48 Day Raw Food Cleanse: Day 16-- Breaking the Juice Fast

Hey guys...so we broke the juice fast today after completing 15 days! We broke the fast with prunes that we soaked overnight, which was a good, gentle choice for waking up our digestive system. First we drank the soak water and followed it up with our first prune. Below is a picture of us "cheers"-ing our prunes before we officially broke the fast. :) We each had our own jar of prunes (9 ounces of prunes each) but neither of us has been able to finish our jar so far. There may be a few left for tomorrow.

My energy today has been excellent...got a lot done and my focus has been so clear. This evening, I've been putting together recipes and plans for our future raw food meals--so excited! For the next couple of days, we'll be staying away from nuts and seeds to keep from overwhelming our systems... but I have lots of other ideas to work around that!

So... after completing 15 days of just juice, how do we feel? We both feel pretty great! I lost 10 pounds of unwanted fat and David lost around 16. I have no more headaches and as I said before, all of my medical issues have virtually disappeared! Also, I have not mentioned this before but I'm sure a lot of females will be interested in this. I had my period during the fast, which was normal in every way except for one little (big) detail: I had no menstrual cramps whatsoever! First time in my LIFE that has happened! I'm sure as we continue with the raw food, we'll be seeing and feeling other positive changes, and I'll keep you posted!

Ciao!

Kelly

Juice Fast Day 14: Apple Blood Orange Juice & Chard Green Juice

 

Welcome to the end of day 14 of our juice fast. David is just getting home from playing basketball and I've been sitting here working on plans for breaking our fast the day after tomorrow.

Feeling good right now but definitely looking forward to getting a punch of energy from whole raw foods. Nevertheless, I am still mixing it up with the juices! I'll start with the fun one... I discovered some blood oranges at  the grocery store yesterday and decided to pick up a bag and experiment with it.

Easy recipe for 32 ounces=  6 blood oranges and 1 Red Delicious apple

The next recipe is a green juice with a nice hint of sweetness to balance out the bitterness of Swiss Chard.

What to juice: 1 bunch Swiss Chard, 2 cucumbers, 1 lemon, and 1 Red Delicious apple.

I also made a Romaine/lemon/cucumber/Granny Smith apple mixture that is nice. It has a pretty cool lime green color...wish I had gotten a picture of it.

That's all for now...see you on day 15!

Kelly

Day 13: Why Our 48 Day Juice Fast is Changing to a 48 Day Juice Fast/Raw Food Project

Hi all! David and I are closing out the 13th day of our fast!

...But we have made a decision. We are shortening our 48 day juice fast project. We had been considering doing this for the past couple of days for a few reasons:

1. I recovered completely from my health problems, and that was the goal!
2. Even with supplementation, we no longer feel like we are thriving on the fast. Energy has been mostly down the past couple of days and we have been feeling lightheaded...some may say this is due to detox but this feeling is affecting our productivity , which we cannot afford owning our own business.
3. We believe that since we are at a healthy weight at this point and feeling well, we can finish out our cleanse effectively with a 100% raw food diet until the end of Lent.
4. Green juices are starting to taste bad to us. This has never happened to me, but I feel like this is my body telling me to add something or make a change.

So, after some prayer and thought today, along with a talk with a couple of our friends who have done long term juice fasting in the past, we decided to change our plan.

We will juice fast until day 15, meaning we'll break the fast on Thursday. The remainder of the 48 days, we will be eating an all raw vegan diet (raw fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds). This is still a challenge, since we both love our cooked food and we will be seriously healing our bodies with all raw sustenance.

This decision, by the way, does not mean that you can't do a longer fast if it feels right... 48 days just did not turn out to be right for us at this time. I really struggled with this idea at first, because I felt like I was kind of failing at the juice fast. I also didn't want to let hopeful peeps in the blogosphere down...but when it comes down to it, I need to think about achieving optimum health for my body. So I guess you could say there is a good lesson in this experience thus far: PAY ATTENTION TO CUES FROM YOUR BODY!

Hope you still follow and enjoy. After my next two juicy updates, I'll be sharing how we break the fast and look out for some awesome rawsome recipes after the fast is successfully broken! :)

Kelly

48 Day Juice Fast: Day 12 & Tangerine Plum Dream Juice Recipe

Happy Sunday, everyone! David and I are officially 1/4 of the way through our juice fast!

The past couple of days have been pretty good. David is finally over his hump and feeling great with much less cravings. My last weigh in was yesterday morning and I was at 128 lbs...a few more pounds and I'll be at the weight I was when I got married. David told me I actually look a lot in my build and face like I did when we first started dating in 2006 (although I was almost 15 lbs lighter then than I am right now...but my weight distribution looks much healthier than it used to). Mind you, the main reasons I am doing this are for lent and to clear up pain and health problems that have been plaguing me. The weight/fat loss is a nice bonus though. :)

Last night David and I went out to dinner (at Cracker Barrel) with my family to celebrate my grandmother's 86th birthday. Almost everyone at the table had grilled fish and sides included mashed potatoes, green beans and some kind of apple cobbler. I was craving the biscuits a little bit but David and I sat and watched them eat with the juice we brought. It was a lot easier than the last time we did a no eating dinner with a group. David said the only thing he even was craving at the table was the salad!

So I've been working on mixing up the combinations to keep our fast interesting. My latest experiment was this morning with some plums and a half a bag of tangerines I got yesterday.  I decided to call the juice Tangerine Plum Dream.

Tangerine Plum Dream Juice (Yields 4 cups)

5-6 tangerines
2 plums

Juice all, strain through a strainer or nut milk bag if you like (I strained mine) and drink! This stuff tastes awesome, by the way. It ranks right up there with the Sunshine in a Glass juice.

I also picked up some red grapes, peaches, romaine lettuce and a lemon plum yesterday so there will be more experiments to come.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Kelly

48 Day Juice Fast: Day 10-- New Juice Discoveries, Spirulina & What Else Do You Want to Know?

We're in the double digits today! I'm actually closing out the day with some coconut water. After I got my work done today, I headed to Juices Wild. I grabbed some MSM caplets and a couple of young Thai coconuts. While there, I tried a couple new juice combos. The first one was peach/apple/orange mixed with a little aloe vera juice, which was great. Then I tried cucumber/kiwi/peach. Loved this one--really refreshing and filling combination.

So, David has been hating the chlorella supplementation (it is very strong due to it's very high chlorophyll content). I asked Dan at Juices Wild about this and he suggested trying Spirulina instead. He gave me a couple of samples of Pure Hawaiian Spirulina Pacifica brand spirulina to take home and try, since I've never actually had spirulina. It really is a lot lighter on the palate and David liked it better.
If you are unfamiliar with the health benefits of spirulina, check them out in this video:

Thus far, I've been sharing what comes to mind along the way with this juice fast...but I'm curious as to what you guys want to know about this journey. If you feel so inclined, please comment this time with questions you want addressed and I'll give it my best shot in future posts. ;)

Today we enjoyed watermelon/lime juice, kale/cabbage/apple/lemon/cucumber juice, carrot/apple/ginger juice and as I mentioned earlier, the two awesome combinations from Juices Wild.

Day 10 is done! See you next time!

Kelly

48 Day Juice Fast: Day 9-- Getting Enough Water & Other Provisions

Day 9! I'm very excited to be at this point in our 48 day juice fast and am very pleased to find that it's becoming more and more effortless! To make things better, the weather is warm and gorgeous today!

I weighed myself this morning and at 129 lbs I'm officially back in the 120s! I haven't been in the 120s since 2009 (when I actually ate healthy). I still have some excess fat to lose and tone up but overall I'm looking thin and fit! David has always looked fit but had gained weight in his face and that is all gone now!

We cracked open a young Thai coconut last night and drank a bunch of the water. It was so yummy and I think my body really needed the electrolytes because it was the best thing ever to me. I stored what was leftover in the fridge (that coconut yielded 20 ounces of coconut water--crazy) and  I am drinking some more as we speak--so good! If you've never had water fresh from a young Thai coconut, go out and get one now-- you'll be amazed! And if you are on a juice fast, especially long term, it has been recommended in a lot of my research to drink it in order to avoid  electrolyte depletion.

So here's the only real problem I've been having on this juice fast, and it's kind of the problem I have in everyday life anyway. I keep forgetting to drink enough water. Since I'm drinking juice all the time anyway, it doesn't occur to me...but then I wake up with dry lips and dry mouth and it's clear. David has had a problem with this too. So, I'm trying something today: I have four 32 ounce mason jars and am filling them with water each day, labeling them accordingly. We'll see how this goes. :)

So far today, I've had one 16 ounce jar of watermelon/cucumber/mint juice, about 4 ounces of coconut water and I'm now getting started on 16 ounces of carrot/beet/ginger juice. :)

Ta ta for now!

Kelly

48 Day Juice Fast: Day 8 & Watermelon Cucumber Mint Cooler Recipe

It's day 8! 40 days left! David and I feel great. My food cravings have left me for the most part but not David. Part of David's job requires him to go to restaurants and be around people eating so that may be part of the reason the cravings have been harder for him. He also hates chlorella (I mix chlorella powder with 2 glasses of distilled water every day for each of us to drink). He says it tastes gross, but I've always loved the taste of chlorella. He has always had extremely different tastes for food than me (for example, dessert wise, he generally loves light/ fruity and I love savory).

I have been keeping my physical activity down for the most part but I am thinking about starting some yoga since my energy is up a lot more. David played basketball last night though.

Today I am really in a springy/summery hopeful mood (even though the weather is dreary) so I decided to have some watermelon. I made a combination that I love. I call it the Watermelon Cucumber Mint Cooler. 

Here's what yields 32 ounces:

1/4 watermelon
1 cucumber
3-4 sprigs of organic mint

Juice it all and you've got a very refreshing spring (or anytime) juice treat!

I bought an entire watermelon for this, so I only used half of it and stored the rest in the fridge. I'm drinking some now, and have stored away one 16 ounce jar and one 32 ounce jar to enjoy with David later.

What I had today before the cooler: kale/cucumber/lemon/green apple juice (16 oz.) and orange/grapefruit/lemon sunshine in a glass juice (16 ounces). If you want the sunshine in a glass recipe, you can get it in my guest blog over here at the screendoor diaries blog.

See you on day 9!

Kelly