Modified Juice Fast (Juicing + Food)

So, is this clearing? I’m not even doing ONLY juice yet, just adding 3 green juices a day…BUT, something is definitely going on with me emotionally…

All along, but especially the last few days my emotions are definitely more volatile than my “normal”…not that my normal is good…just normal to me…I’d say that in the last six months the primary negative emotions I’d recognize would be a tendency to depression that wasn’t there before coming back to Florida and anxiety that also wasn’t there before then, but that did start still in Minnesota…once I knew I was coming here basically. But, very unlike me – most of the time I didn’t really feel anything at all. Just like emotions were neutral or off most of the time.

Right now, I’d say there has been less depression by far (though there are still moments – almost like it is just from a habit of thinking I’ve developed), overall there is less anxiety, but when something does trigger it, it feels more sudden and stronger…but like the “moments” of depression, it doesn’t last and is over quite quickly…

However, as I’ve been juicing I have noticed that I have a lot of anger. It pops up and it wants to be heard, it isn’t polite and it doesn’t go away quickly. Every shade of anger has come to see me this week. It is like I can feel it come up and out…sometimes I can even catch what it was…because snips of memories or random thoughts from things and people I haven’t thought about in years and would have no reason to suddenly come to mind come up…and go pretty much as quickly as I can process what that thought, feeling or image was in the first place…but the anger they bring with them (even at things that aren’t “bad” memories or thoughts) that anger lingers. It is quite surreal actually. Sometimes I can even feel a place in my body, a spot of pain or soreness where that was stored in my physical body.

I even blew up at M who has been being a butt and purposely not helping at the house- even when my back was out and I couldn’t bend and walk for three days-and yelled myself hoarse. I was so mad, I was standing across the room and shaking I was so angry with him. I don’t let myself blow up or get mad like that. I did walk away to cool off, went to the gym to swim my mad out…the physical activity helped, but my mad was bigger than my physical body could burn for fuel all at once.

In a physical sense…stuff is going on too…cruddy eyes in the morning…my face is even more red and bumpy patches (rosacea) and intermittently I’ve been retaining water I can see in my ankles being a bit swollen and my wrists sometimes too…that last might worry me more, except in between when they go down my ankles and wrists are smaller than they’ve been in years- even when I didn’t weigh as much.

Energy-wise I’m all over the place…some days I have more energy than I can remember having since I was a kid…other days I’m tired or cranky…not getting as much done as I’d wish…

A lot of stuff…I’ve been consistently exercising, consistently juicing…not always within my calorie range though so some of that exercise is wasted for weight loss purposes. Despite all this negative emotion stuff, there were hours, a half day or so where I felt a deeper peace and inner content than I’ve felt in a long, long time. It isn’t the same as feeling happy or energetic…and it is much more powerful for it.

First Day of Juice Fast

Today is the last day I’m doing my half juice/half food.

I’m feeling comfortable that I can do the juice fast. I know how to make the juices, I know where to get the produce and back up places to get it if needed…and where not to get it (Hello Wal-mart, your produce sucks!)

I’ve also got the rhythm of it– making the juices every day, needing to shop more often…storing and preparing the produce…also needing to carry the juice and water with me and needing to plan before I’m leaving the house for a long time.

My household is now used to me doing juices everyday so it isn’t a big deal now.

I’m also confident that I can keep working out on juice only just fine…green juice gives me plenty of energy to fuel the workout.

I’ve been careful for my last trips to the store not to buy foods that would be especially tempting for me, I was still able to get regular food that everyone else likes, but that wouldn’t be tempting for me. There’s no junk- even though they are all skinny and can eat whatever they like…there is also no peanut butter, chocolate anything or garlic bread 🙂

I’ve been asking myself I am ready to commit to a 60 day total juice fast? I consider things like that it will include Memorial Day weekend, going to see my favorite band that I’ve wanted to see since high school, my birthday, 4th of July…and probably other events I haven’t even thought of yet. Of course 3 out of 4 of those I’m thinking of the food aspects that I won’t be partaking in, that alone should be a clue to me about my relationship with food! I could have more fun by just planning ahead to do something active at those various events…hiking, boating, biking etc…instead of sitting on the sidelines and eating food or making food the “celebration” instead of actually doing something!

So, yes, I am committed. Feelings-wise…maybe nervous? I’m going to print out a calendar for the fridge and mark off 60 days….X for when the day is done and 🙂 for every day that I workout.

I’m going to continue to blog about the fast…not because anybody is reading them 🙂 but because I won’t remember the experience the same way if I don’t write down the day to day stuff.

Juice Fast Failure

I have no wish to fail all the time. I know people say failing is good and that we should learn from failing…but it doesn’t feel like that!

I kind of feel like being obese in the first place is already failing in a really public and obvious way and other people always reinforce that feeling for me with being treated like I’m invisible.

So far, yesterday, what I was hoping was going to be day 1 of the total juice fast, didn’t quite make it, I ended up eating a small dinner and no snack and the rest juice. Still, it was the most juice so far and the least food…it really is mental (though I was physically hungry too in this case).

Here is the thing, if you’re addicted to food in an unhealthy way (like I am) then even if you are juicing and getting energy and calories that way, you aren’t using it to stuff whatever emotion or handle whatever situation like you were before starting only juice. If it was all about hunger, then that would be one thing, but it is about hunger + dealing with my emotional crap and that part sucks.

Unlike both men in the movie Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead…I can’t take a vacation from my life and go somewhere just to fast and juice. I have to do things that are at best annoying and at worst sabotaging like cook dinner for the family and then still get stuck putting it all away for leftovers and doing the dishes too.

So today, day 2 of attempt at total juice fast…fail again. I still had lots of juice and tried new juices…including a new green juice that has mint and tastes like sweet mint tea…which would have been great had I been looking for that taste 🙂 But today I also had soda AND fries 😦 Both worthless foods.

…Now, I can look back and realize I should have just listened to the whining and taken the kids home where there are no temptations for me, but I gave in and I didn’t still there with nothing while they ate…or go through a drive through and get me nothing or something other than what I did.

You know, I did get home and went right back to my juices. I had a small dinner and I guess make a better plan for tomorrow.

A calorie is a calorie = False

THESE MAY HAVE THE SAME NUMBER OF CALORIES,

BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME INSIDE YOUR BODY.

I used to believe what people say, that a calorie is a calorie…it’s all the same & doesn’t matter what it comes from. But, it is really not. The same amount of calories as fresh pineapple juice and I will feel great, have lots of energy to burn and it treats my sugar cravings and doesn’t make them worse. If I chose the same amount of calories as icecream I will feel more intense sugar cravings and want more calories for several days after. I will wake up tired and sluggish and feeling icky. I won’t want to workout and I will want more of regular food too.

I also read a Spark article over at SparkPeople.com that made a lot of sense talking about how when we workout our body is not burning our last meal or fat at all, but one several meals ago since it takes time to convert it into fuel…then what we do after the workout and after it has burned the ready fuel is when it will be looking to burn fat stores. (So your activity level for the rest of the day is important) and another reason why eating something after exercise with protein and carbs is important because you don’t want the body to use muscle and organ stores.

Juicing Rollarcoaster (30 days in)

When you aren’t stuffing feelings with food, they come out. Sometimes I’m not surprised at what comes out, but sometimes I really am.

At first when I started juicing…it was like a roller coaster of emotions. One day I was depressed or tried, then angry…then furious…eventually there were nicer emotions like peace and feeling happy and more hopeful…what all that showed me was something I sort of knew but didn’t “get” at the time and that’s that I’d been not really “feeling” any feelings at all for awhile.

So, a month into juicing and there is no roller coaster anymore, but in general I’m more aware of my feelings and express them instead of keeping them frozen. Other people would say I’ve had more of a “temper” and I’m not as nice…I say I simply made a decision that I’m tired of being walked all over and if I can’t change that much at home I can definitely start with no longer making nice and putting up with crap from strangers! I never really thought about it before, but like a lot of women, I was taught to “make nice” and to “be polite” and to “keep the peace”…I see now how often and at what price some of that came to getting my own needs met. I’m still generally nice, but no longer at the price of ME and what I need.

60 days Juicing (Plus Food) Results

Juicing (plus food) for the last 60 days gave me the gift of feeling and being in control of eating instead of being out-of control and feeling powerless over it. It was a launch pad to better nutrition and now I’m tracking vitamins and minerals and focusing on food quality not just calories. Juicing helped me retrain myself to like fruits and vegetables. Juicing helped me conquer my icecream, chocolate, fast food, junk food and nutrition-less food addictions. Juicing helped me stop craving white sugar! That is pretty powerful stuff.

It’s been great for my skin and my rosacea is better than I’ve seen it in several years. Whole areas of my face have completely cleared that had only been growing and staying constant for several years now (it’s a progressive disease). Cleared! Completely and without any expensive and dangerous prescription drugs or creams.

I’ve had tons of energy to get stuff done and to fuel exercise and swimming.

I have to be honest though, the clearing was sometimes brutal in the beginning and even now, whenever my weight drops a little, there is more to clear out of my system. What does that mean? It means in the first two weeks I had all kinds of symptoms popping up. Physically, I had headaches, light sensitivity in my eyes, aches and pains in random spots that seemed to travel and had no cause, trouble sleeping, transient tiredness and fatigue and my rosacea on my face flared up really bad and was so inflamed it was hard to cover with make-up. Emotionally it was a roller coaster. A lot of negative emotions started coming up for me that I needed to deal with. Depression, anxiety and anger hung around a lot right then. Anger is the only one still popping up lately when I exercise.

It did get better though! Each time I felt bad for a few days and my body stabilized again I felt better than I had before all that. For pretty much the entire 60 days it has been like that. The more my body clears both emotions and releases whatever old chemicals or bad stuff it was trying to hide in the fat, the better I feel after the clearing is done. Not just better, but better as in a deep sense of well-being that I can’t remember the last time I felt.

As I’ve been focused on improving the nutrition in my food & juice my cravings have become less. About 45 days in my appetite finally stopped being intermittently crazy. Looking back I can really see now how the drive for more and more food (that I called being hungry) was actually not a call from my body for food the way I fed it, but a call for nutrition.

I looked at old entries for nutrition within my calorie range and saw vitamins and minerals where my intake that day might have been a 6 or a 14 when it should have been 100-250. This week’s adventure has been getting my nutrition within my recommendations and still within my calorie range. The scale and I are arguing right now about these changes to my food, I’m not used to nuts and seeds and I kind of wonder if my body isn’t hoarding nutrients a little bit, in case they go away again.

One thing I only just figured out is that all I need to add to feel “full” is fiber. My fiber was chronically low, even before juicing. Like really low, a 4 or a 7 when it should be 25-35. Note to anyone adding fiber though, start s-l-o-w! My body wasn’t used to anywhere near the lowest of normal fiber so–tummy aches!

I’m not hungry! It is so crazy, but the more I meet the nutritional needs of my body with whole foods (not talking about supplements) the less hungry I feel. It is strange to not only not feel hungry, but to not need as much food to feel full. Now my issue has been how to eat all that food to get the vitamins and minerals! I have to remind myself to spread it out since real food sure goes a long way further to filling you up that the high calorie foods that made up most of my eating before.

So, 60 days later…no pain, no fatigue or unexplained tiredness (just natural tiredness at the end of the day), no anxiety (which was a big part of be deciding to juice in the first place because it was a new symptom I’d never had before in my life and really bothered me), no depression. Still dealing with emotional flare-ups, pretty much whenever the scale goes down. No out of control cravings. Lots of energy. Feeling good, sleeping good. Many good days where exercise and healthy eating is feeling normal, still bad days where it is too easy not to exercise or eat well, to let life get in the way.

I’m going to keep juicing beyond 60 days. I’m not going to do a juice fast right now, but I hope to do one at some point.   

Learning to Eat Real Foods

Right now I’m still juicing + food daily, but I’m working on actually tracking and meeting my daily nutrition goals for fiber, vitamins and minerals.

It’s been interesting to review and learn new things about what foods have which vitamins and minerals this week (lots of web research). I’ve had to find some new foods and things I haven’t eaten regularly at the grocery store this week. I’ve even had two trips to the health food store for things my grocery doesn’t carry.

I started with what I was normally eating anyway and looked at where my nutrition was…now I’m figuring out what needs to be added or changed to meet my nutrition needs and not just be within my calorie range.

This week I’ve been working on how to incorporate the nuts & seeds I need and stay within my calorie range…and…getting my body used to eating them!

You can get a good visual of where you are low, not just on a random day, but across the whole week using a free food tracking tool like the one at Sparkpeople.com that I use.

My first go around, here was my list of things that were really low & a few things you can eat with those vitamins and minerals!

Iron=Red meat, spinach
Copper= Cashews, pumpkin seeds, tahini, sunflower seeds
Magnesium=Spinach
Selenium= Brazil nuts, tuna, sunflower seeds
Potassium= White beans, spinach, potatoes in skin, acorn squash, salmon
Phosphorus=sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, squash seeds

For me, it seems like if several things are low on my plan that day, I add a cup of spinach to my plan and all those numbers shoot up to where they are supposed to be (Iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium etc). One Brazil nut has 33 calories, but it also has your entire day of selenium in one nut. Cashews have a lot of calories (320 in .5 cup) so a little goes a long way for nuts & seeds and you have to measure. Cashews also have a ton of copper which I haven’t been getting anywhere else before adding them.

On Spark nutrition entries people are lazy and only put the standard food label values in…that label doesn’t list all the vitamins and minerals in a food. You have to check and either look it up and create your own entry or “favorite” the ones you find that do include it. Nuts and seeds are a good example why that is bad. They have a lot of calories and high fat so people avoid them. They have carbs+protein+(good) fat (a whole food). When you look up the actual nutrition nuts and seeds have a variety of minerals and vitamins in them…naturally vs. fortified foods like milk or cereal where it is only “healthy” because they’ve added powdered vitamin to it.

When I was very little (4 and 5 years old) we lived with my grandparents. When I look back now I can see so many things that were part of a healthy lifestyle that we did, that were lost when we didn’t live with them anymore. I remember my grandma juicing and making homemade orange juice and V8 like veggie juices, carrot juice…I also remember nightly walks after dinner with the cat following us and things like the exercise bike with the speedometer I used to like to ride and the floor exercises my grandma taught me back then. As I’m rediscovering, reviewing, re-learning and learning totally new things about food, exercise and being healthy things like that come back to me.

Natural food labeling vs. Organic food labeling

Remember, “natural” food is not the same thing as USDA Organic. Take a look at these Wal-mart fruit bars…(Yes, I found out only later that these are only sold at Wal-mart & Sam’s Club and are not really a regular brand. That would have changed my buying decision, but too late now).

I recently bought these at Wal-mart…looking for a better option that isn’t so expensive as the one I usually buy. I know, big mistake. First, notice the 100% natural on the box…that does not mean organic!

The one we got was the “Caribbean Mix” frozen fruit bar.

Ingredients: Strawberries, Pineapple, Mango, Passion Fruit, Coconut Flakes, Water, Cane Sugar, Natural Stabilizers (Guar Gum, Carob Bean Gum, Carrageenan), Citric Acid.

The ingredients look okay though the stabilizers really aren’t great for you. Carrageenan is a derivative of seaweed. Some studies indicate that it can cause cancer in animals. People can also be allergic. It can irritate the bowel. You can read more about it online at Charis Holistic Center where there are some nice articles on it.

Really, if you look at the nutrition label these are pretty much just sugar.

Worse than all that, they tasted like rotten fruit! We threw them away. My kids are not picky either, they tasted that gross. Save your money and spend a bit more on the good stuff or freeze your own fruit pops.

Organic Psyllium Husk from India review

“100% certified organic fiber. Heart healthy. USDA organic. Excellent source of natural dietary fiber. About psyllium. Psyllium fiber is a convenient way to maintain gastrointestinal health. Derived from the seeds of the herb plantago ovata, this bulk-forming dietary fiber naturally promotes healthy elimination and regularity while supporting the gastrointestinal system. Why organic psyllium. Psyllium is one of India’s key export crops, providing approximately 85% of the world’s supply. While conventional psyllium husk products offer high fiber, most of these crops are grown on conventional industrialized fertilizers, and post-harvest chemical treatments. Organic India psyllium is certified organic. No synthetic pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or chemical treatments are used at any time.” – Google product description

I like this product, I found it at the local natural foods store and I add it to my morning protein smoothies to bulk up my daily fiber. It is best to drink it right away before the fiber bulks up (which takes a few minutes in the cup). It will make you feel full longer. I like knowing that it is organic because these are the husks which is where pesticides would be heaviest in conventionally grown foods.

Famous frozen banana non-dairy dessert recipe

This is not my recipe, but one that can be found all over the Internet right now! Endless variations! You can add strawberries, chocolate, nuts…whatever you want!

Frozen organic banana dessert (Like icecream, but better for you!)

Freeze one organic banana per serving in a plastic bag without the peel. I cut mine into pieces before freezing.

Place frozen banana pieces in blender or food processor and blend until it has smooth icecream-like consistency.

Eat up! Healthy and tasty!

If you like the banana taste then this is a great use for overripe bananas. If not, freeze yellow bananas with no brown spots for a milder taste.

Add one or two teaspoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and make it chocolate banana dessert! Yum! Unsweet cocoa powder is a great source of the mineral copper in our diet.