Juice Fasting

Tonight I've technically already begun an (at least) week-long juice fast.  I'd heard of juicing before (not steroids; fruits and vegetables), but I had never tried it or been swept off of my feet by the idea until about a week ago.   I was going through my netflix list and saw a documentary I had added a while back called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  This documentary follows a guy named Joe who is 41, overweight and has an immune system disorder, for which he takes 15 different medications, some of them steroids. Getting sick is what caused Joe to decide to do a 60 day juice fast, about which the documentary is made.  At the end of the film, Joe (and another man who decided to try the same thing) had lost a lot of weight, was thinking more clearly, and was completely off of his prior medications- with doctor permission.
Now I'm an impressionable person sometimes.  I can admit that.  However I do believe I'm also a reasonable person at times.  A combination of the two is what caused me to decide to try juice fasting- that and the fact that my boyfriend saw the documentary as well and decided to try the juice fast also.  I'm convinced that things like this are 50% easier to do when you have support and accountability. So I'm really happy Jake is doing this too- for his sake and for mine.
Okay.  So I'm not obese (although I could lose about 10 pounds and be at a better place within my BMI range), I'm not sick (at least not with anything chronic or serious, that I know of) and I don't think I'm in a place where my body lacks a lot of it's basic nutrition (I try to eat fairly healthy at least half of the time).  So why am I doing a juice fast?  Because I know that I could benefit in each of these areas and the odds are, I've probably done more harm than good to my body by the way I've eaten lately (and for a while now).  Also, it simply sounds fun and I'm up for the challenge!

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Jake and my damage to the Meijer fresh
produce department as we stocked up
on juice ingredients for the next few days.
I've never seen so many vegetables stuffed into one
shopping cart (granted, it is a small cart).
I was pretty proud of it.

The Plan:

For 6 days, I consume ONLY fresh fruit juice (made with a juicer, not juice from the store) and water. 

The Three Main Reasons I'm Juice Fasting:

1. Boost my nutrition

2. Detoxify

3. Shed unneeded weight

4. Take an opportunity to "reset" my eating habits to become more healthy

Toughest Challenges I Foresee:

• Social!!!1  I've already got 3 events this week that I've either already had planned or got invited to that will involve food (and probably pretty unhealthy food at that).  Either I'll be bringing a big tall glass of fresh-made juice and pretending it tastes better or... nope. No other option. That's what I'm gonna have to do I think.
• The first few days- I've heard they're the hardest because your body is detoxifying and drawing out all the trash it's collected, which makes you feel rather miserable.  Not to mention the psychological and emotional connection to food is going through a withdrawal and it's own kind of detoxification at the same time.
• Work & Class.  I think it might be hard having to go a lot of hours without fresh juice.  I can make it ahead of time and bring it, but I don't think I'll find myself as satisfied by it because it won't have a lot of the same enzymes and vitamins that the real fresh stuff will.

Why This is Different:

As you may have read on here (I did chronicle it minimally) I did the Master Cleanse or "Lemonade Fast" for 5 days a little over a year ago.  I do think the Master Cleanse was beneficial for cleaning out and detoxifying my body.  I felt a little cleaner afterword and at the end, the not eating part wasn't really bothering me anymore.  But I didn't feel like my body was necessarily super healthy.  I had spent 5 days on a steady diet of Lemon Juice, Water, Maple Syrup and Cayenne Pepper (oh, and Smooth Move Tea) so this makes sense.  I wouldn't say I regret doing the Master Cleanse by any means but I think it's probably a fair statement that the Master Cleanse wasn't greatly benefitting my body with the nutrition that human bodies are made to require.  

Juice fasting is different because being a liquid diet it gives your digestive system a rest while supplying your body with the nutrients from raw foods that it needs to detoxify and heal anything wrong with it.  While the lemonade fast was a liquid fast to detoxify, it didn't supply much (if any) nutrition and thus, left me feeling a little better, but not my greatest.  

This is also different in that one of my main concerns with the master cleanse was how I was going to get the protein I needed to give me energy.  I've since learned that 1. our bodies don't need as much protein that we're marketed to believe we do 2. Fruits and Vegetables do actually provide us with some proteins, along with nutrients which also give us energy.  

Expectation:

I expect this to be a challenge.  I expect especially the first few days to be pretty difficult- mentally, emotionally and physically.  But I do expect to feel better after the initial detox and withdrawal and I do expect to feel better than I have in a while at the end of it all.  One of my biggest hopes is, at the end, to be motivated to implement new, sustainable, healthy eating habits and choices.  

I'll try to blog at least a few times throughout with updates/highs/lows.  Here's to being healthy! (Raise your juice glass. Do it.).