetti. It was so gross I can't tell you. It was all the proof I needed that the shit they are forcing down our throats is awful, deadly and criminal. A bit later I walked into our bedroom and John was sitting there with a box of wheat thins and told me to eat one. It tasted like a cookie, I kid you not. We simply do not realize the amount of sugars that are contained in nearly everything we eat. It's infuriating.
Good god I'm long winded. Ok well I'm done for now. The TL;DR is this. We broke our fast but are changing our lives. And between the calorie counting I was doing prior and this overhaul I weigh less than I have in years. We have a long way to go but we're moving in the right direction! I encourage anyone who stumbles on this to go through your cupboards and fridge and get rid of the garbage. It shocking how little remains, but real food tastes so much better! (Except for Kale, screw that mess.)
Friday, February 1, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Drink number one - It begins
Well, John and I have just finished drink number one. I promised to tell the real story through every step of this journey, so here goes.
First, what we made. Keep in mind that we're juicing for two, so if you try this recipe you'll have to cut it in half. This is the Mean Green juice that Phil drinks if you watch the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.
Mean Green for 2
8 stalks of Celery
8 Kale leaves (the recipe calls for more but our Kroger only had one bunch)
4 medium Green Apples
2 Cucumbers
1 Lemon
1 small piece of Ginger
We were eager to know how well our juicer would work. We got 1.5 quarts from this recipe, which I think is quite good considering we didn't get much from the kale or the apples. I didn't expect much from the Kale, since an auger juicer is much better for leafy greens but we couldn't afford that type. I'm not sure about the apples. They were small, and we have some larger ones to use next time. So we got about 3 servings, which I think is quite good. Once we were finished running everything through the juicer, we got greedy and decided to try to run the pulp through again. Don't do that. Nothing broke, nothing went horribly wrong, but we ended up getting a lot of mushy crap in our juice.
Once we poured our drinks, I took a sip and nearly threw up. I got a stringy piece of something and while I'm not a super squeamish person, weird texture is the one thing I can't deal with. So I ran downstairs and strained my juice. It was much easier to stomach the rest after that. Don't get me wrong, it was still bad. It was quite awful, actually. I don't like vegetables. I just don't. I wasn't raised eating any fresh veggies and the ones I was forced to eat gagged me. I like carrots, peas, and corn. But in liquid form? Ugh. But we both got the nastiness down and did a nice little fist pump to celebrate. Now we're just sitting here waiting to see if it stays down. I'm not so sure.
I can tell you I've never been so happy to brush my teeth. I wanted that taste out of my mouth pronto. I will probably be brushing a LOT. We are definitely having a more fruit heavy drink next. And I don't know if we'll be able to continue using kale. For one thing, we bought our grocery store out of it and have used it all already. Also, our machine didn't get much from it. Third, it's horrible. I expected it to be bad but it's really really nasty. We'll be using spinach for our next green drink.
I'll check in later today with more news and to see how we fared throughout the day. All I can say right now is that I'm thankful to have been a phenomenal beer chugger in my younger days, because that's the only way I got this one down.
First, what we made. Keep in mind that we're juicing for two, so if you try this recipe you'll have to cut it in half. This is the Mean Green juice that Phil drinks if you watch the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.
Mean Green for 2
8 stalks of Celery
8 Kale leaves (the recipe calls for more but our Kroger only had one bunch)
4 medium Green Apples
2 Cucumbers
1 Lemon
1 small piece of Ginger
We were eager to know how well our juicer would work. We got 1.5 quarts from this recipe, which I think is quite good considering we didn't get much from the kale or the apples. I didn't expect much from the Kale, since an auger juicer is much better for leafy greens but we couldn't afford that type. I'm not sure about the apples. They were small, and we have some larger ones to use next time. So we got about 3 servings, which I think is quite good. Once we were finished running everything through the juicer, we got greedy and decided to try to run the pulp through again. Don't do that. Nothing broke, nothing went horribly wrong, but we ended up getting a lot of mushy crap in our juice.
Once we poured our drinks, I took a sip and nearly threw up. I got a stringy piece of something and while I'm not a super squeamish person, weird texture is the one thing I can't deal with. So I ran downstairs and strained my juice. It was much easier to stomach the rest after that. Don't get me wrong, it was still bad. It was quite awful, actually. I don't like vegetables. I just don't. I wasn't raised eating any fresh veggies and the ones I was forced to eat gagged me. I like carrots, peas, and corn. But in liquid form? Ugh. But we both got the nastiness down and did a nice little fist pump to celebrate. Now we're just sitting here waiting to see if it stays down. I'm not so sure.
I can tell you I've never been so happy to brush my teeth. I wanted that taste out of my mouth pronto. I will probably be brushing a LOT. We are definitely having a more fruit heavy drink next. And I don't know if we'll be able to continue using kale. For one thing, we bought our grocery store out of it and have used it all already. Also, our machine didn't get much from it. Third, it's horrible. I expected it to be bad but it's really really nasty. We'll be using spinach for our next green drink.
I'll check in later today with more news and to see how we fared throughout the day. All I can say right now is that I'm thankful to have been a phenomenal beer chugger in my younger days, because that's the only way I got this one down.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
An out-of-control control freak
I think that most people who know me would call me fiercely independent. Perhaps (ok, probably) a control freak as well. Those things have served me well in some ways, and kicked my ass in others. I have stepped out of my comfort zone many times in my life with quite a bit of success. But right now I'm making a huge step towards controlling something in my life that I've never quite gotten a grip on - my health.
Now, I've lost weight successfully in the past. I can do it, it's not that hard really. But as easily as I lose it I gain it back with interest. I'm a cliche in that I've gained and lost the same 20 pounds dozens of times over the last couple of years. However, this is different. I no longer give a shit what I weigh. I'm not aiming for a number or a size. Instead I'm trying to reform my relationship with food. And oh boy, is it a well and truly messed up relationship.
I love to eat. I enjoy it immensely. I would do it 24 hours a day if I could. My ass can attest to this. When I lost a bunch (about 80) pounds ten years ago, I did it with Weight Watchers. WW works, it really does. However, what it allowed me to do was to still eat the same crap food I always ate and still lose. In lesser quantities, or with some of the ingredients substituted, but still the same nutritionally bankrupt food. So as soon as I stopped counting points, the pounds bounded back to me like a happily drooling puppy. This time I'm changing everything.
My husband and I are starting a juice fast tomorrow. And I'm scared absolutely shitless. I honestly feel like one of those heroine addicts on Intervention who has just been accosted by their entire family and are now headed to rehab. Seriously, I do. I feel like my best friend has been sentenced to death or something. I know how screwed up that is, but my dependance on food is HUGE. The terrifying this is that I don't even know how bad it is, but I know I'm about to face it head on and it's going to suck.
As of right now, I'm done eating for 10 days. At least. I would like to go 30 or more to really jump start this thing but we've set what we feel is a realistic initial goal of 10 days. I just finished a giant glass of chocolate milk and will soon go to bed. In the morning, and from then on, I will only be putting water and fresh vegetable juice in my body. And I don't expect my body to be very damn happy about it - at least at first.
I toyed with the idea of a video blog for this whole thing, but I can't stand looking at my face on camera, so why make you do it? Maybe I will start at some point, but for now this will be my sounding board. One thing we found was that it's easy to find a million people who have done a juice fast, but difficult to really find honest and detailed information about exactly what they did and how it affected them. That's what I'll try to make this, though I expect it to be a lot of venting and ranting. So be warned.
Also, if you couldn't tell, I have a potty mouth. I'd like to say I'll try to keep it clean but I'm giving up food for fucks sake, there's no way I'm giving up cussing. So deal with it or don't follow me on this journey. Because I'm quite sure there will be days when all I do is curse everything in my path. We shall see.
Tomorrow is the day. I'm going to break my addiction to sugar and carbs and train my body to heal itself and give it the fuel it needs to do so. I'm also going to lose my freaking mind. Aaaargh. Stay tuned.
Now, I've lost weight successfully in the past. I can do it, it's not that hard really. But as easily as I lose it I gain it back with interest. I'm a cliche in that I've gained and lost the same 20 pounds dozens of times over the last couple of years. However, this is different. I no longer give a shit what I weigh. I'm not aiming for a number or a size. Instead I'm trying to reform my relationship with food. And oh boy, is it a well and truly messed up relationship.
I love to eat. I enjoy it immensely. I would do it 24 hours a day if I could. My ass can attest to this. When I lost a bunch (about 80) pounds ten years ago, I did it with Weight Watchers. WW works, it really does. However, what it allowed me to do was to still eat the same crap food I always ate and still lose. In lesser quantities, or with some of the ingredients substituted, but still the same nutritionally bankrupt food. So as soon as I stopped counting points, the pounds bounded back to me like a happily drooling puppy. This time I'm changing everything.
My husband and I are starting a juice fast tomorrow. And I'm scared absolutely shitless. I honestly feel like one of those heroine addicts on Intervention who has just been accosted by their entire family and are now headed to rehab. Seriously, I do. I feel like my best friend has been sentenced to death or something. I know how screwed up that is, but my dependance on food is HUGE. The terrifying this is that I don't even know how bad it is, but I know I'm about to face it head on and it's going to suck.
As of right now, I'm done eating for 10 days. At least. I would like to go 30 or more to really jump start this thing but we've set what we feel is a realistic initial goal of 10 days. I just finished a giant glass of chocolate milk and will soon go to bed. In the morning, and from then on, I will only be putting water and fresh vegetable juice in my body. And I don't expect my body to be very damn happy about it - at least at first.
I toyed with the idea of a video blog for this whole thing, but I can't stand looking at my face on camera, so why make you do it? Maybe I will start at some point, but for now this will be my sounding board. One thing we found was that it's easy to find a million people who have done a juice fast, but difficult to really find honest and detailed information about exactly what they did and how it affected them. That's what I'll try to make this, though I expect it to be a lot of venting and ranting. So be warned.
Also, if you couldn't tell, I have a potty mouth. I'd like to say I'll try to keep it clean but I'm giving up food for fucks sake, there's no way I'm giving up cussing. So deal with it or don't follow me on this journey. Because I'm quite sure there will be days when all I do is curse everything in my path. We shall see.
Tomorrow is the day. I'm going to break my addiction to sugar and carbs and train my body to heal itself and give it the fuel it needs to do so. I'm also going to lose my freaking mind. Aaaargh. Stay tuned.
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