Day Twenty Four

Yesterday we had a small celebration for the project team at work.  Breakfast treats for everyone at our weekly meeting as a thank you for great effort on a recent deadline.  Our ace design lead Elsa Dean brought all the goodies – fresh fruit, bagels, pastries.  I was touched beyond words when she also brought in some Kagome juice so I had something to share the celebration with.  Never expected THAT kind of special treatment.

Such a great support network.. no wonder I can make this work!

Day Twenty Three

Assuming it’s one of those No Harm No Foul things, I’ve been allowing myself as much hot herbal decaf tea as I wanted since the beginning of this juice fast.  There are some REALLY nice ones out there.. my current favorites come from a brand called “Yogi”. 

Omid Roustaei is an incredible chef and all around nice person.  He specializes in whole body health by being a vegan chef, yoga master, and certified psychological counselor.   Smart man to think we would all be healthier if we focused on what goes into the body, how we condition the body, AND our mind all at the same time.  We’ve been fortunate to have him cooking for us for a bunch of years.  If you are interested in his holistic practice you can learn more from his web site. 

Speaking with him recently he said it was actually good that I was drinking the tea, because your body does better at maintaining itself if you have some warmth going into it.  Normally of course that is provided by all the food we eat, but for this month most of my fruits and veggies come from the fridge, so they are chilled.

Now if he could just help me with my mind. 

Day Twenty Two

Just over a week to go to hit my target 30 days.  I’m still standing so I think that makes me the winner right?  Given all the ups and downs in the past few days, clearly my body was doing some major adjustments.  All that resulted in the loss of 6 more pounds this week, bringing my total up to -11 for the juice fast so far.  Once I get back to eating the question will be how much of that weight is muscle mass that will be replaced when protein comes back into my diet at normal levels.

But I’m sure I can hang onto SOME of the loss!

Day Twenty One

I am now ready to say I’ve found my totally favorite breakfast.  Pears and kiwi.   2 pears and 2 kiwi (skins and all) makes an almost perfect 16 oz glass of juice.  The fruit is so soft I’ve found it’s best to strain it through a mesh colander to remove a lot of the pulp that can’t help but get though.  The drink is nice and cool because the pears and kiwi are in the fridge.  It is just a touch on the sweet side, but absolutely delishiosshhh!

Now.. if I could only find a veggie drink I like that much.  *sighs*

Day Twenty

So far I’ve not found a good source to look up calorie intake from juice rather than from the entire fruit or vegetable.  So to be conservative I ran some calculations showing what calories I would be getting if I was eating the all the produce I’m consuming rather than just the juice.  Seems I’m maxing out around 800 calories a day.  (I had to re-read that myself.. it isn’t per meal, that was per day).  Amazing I have the energy I do.

…oh and by the way, I feel a LOT better today than I have in a couple.  Thank goodness.

Day Nineteen

The past couple of days have been just a little rocky.  Thinking about food more than I would like to.  Having some hunger which I thought I would be use to by now.  And feeling a kind of.. not sure, maybe best described as weariness.  It’s amazing how much of our world and culture evolve around food even though I didn’t realize it completely.  No doubt it’s all just a test of willpower as my body moves through another phase of cleaning and reduction.  I’m a big boy, I can handle it… just not as easy as I hoped.

Day Eighteen

It’s pretty well documented that when you remove as much protein from your diet as I have, you do start to experience some muscle loss at about day 10.  The body needs a level of protein to function that is more than you get from the produce alone.   It’s one of the reasons a juice fast is considered such a healing process.  Apparently the body will first “use up” any kind of diseased or damaged tissue in its quest for protein.   So along with some fairly easy to replace loss of muscle tone (of course you don’t really loose muscle, just tone and mass), I should be getting rid of some of those yucky things in there I don’t even know about.

It’s another reason for the increased exercise I mentioned yesterday.   Trying to hang on to the wimpy muscles I have.  The only way I’ll ever have sculpted abs is if they spray paint me like they did Britney for the MTV awards.

Day Seventeen

As part of my commitment to getting more healthy during this juice fast, I’ve been going to the gym five days a week.  Nothing wild of course, just 30 minutes of strength training, floor exercise, and a stationary bike.  Also I carry a pedometer and try to get in at least 10,000 steps a day.  I figure that way even if I don’t lose a lot of weight, maybe at least I’ll redistribute it.

Given my unexplainable lifetime aversion to exercise, sometimes I think this is even harder than not eating!

Day Sixteen

The past few days I realize I’ve been in a very easy groove other than that mess with the beats.  Good energy during the day, no headache or light headed side effects, and not particularly hungry most of the time.  I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t think about the fact I’m on a juice fast all that much.   Well.. ok when I walked by the kitchen at work the other day and saw a stack of whole grain bread, sliced roast beef, and dijon mustard I was definitely thinking I was on a juice fast, so I ran away screaming.

Day Fifteen

Today is the halfway point for me – two weeks completed.  My weight loss so far is still 5 pounds since I didn’t lose any this week, which isn’t as much as I hoped but pretty positive for two weeks effort.  So I’m thinking more now about the cleansing effects my body must be experiencing.  How maybe this experience is resetting my thought process about eating in general, breaking some old habits.  That sort of thing.

Everything seems to be working!