Category: Cleansing

One of my favorite juices consists mainly of dark leafy greens; collards, kale, dandelion, mustard and a variety of other dark leafy greens make their way into my Green Star. I typically add garlic, ginger, lemon or lime and some type of hot pepper.  I find the citric acid from the lemon/lime cut down on the some of the bitterness of the dark leafy greens and all you can taste is the savory aspect of the drink. If I want natural sodium I will add four to six celery stalks. I’m actually craving one of my dark leafy drinks now, but I’ll hold off and wait to juice tomorrow morning.

If I have time I’ll share my ‘lava juice’ recipe. My daughter took one sip of the drink I made and gave it that name. The freshly made juice was very delicious, spicy and hot.

Well, I’m beginning Day 6 of my juice cleanse…

Today I awoke at 3:30 a.m. and I feel great! By the way, between 3:30 – 4:00 is the normal time I awaken daily, without alarm clock.  Last evening, I made my twist on ‘V8’ juice. Naturally, it’s much healthier than the ‘V8 juice’ you purchase at the store. Firstly, the sodium is derived from the tomatoes and celery that were added to this delicious juice.  Secondly, there are no extras that my body does not need, and lastly it was freshly prepared. I will say that mine does have a bit of a kick since I added garlic and two bright red habañero peppers.

Rereading some of my of old  books (and in some cases new) on natural healing/nutrition has been extremely helpful and has been a perfect way for me to reconnect with the numerous of ways we can heal ourselves naturally if we’re only willing to open our minds and trust in the myriad of natural items provided to us by God.

In my happy place…

 

My happy place; I’m experiencing raw cravings

Last evening, I was surprised when I was hammered with the craving to consume only raw meals when I step away from this juice cleanse. Last time I was craving a cheese steak and hamburger, both foods I have not touched in over seventeen years; no I didn’t eat them! I’ll take these type of cravings anytime!

Raw foods, is not strange to me since the majority of my daily food intake is high raw. Additionally, about five years ago I only ate raw food for a year. I will say that year, was incredible and although I normally feel great health-wise and spiritually that year I was on a whole different plane, and I loved it! While consuming only raw foods, I focused on whole food produce with the occasional supplementation of nuts and seeds. The raw junk food that you see some raw foodists promoting, wasn’t something that interested me at all.

I ‘chew’ my juice

Years ago, I stumbled upon an interesting article about the importance of chewing. The reason given was the chewing action mixes saliva with juice. Try it, you’ll and pay attention to what’s going on in your mouth, you most likely will detect more saliva. Increased saliva allows your body to absorb and utilize the nutrients in a more efficiently.

When you got that glow

I’m starting to get compliments, once again, about my ‘glowing skin’. I’ll take those, thank you very much.

I’m currently drinking

My freshly made ginger root tea. I’m craving some type of spicy drink and so later today, I think I’ll make a ‘Gazpaucho Juice’. I made one on my last juice cleanse.

How long will I continue on this juice cleanse? I have no idea, I’m listening to my body and will stop when it feels right.

Cranius: In My Happy Place

 

Resources:

1. Dr. Perry Chin: Chew your juice!
2. The Worlds Healthiest Foods: Why is Chewing such an important part of digestion?

 

 

My first ‘juice’ of the day was actually hot ginger tea. I cut about 2″ of ginger root into 3 cups of boiling water. I let that steep for about 30 minutes and then sipped it slowly. Ginger is amazing and has numerous health benefits, one of them being it’s works wonders for the digestive system.

So… what have I juiced today? A few hours ago this is what I was drinking.

Pineapple tart

• 1 Pineapple
• 1 unskinned lemon
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 2″ ginger root
• 4 celery stalks
• 3 apples

It tastes really good! I used my new Breville just to see how it did with greens, and I must say I’m not impressed at all but I already knew that.  Later, when I juice my dark leafy greens I’ll be using my Green Star (masticating) juicer. The juice yield for greens simply blows the centrifugal juicers away. I purchased the Breville BJE510XL Juice Fountain Multi-Speed 900-Watt (centrifugal) juicer because the juice output with centrifugal juicers is much higher for things like pears, apples, grapefruit, etc. Thanks to that purchase, I can now pick the appropriate juicer based on what produce I’ll be using.

Sometimes when I drink only juices I feel a bit tired. This usually happens at the beginning. I wasn’t tired yesterday, but today was a different story. As noon approached and slowly passed I started to feel drowsy, and so I listened to my body and took a nap. Good thing it’s the weekend and I can just take a nap, right? I awoke feeling recharged.

Much earlier today, I gave myself an enema. I was constipated. No shame in talking about bodily functions on this site! Since nothing was moving, and my abdomen was feeling very uncomfortable, I gave myself a warm enema to help out my colon.

During this juice cleanse, I’ll be mainly juicing dark leafy greens so that means I’ll be mainly using my Green Star, but the Breville will be used also to prepare juices for my daughter.

A few moments ago I made a deliciously yummy orange colored juice, with a new juicer. Which is perfect timing since today marks the day that I start my juice cleanse. The last juice cleanse I had lasted 12 days, but I’ve done much longer. Is it healthy? Well let’s see… I’m only consuming produce in liquid form. I mainly juice green vegetables. What do you think? Of course it’s healthy. I’m not doing it for weight loss. I don’t need to lose weight, but now and again I do like taking a break from eating solid foods. I’m not cheating my body in the least since I’m flooding it with a whole host of nutrients that our bodies need and crave.

Thanks to next day delivery by Federal Express, my Breville arrived about about an hour ago. This won’t be replacing my Green Star (masticating) juicer. That juicer is awesome and there’s no way that’s being put to the side. This centrifugal juicer will be used in addition to my Green Star for produce that does not do as well with the masticating technology. The Breville will be juicing such things as; apple, pears, lemon, grapefruit, etc., since centrifugal juicers seem to do much better job with them than masticating juicers. For everything else, I’ll be using my much loved Green Star juicer.

 

I’ve listed what is included within the juice below. I call it ‘bittersweet’.

Bittersweet

• 4 apples unpeeled
• 1 grapefruit
• five large carrots

I could have added other produce. I stopped by the local farm yesterday and stocked up on dark leafy greens and apples. I’d have to pull out my twin gear juicer for that.  This morning, I stopped by the grocery store and purchased grapefruit, ginger and carrots. I should have enough produce to keep me juicing for at least a week.

I will say that the Breville clean up is much easier than my Green Star juicer, but as I already mentioned there is no way I’m setting aside my Green Star, since with several produce it still does a much better job since the juice yield is higher.

I really don’t know how long I’ll be only drinking juices but I’ll try to make an effort and put the recipes I create here. As with cooking, I just toss together produce that works well together, sometimes I’m selective depending on the nutrients I want to flood my body with, but for the most part it’s a toss up on what will end up in my juices.

 

 

Recently I’ve been  thinking about juicing… a lot! Since I normally take this as a sign of my body telling me what it needs I’ve been upping the amount of freshly prepared juices (and smoothies) that I consume and reducing my solid foods.  I have to say that I feel awesome!

This past year, when I talked about candida, I mentioned the things I occasionally craved were flour based products and while my choices whole grain bread my body still rejected them and caused me to itch and have a whole host of other unpleasant symptoms. It’s still a bit of a puzzle on the how and why it got so out of control. I’m not a big sweet eater, in fact, I didn’t eat too much bread. The main foods I consume are whole foods, despite the why candida raised it’s itchy big head, I’m happy to say that most of the symptoms are gone. In fact, I can consume wheat without a reaction, but you know something? I don’t crave that anymore.

I do believe I’ll be transitioning once again to drinking juices. Currently, I’m not sure how long I’ll be consuming them, but I would like to go a few weeks. I have a lot of energy, but I’ve found that consuming only juices gives me even more.

 

To get myself properly charged for the upcoming juicing adventures, I’m rewatching Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. I’ve written about Joe Crosses documentary before. While I can’t relate to the stories on a personal level, I still find the two men featured in this documentary to be extremely inspiring!  I knew, if they could conquer all their health issues and come of their medication. I don’t take any medication;  and I never have had to take them for anything besides the minor cold. In fact, the past several years I haven’t taken any of those,  instead I chose foods that not only taste good but equip my body with natural resistance to a variety of health issues.

In addition, I ordered the book Reboot with Joe Juice Diet by Joe Cross. It’s a book I’ve enjoyed reading, but up until recently I hadn’t purchased it for myself. It should be here tomorrow.

While weight loss and health isn’t my issue, I do enjoy reading books on how other people have turned their health. That to me is encouraging! In addition, this serves as another great reference when working with others who are looking to make natural changes with their life. In the past, a few people I’ve worked with were able to come off their medication. They took the initiative and realized that their choices can make them healthy or stand in the way and make them ill.

Although I have not been writing about my candida… or should I say lack of it? I’m still following the routines that has eliminated my candida symptoms. It’s all about prevention, and folks that know me, realize I’m big on that.

I’m thrilled that I’ve seemingly kicked candida to the curb, and I plan to keep it that way. So yes… I’m still doing my enemas. I was doing enemas before I got aggressive with eliminating candida. In addition, to the enemas, I have increased my daily intake of dark leafy greens. Juicing dark leafy greens is an easy way for me to ensure that I’m significantly increasing the amount of dark greens I consume on a daily basis.

I occasionally still experience itching, but when that happens I know that with my next bowel movement I will be passing some things that seem to be common in candida sufferers.

And He *said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
Matthew 17:20

New American Standard Bible

Interesting observation…

The ones most skeptical about my approach to healing are usually other Christians. Imagine that, the same folks that believe in a supreme being creating the world we live in would balk at using natural remedies to cure themselves. Say it isn’t so?  So while they won’t believe other intelligent people know what they are talking about when it comes to how the world was created, they will believe and dismiss natural remedies as “quackery” because educated folks told them so…

Personally, I find it hard to imagine that the same God that designed our awesome world, could not have provided us with a variety of items that could cure us naturally. 😉