Category: Healthy Living

Today will mark Day 8 of my juice cleanse. I’m feeling great!

A few hours ago, I felt slightly tired but I realized that’s because besides one cup of vegetable juice (around 5:30 a.m. this morning) I hadn’t drank any more juice. That was easily remedied by juicing and drinking. If I hadn’t shared last nights juice batch with my daughter this morning, I would have had plenty of juice to last until this evening. But I love sharing with my daughter and it’s nice to see her jump on the bandwagon and drink my juices too. She’s still eating her meals.

Since I had to make juice anyway, I made enough to fill two Ball jars. The orange juice is actually a sweet juice blend. Yes, a shocker for me but something I added yesterday when I was stopping a cold in it’s tracks. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post about that amazing story some time this week. The second juice is the juices I normally drink. Dark green vegetables. Hot peppers, garlic, and onions are in each jar. The green juice has much more so it’s extremely potent.  I didn’t need to make a third jar, since I’d already consumed a jar today. Three jars full of juice is enough to last me throughout the day.

Although it’s Day 8 of my Juice Cleanse, I’m still not hungry. I’m getting more than enough nutrients from the juices I consume. There’s no way I could eat the amount of produce I’m drinking on a daily basis. Sometimes I get bored with just drinking juice. Remember I love being creative in the kitchen. However I’m able to ease that boredom by continuing to prepare my daughter freshly made food daily. No, I don’t get tempted even though the food does smell great!

What I’ve noticed while drinking only juices

1. My skin is a lot clearer
2. The whites of my eyes are becoming clear
3. No white patches on my tongue
4. Heightened awareness
5. Clear nasal passages
6. Passed a lot of mucous in my bowel movements
7. Morning bowel movements occur about the same time daily
8. Softer skin – my skin is already soft

There are other things I’ve noticed and many of the ones I’ve mentioned above I’ve experienced on past juice cleanses.I’m looking forward to consuming juices for at least one more week…

This has been a very busy weekend for my daughter and me. I buy the food for our Lutheran’s church ministry at a local Homeless Shelter and so today after church you could find me going to Aldi’s, with daughter in tow, to pick up the items needed to create three meals. Dinner this evening is jambalaya, breakfast tomorrow (bacon & eggs), and bagged lunch assortment of meats, veggies, bread and water. Also fruit roll up snacks are added to their lunch.

Afterwards my daughter and I returned to church. It’s Kick-Off weekend for all the small groups we have at our church and to celebrate they were selling a variety of food. The money raised goes to support the various Small Group ministries at our church.  I’ve heard great things about their Pit Beef. I picked up some Pit Beef sandwiches for my daughter (Even though there’s plenty of yummy food at home) and we went home. Oh, I assisted with Sunday School too. We accomplished all of this before 11:30 a.m.

Yes, I’m still only drinking juices and I feel great! It’s going on seven days. Years ago, when I started doing them, I had a few people concerned about my health stating that they weren’t healthy. I asked them why, I’m drinking vegetables and fruit in a concentrated form? There’s no way I could consume the amount of produce that I do when juicing. Tell me how is that unhealthy?

• I’m in good health – not my words my health care provider
• I’m not taking any medication
• I already eat healthy so no worries about intense detox
• I mainly consume vegetables when I juice

They had no answer for me. I will say that I’ve received nothing but positive feedback at my health & wellness visits. Although already healthy, years ago, my health care practitioner commented on improvements when I’ve visited them shortly after a fast. The most notable comment came from my optometrist, he commented on my eye health. That was a few years ago. I told him that I’d been doing juice cleanses within the past few months. He was fascinated and wanted to no more. I must say, that was very refreshing to have someone within his field being open to alternate ways to improve ones health without the use of medication.

I’m starting day five of my juice cleanse and I’m feeling great.

Have I had a desire to eat? Yes briefly… that was yesterday evening, but I thought about it and realized that it was just a cravings and moved on. For those new drinking only juices or anyone that might have these issues I usually recommend that they assign a healthy “cheat food” so if they cave at least they are eating something healthy instead of binging on junk.  I usually recommend fruit. Years ago my “cheat food” was  grapes. I haven’t had to use a cheat food in years though. I don’t cave.

This morning I made a dark green juice drink. I took a picture, but didn’t have time to post. I love how it looked in the drinking glass. It’s dark green. I’ll post include it in a later post when I write about cleansing reactions I’ve experienced while doing this just fast.

As I already mentioned, when I do juice, my juices aren’t dominated by sweet fruits. It really makes no sense to me to keep loading my system with fruit heavy juice drinks even if it is naturally sweet. Consuming freshly prepared juices high in vegetable content is what I follow on my juice cleanses. If you look at My Pyramid, created by the Food & Drug Administration, you’ll notice that they recommend more vegetables than fruit.

My drink this morning…

Spicy Green Juice Drink

• 3 cups spinach
• 1 cup kale
• 3″ broccoli stalk
• 4 broccoli florets
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 lemon
• 1 small green tomato
• 1 small yellow onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• Combine everything into the juicer, drink and enjoy!

This isn’t a sweet drink, but it’s one of my favorite juiced drinks. I find that the lemon changes the taste of all the greens a bit. Also, lemons are very cleansing, and they’re a another great source of nutrients.

Well… I’m entering my third day of drinking freshly made vegetable and fruit juices, and I’m doing fine.

You’re not depriving yourself of nutrients since you’re receiving that in the juices that you prepare. The amounts of nutrients are increased significantly since produced is changed to a concentrated form – liquid. So while I am fasting from solids, the amount of nutrients I receive from consuming produce in a concentrated liquid form far exceeds what I could possibly consume by eating solid food.

In my comment section on the Juicing Adventure: Tons of Energy I received the following comment…

suituapui says:

September 10, 2013 at 7:36 pm

No solids, just this juice? You don’t get hungry? I really should try as well…
suituapui recently posted..Remember me…

I will say that I’d love to see what suituapui would whip up with juices or smoothies. The food he shares, on his site, looks very tantalizing. I imagine he’d be whipping up some awesome juice concoctions fairly quickly.

Regarding the hunger issue…

If I remember to drink my juice I’m not hungry. I did forget yesterday and felt a few hunger pangs but that was easily remedied by drinking one of my juice blends. I will say that results may vary. I don’t overeat and when I do eat solid foods the foods I eat are very similar to what I juice.

But you don’t have to make a massive switch and drink only juices if it’s something you’ve never done I always encourage people to take baby steps. Replace one meal with juice only and gradually build from there.

This morning I’m sipping on a very spicy drink. The hot peppers make it extremely spicy.

What am I drinking this morning

• 2 cups of collards
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 medium red apple
• 1 small yellow onion
• 1 jalapeño pepper
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1″ ginger
• Feed everything into the juicer
• Enjoy

Warning, most juices I make aren’t usually sweet. In fact, some of them are bitter. I like them that way. However if you want to check out some recipes that have added sweetness, check out Joe Cross’s Juice Cleanse Recipes.  The have a natural sweetness to them some of  the  produce used really bring out the natural sweetness of the juiced drinks.

If you haven’t watched it already check out Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It not only documents Joe Cross’s journey, but half way through it focuses on a truck driver who was tired of his physical condition (ailments and being overweight) and reached out to Joe, who was able to give him information and the moral support that he needed. It’s important to have that support.   Oh I forgot, there’s also a lady that did a ten day juice cleanse that’s included in the documentary. It seemed the main reason she did her cleanse was to help eliminate her migraines naturally…. it worked.

While my reasons for consuming only juice differs from the ones mentioned here, we share common desire to achieve a certain goal.  To be honest, I do take a break from solid foods several times yearly because I have seen the benefits of doing that. I’ve been doing them for years, and even though consuming only liquids is second nature from myself. I still am inspired by others who do the same thing. Regardless, documentaries such as this are truly inspiring.

Extending my juice cleanse by one week – Come join me!

I was planning on ending my fast this weekend, but several people (friends and acquaintances) have contacted me since I started posting about drinking only liquids so starting this coming Sunday I’ll be sure to post everything I eat. If you like, come join my juice only adventure.