Dreaming of Pizza

Food Network is not a good channel to watch if you are on a veggie-juice fast.

On the evening of our third day of fasting, we were hanging out as we usually do, after the kids went to bed and we thought we'd watch some Food Network shows on the computer.  We had already downed our third veggie drink for the day and although I didn't feel hungry since my stomach was full of green juice, I was pretty tired.

We decided to watch a show called "The History of Pizza" and that was a big mistake.  Images of pizza, with gooey cheese and shiny, meaty toppings continually flashed before our eyes, brainwashing us to believe that nothing could taste better in that moment than eating a slice of loaded, greasy goodness.

To cope with our cravings, we began to compose a list of all the foods that we wanted to eat when we were done our cleanse.  It includes: Fried Chicken, Thai Food, French Onion Soup, Pizza (of course), home-made cheeseburgers and maybe even cinnamon buns.

That night, as I tried to fall asleep, I was plagued with images of pizza slices and other fattening foods.  My stomach growled and I just wanted to pass out and sleep so I could begin to countdown another day.

Day 4 was uneventful, but there was a serious lag to my energy.  Gone was the excitement associated with "trying something new" and putting together combinations of green healthy vegetables to create a healthy veggie juice.  Instead, they all were tasting pretty much the same, the only difference being the degree of yucky-ness.  (Some were much more bitter and gag-reflex worthy!)

One of the things we were looking for in this fast was a sudden onslaught of "cleansing".  We had heard tales of people having some intensely gross bathroom moments during a cleanse, and wondered if we also would be participants.  Nothing abnormal resulted - other than a very green colored poop that reminded me of when my kids ate lots of blue icing at a birthday party - only we'd been eating green veggies, not artificially colored icing!
        
I didn't have any more headaches, and I didn't notice anything other than feeling weak.  However, we were counting the days and wondering whether it was profitable for us to continue to... well... starve ourselves.

Reaching Day 5 was certainly a milestone, but that day we began to review our reasons for doing a 7 day veggie-juice cleanse:

1. To blast our bodies with nutritious greens
2. To re-program our brains to desire healthy foods
3. To give our digestive systems a break

Aside from the physical benefits, the bonus is that there is always an enhanced spiritual aspect to fasting because you are denying your body and you are not stuffed with things which are "carnally" satisfying.  It often makes meditation, prayer and hearing from God much easier and was commonly practiced in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

As we looked at all of our reasons for doing this cleanse/fast, we concluded that the results had been accomplished.  Obviously our systems were cleared out.... we had both lost about 6-7 pounds and we no longer had symptoms of detoxing or cleansing as many sources suggested.  Therefore, we deemed it unlikely that we would benefit from the continued low energy - especially with 6 kids to take care of and my husband working full-time!  So towards the end of Day 5 we decided that instead of our usual "bedtime snack" juice of cucumbers, kale, celery, rapini, lemons and green apples, we would have a salad.  We basically were eating the same thing that we've been eating all along except we included a ripe avocado and a tomato.  I also made a simple balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

At first, chewing seemed a little bit foreign, but the flavors were incredible!  The natural fats in the avocado were overwhelming, and tasted so heavenly!  I was amazed how after just two small bowls of salad, my stomach felt full.  And I felt quite satisfied!

To transition out of the juice fast, we decided to spend the last 2 days eating a vegan diet (with no dairy, meat or grains) instead of juicing.  For one thing, it will help us get back into eating real food, and it will also keep us moving slow and steady with introducing things like dairy, grains and meat.

If anything, doing this cleanse awakened my taste buds to all the incredible flavors that are wholesome and natural - no need for processed, junky food!  It will be interesting to see how this will affect our diet longer term, but that's a topic for another blog posting!

Broccoli, Celery and Spinach, Oh My!

I've survived Day 3 of this green veggie juice fast.

 

I haven't chewed any food since early Saturday morning - and that was cucumber, celery and a green apple.  I'm getting used to the system of washing and assembling an enormous pile of vegetable matter, grinding it to a pulp, and then watching it swirl into a stainless steel bowl, looking all green and frothy like a small pond overpopulated with algae.

Then, it's "gulp, gulp, gag, gulp" and all the healthiness flows down into my empty tummy, filling me with nutrients and micro-nutrients and super-vitamins and all that good stuff...

So, just to let you know, both myself and my husband have had little in the way of side-effects as are commonly described while doing a detox.  Some people have horrible headaches, nausea and stomach issues.  However, at most, both of us feel rather tired and more weak... and I had a slight headache on the evening of the first day, and more-so on the second day.  I have experienced no explosive bowel movements (so far), although I'm told that my body could take it's time on that one, as my system "cleans out" and detoxifies.

We have both lost a bit of weight - around 5-6 pounds each.  Whether that is actual body mass, or water weight, or shall we say "built up, undesirable sludge" - I'm not exactly sure.  But to be clear, neither of us went into this fast with "weight loss" on our list of priorities.  It's far more about a resting time for our digestive systems, a re-boot of our cravings and desires, and a re-tuning of our taste-buds to desire healthier foods.

I don't really feel hungry.  I might think of food, and feel a craving - and worse than that, if I'm making some food for my kids (like pizza), I end up salivating a lot and dreaming of when this journey will be complete.  But, for the most part, setting aside food for a few days has not been difficult.  I actually feel quite full when I've drank my 16 ounces of broccoli, celery, spinach, lemon, and cucumber juice.

The worst of it is the tiredness which has me heading to bed extra early, and wanting to nap in the afternoon.  When my head hits the pillow, visions of sugarplums (or maybe chocolate truffles, pizza and fried chicken - heck, even just a slice of bread) dance in my head.

Only 4 more days...

Shock The System

Day 1 of the Veggie-Juice Cleanse

Last night I said farewell to some of my friends: meat, chocolate, sugar.... it may only be for a week (possibly more) but I knew that the next day, my brain and emotions would be crying for these so I had to indulge a little!

We spent the night out of town, so we didn't begin to juice first thing in the morning.  Instead, we munched on half a cucumber, 2 stalks of celery and a green apple.  Those are all ingredients that would be common in our Green Detox juices, so we figured eating them whole would be a good transition to our juice fast.

What is crazy, is the amount of time it takes to chew raw food!  It took me from the edge of Calgary to Nanton to just eat my cucumber and celery! (That's a good 85km drive!)  I'm glad we're going to be juicing our ingredients because we will be eating a much larger amount of veggies for each meal!

When we got home, I made the kids some cheese toast with ketchup and found myself salivating as I cut the cheddar cheese.  It's amazing how your body basically tells you "EAT THAT! Put it in your mouth now because you'll starve if you don't eat it!!!"  Obviously, I'm not about to starve.  In fact, I'm sure I'll eat some cheese in the not too distant future. However, the way humans had to forage and work so hard to cultivate food for many millennium has been radically altered in the past 100 years with industrialization.  We have so much food available, for so cheap, that anyone can become obese.  Fat is no longer a luxury.  Fat is commonplace.  But I think our bodies might still have those instincts of eating what is readily available because of how life used to be.  It really isn't normal for us to have so many calories within our reach.

Anyway, back to the juice cleanse.  We went shopping for a couple day's worth of veggies and fruits and filled the cart with green stuff.  I think we bought an amount of veggies and fruit that would normally take our family 2-3 weeks to eat (not a few days!).  Sorry, the color is off in this photo, but that is what our shopping cart looked like!

At home we washed and assembled all of the ingredients.  We are using what are supposedly the official recipes used by Joe Cross from the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead".  Within moments, we had the juicer whizzing and buzzing and super green juice was pouring into a stainless steel bowl. 

Mean Green Juice #1

6 Kale Leaves
1 Cucumber
4 Celery Stalks
2 Green Apples
1/2 Lemon
1 piece of ginger

We dove right in, gulping down the unfamiliar mixture.  It tasted fresh, peppery, grassy, with a very slight apple flavor.  I have to admit that it was pretty hard to drink.  We doubled the recipe and it gave us each 24 ounces of juice.  I think next time we'll do the recipe just one and a half times the ingredients to give us about 16 ounces each.


Within moments, and I don't know if it was psychological, but my stomach began to feel really gassy and bloated.  For one thing, I was drinking a lot of liquid, but the other thing that probably was shocking my system was the intense amount of fresh nutrients and vitamins.  I almost felt like I might throw up, but I finished it off so we could lay down and have a nap during the kids' afternoon quiet-time.

We still need to drink a couple more juices today... mmm... dinner and bedtime snack!  I've noticed today that I feel okay, maybe a little tired and headachey, but still mostly normal.  We also weighed ourselves to get a starting point and see how this juice cleanse affects us.  Oh... and instead of coffee, I permitted myself a green tea this afternoon.  Going off caffeine cold-turkey is just too much!  At least this way, I am getting far less caffeine and, of course I'm not adding any cream to my green tea.

Veggie-Porn

My husband and I have been watching a lot of veggie-porn lately.
You know... the kind of stuff where rich, dark soil is cradling a bright orange carrot as it grows happily in the sunlight...  where cauliflower comes in not just white, but shades of green and purple.  And there is always a happy looking farmer, often with his wife and kids, in the rows of vegetables, plucking weeds and lovingly tending their produce.  Then the camera will pan to a chubby toddler with bare toes wiggling in the dirt, and he will be eating a gorgeous, vividly red, ripe tomato - juices and seeds dripping down his chin.

Veggie-porn is the bane of "northern" hobby-gardeners.  For three months of the year, we toil, and attempt to eek a meager, limited harvest from our dry, clay-filled soil; in a climate that is limited in the number of days that a human - let alone a tender young plant - can exist outdoors.  So my hubby and I look to the documentaries on Netflix, typically about sustainable-organic, small-time farmers, and we sigh with envy at the lush greenery in more Eden-istic climates.

One particular documentary was both enlightening and challenging.  "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" wasn't specifically about farming, but about the value of vegetables and fruit and eating a more "raw" diet.  I featured a 40 year old Australian businessman, who was inactive, overweight and battling some rather debilitating health issues involving his immune system.  To make a long story short, he embarked on a 60 day juice fast, to investigate whether feeding his body the micro-nutrients (from raw veggies) that it needed would bring restoration within his body system, allowing his body to heal itself.

As you may very well guess, he lost a lot of weight, improved his energy levels, and was able to completely stop taking medication.  I have to admit, that he looked really amazing, too.  Within days you could tell that his skin was clearer, his eyes brighter, and he literally glowed - looking so alive and healthy.

So... last night my husband looked over at me, and said "What do you think about maybe trying a..."

and before the words could come out of his mouth, I completed the sentence: "Juice fast?!?!"

I was somewhat surprised at his willingness, but then again, we've always been quite adventurous and conscientious of our health - doing our best to take responsibility for how we feel and not jumping on the bandwagon of doing what everyone else does... just because.  We cook from scratch - nearly all the time, and don't eat out very often.  We have a garden, and several times we have grown herbs, wheatgrass and even attempted tomatoes with our own little grow-op in the basement during the winter.

A juice fast or cleanse, however, is something that I've thought about doing for a long time, but it has never been convenient to do.  I've always had my excuses, and they have been valid - 12 years of non-stop pregnancy and breastfeeding can really put a demand on your body.  All the more reason to "re-boot" my body with a super-dose of life-giving greens!

So, we are going to do this crazy juice fast together - all veggies, limited amounts of fruit and no bread, no meat, no sweets... and no coffee!!! (The latter part really scares me!)

What do I hope to gain? For one thing, both my husband and I would like to experience an increase in both energy and mental alertness.  Secondly, from what I learned on the documentary "Food Matters", people who improve their intake of certain vitamins can improve their overall mood and even combat depression.  I'm not saying that I am an unhappy, depressed person, however I would love to feel happier! (This goes hand in hand with the energy levels, I'm sure.)

Last of all, is what I hope to lose, not gain, and that is weight, toxins, and built up "sludge" that might be trapped in my body and slowing me down!  On "Food Matters", there was a religiously dedicated raw-food enthusiast who told of a relative who embarked on a raw-food cleanse. This overweight individual apparently had a lot of "junk" to clear out of his system.  Apparently, eating only green and fresh veggies can have a cleansing effect, causing a massive increase in bowel movements.  Several days into the cleanse, this person apparently had a total of 12 bowel movements and lost 15 pounds in a single day!  Egad!  Talk about extreme cleansing....

The plan is to start our cleanse tomorrow afternoon/evening.  We'll shop for our veggies earlier in the day and have a delicious, nutritious supper of kale, broccoli, ginger, green apple, celery....etc., etc.

Here's hoping I can battle my mind and body and become a happy, healthy herbivore - if only for a week or two!

For further information, check out the following websites:

http://myjuicecleanse.com/

http://www.jointhereboot.com/