Ah, For the Love of Calm

Today's been an interesting day.

I got up, had my juice and got ready to go shopping, but when I went to start the car, the battery was dead.  And not just kinda sorta pretend dead, but really dead.  Dead dead.  My friend and I even tried to jump start the car, but with zero success so I'm now waiting for Triple-A to come bring me a new battery.

These events got me thinking.  Thinking about how I handled this small yet inconvenient crisis.

In the past, I would have come in and gotten into something food wise or I would have made plans to have something delivered like Chinese food or pizza. Basically, I would have had a meltdown. I would have turned to food to make myself feel better and give me some sort of comfort. Basically I would have gone and binged on something unhealthy because I was having a 'bad' day.

Today, however, I didn't do that.  I came inside and had a juice instead.  And I'm calm.  I'm a pretty high strung person and can get stressed out or worked up about the littlest of things.  There's nothing wrong with me, it's just who I am and how I am.  Calm is something I am always striving for and today, I have (mostly) achieved it.

Ah, for the love of calm!

I swear, it's the juice.

Today's Juices

Sweet Green

1 Pear

2 Kiwis

1/4 Head of Cabbage

1 Zucchini

1 Cucumber

6 Collard Green Leaves

1 Lime

1 1" Piece of Ginger

Plain Red

3 Apples

6 Carrots

Oh No! A Healing Crisis

Today is Day 6 of my juice cleanse.  I felt good this morning, but now I have a headache. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I'm not going to quit my fast or anything, but I am going to take it easy for the rest of the day.

On a cleanse like this, what I am experiencing is normal.  It's called a healing crisis.  My body is pulling fat, toxic fat, from my body for fuel which also released a bunch of toxins from the fat into my body.  Now those toxins are being dumped into my bloodstream and my body is struggling to keep up with them which is why I have the headache.  I read about this in a few of my books and what I learned is that this is totally normal.  In fact, I totally expected it.  I just didn't know when it was going to happen or what symptoms I would have. 

So what are the symptoms of a healing crisis and how to you alleviate the symptoms?

From my understanding, when you have a healing crisis you may have a headache, body aches, sore throat, acne, itchy skin, constipation, diarrhoea, tiredness, lethargy, or a runny nose.  Thee are other symptoms, but the ones I listed are the most common.

To help your body out when you have a healing crisis, you should rest. It's the best thing to help the body repair itself.  It's like when you are sick and the Dr. prescribes REST as part of your healing plan.  So when I am done with this blog, I will hang up my work hat and lie down to take a nap.

Another thing that helps with a healing crisis is to drink more juice and water.  I will definitely be drinking more water later before and after my nap.

So that's where I am at today.  A little tired and having a bit of a headache, but I'm still juicing it up. 

Juice on, juicy fruits :)

Oh and here is today's video.

All Juice, All Day

Woo hoo!  We've made it to Day 5 of 60!

So far I are loving the juice fast/feast.  The last few days were modified, but today we are going ALL juice, ALL day!  I'm excited cause I can already feel my body changing!

Here's today's video

Day Four: Filled with Joy!

Awesome.  I feel awesome today!

You know I had a little bit of fear when I started this 60 day juice feast, but now, that fear has been replace with pure joy and happiness.  The reasons for this happiness?

1. I am not hungry.  Sounds crazy, but it's true.  I wake up in the morning, have a hot lemon and then 24-32 ounce fresh green juice.  Then I go to work and I am NOT hungry.  Before starting this juice feast, I was hungry pretty much all the time and would eat all day. Now I am not hungry!

This used to be me!

2. I am sleeping better.  I have had issues with falling asleep for years and just in a few days of juicing, I am falling asleep at a normal time, 11 pm,  and getting up around 7-8 am. I cannot remember the last time slept for more than 2-4 hours and now I am sleeping 7 hours a night!  This in itself is a miracle.

3. I have energy that I have not had in years.  Before this feast, I would get up and work, but by noon, I'd be ready for a nap.  Most days I did nap.  Now, I'm up in the morning, I'm working and I don't need a nap.  I'm getting so much accomplished it's amazing.

4. My clothes are fitting me better.  I have been wearing a size 20 pant for a while and just today I went to put them on and they are falling off!  In four days!  HOLY SHIT!

For Reals!

5. I have lost weight.  The proof is in number 4 even though I haven't weighed myself yet and won't again until the end of the month, I have definitely lost weight.  How much?  Who knows and who cares! 

I am very happy and filled with joy today.  I hope you are too.

Have a lovely day, Juicy Fruits :)

PS  Here's the video of the day!

Day 4 of the 60 Day Juice Feast

The Toxic Fat Has it

Day 2 went down without any incident.  I juiced for the day and felt pretty good.  Because I am loosely following Joe's Cross's Reboot plan, I had a small dinner last night.  Today I woke up feeling pretty good and I've had my juice and tea.

Today's Juices

Red Cooler

1/2 of a Watermelon

1 Lime

Easy Green

2 Cucumbers

5-6 Chicory Leaves

1 Apple

Now why am I doing this? Consuming 60 days of nothing but fresh fruit and vegetable juice. I gotta tell you that I have several reasons for doing this feast.  One of the main reasons is toxic fat.  I am toxic and I have toxic fat.

See, last year when I started researching food and nutrition, I was blown away by how toxic our food is.  Not unprocessed food like fresh fruits and veggies, but the processed garbage that  they put in boxes and label as healthy.  It's NOT healthy.  It's concocted to make us never feel full or satisfied and it's laden with toxic crap like high fructose corn syrup, MSG, ribonuclotide, BHA/BHT and a whole bunch of other stuff that was designed to stimulate our brains to want more more more.

AND the kicker is this, those toxins, they get stored in our fat cells because our poor bodies can't rid ourselves of them fast enough!   So we eat the crap food with the crap toxins and our bodies go into overdrive to protect us and store the toxins as FAT. Yucky TOXIC FAT!  Quick, get it off of my body!

Don't believe me, check out these articles.

Toxins In Food

Ribonucleotide and The Ribo Rash

List of Food Toxins

So it seemed apparent to me that my fat was not necessarily my fault.  My fault was eating all that garbage filled with toxins.  The more I learned about this stuff, the less I wanted to eat it. I was seriously so blown away after learning about this stuff that I immediately started to add more and more healthy foods to my diet like WHOLE fruits and vegetables.  I started to check the food labels and if it had 'natural flavoring' or 'yeast extract' listed, I didn't buy it.

And now I am doing a juice fast to help rid my body of this toxic fat once and for all and heal my body.

If you'd like to learn more about the toxins in our foods, I recommend these books

Click photos to purchase

Call Me Crazy

Go ahead and call me crazy, but there really is magic in fresh juice.

For the past few days here in New England, the weather has been getting warm and then cooling off.  Whenever this happens, my body reacts and I usually catch a cold or some other nasty virus. I get watery eyes, a stuffed up nose, a sore throat and all the other lovely things that come with contracting a virus.

Well, this time has been different. I started getting a  sore throat the other day. I knew what was going on so I decided to make up a hot lemon and drink that before bed. Within a few minutes of drinking the hot lemon (recipe to follow), my throat felt better.  Sounds crazy, but it's true. My sore throat has been coming and going so this morning I made a lemony-apple juice and drank that (recipe to follow)

Now it's noon and my sore throat is nearly gone.

I really love the healing power that fruits and veggies have and yes, you can call me crazy!

Hot Lemon

Fresh Juice from one lemon

1 to 1 1/2 tsp honey

8-12 ounces hot water

Mix together and consume.  This is great for  sore throats and colds.  The best part is that it's natural and does not contain nasty drugs or chemicals.

Lemony Apple

3 Granny Smith Apples

1 Lemon

1 inch piece of ginger

Run this through your juicer and drink.  This is a pretty tart juice so if you don't like tart, feel free to add or replace one or two of the apples with another variety.