May 2013: Just Juice Day 5 of 5!

Finished my fast today at 1pm.. a little early, but I was DONE.

I weighed in at 99.8 this morning.  Today I had two pieces of apple pie, so I won't be weighing that tomorrow.  And, I don't much care. LOL.

A 5 day fast is not difficult to break.  I did forget my stomach has shrunk and ate a bit too much at dinner.  Actually, it was the amount I would normally eat, but felt like too much after a 5 day juice fast.

It's so funny to me that this 5 day fast was probably the hardest of all!  Stop back Sept. 1 when I plan to do my next fast.  Most likely another 5 day-er.

May 2013: Just Juice Day 4 of 5

Still starving!  I think this time has been hard because the weather is dreary, I am home alone with the kids and there's nothing to do but sit around, put together puzzles, play connect four, and watch bananas in pajamas.  That would make you want to turn to food too!!

I can't wait for tomorrow!!  Apple pie is on the menu.  Nice thing about a 5 day fast is that it shouldn't be too hard to break it.  A banana after church, then if I feel okay, a salad for dinner followed by pie for dessert.  Just a small piece. :-)

I'm also looking forward to catching up on facebook.  I have peeked at facebook occasionally, but refrained from using it personally.  Even with blogger I can post to facebook without USING facebook.

This morning's weight was 100.2

May 2013: Just Juice Day 3 of 5

Today was just wrong on so many levels.  Would you look at this????

Yes, my very very sweet neighbor just happened to have an "extra" one of these laying around and he just happened to bring it by while I am in the middle of a stinking juice fast!

I was already feeling weak in the will power department.  Mark is out of town so I bought the kids pizza for dinner.  It looked and smelled delicious.  Then the kids had ice cream for dessert... my mouth was watering.  Then a few minutes later the pie was brought to my door.  UGH UGH UGH!

But this illustrates a great fact.  It's so easy to forget that there will always be more pizza, more ice cream, more pie.  I am lucky enough to be able to get any of the three pretty much whenever I want.  It's okay to pass it up sometimes.  There is always more.

This is my 5th extended juice fast, if you add them all together I have fasted 36+ days and today was by far the hardest.  I really really wanted to EAT!  But I didn't.  And I won't.  Because if I do it once it will be all over for me.  It will be that much harder to stick with it the next time.  For me the hardest part of sticking to a fast is not the physical, it's the psychological.  And you can bet I am keeping a piece of this pie for Sunday!!!  YUM.

Morning weight was 100.6.

May 2013: Just Juice Day 2 of 5

Today I was my last day of school for the semester.  I had a final today so I didn't get to make juice until after 12.  Made 3.5 cups of my usual combo.  Then for dinner I made this warmed "spaghetti" juice (pictured below).  It's a lot like a tomato soup.  It's really good.  

One thing I love about juice fasting is how well my nose smells food from a mile away.  This used to be difficult, and would make me want to give in and eat.  Now I just enjoy the heightened sense of smell.  Just like everything tastes good when you are hungry, it smells good too!

My weight this morning was 101.8.  I might break into the 90's this fast.  Remember I am super short, so that is not really a big deal.  I always weighed 97-99, while eating anything I wanted, when I was nursing Katie and Luke.  Gotta love breastfeeding!!

If you have never fasted, I highly recommend you do a short fast just to see that hunger doesn't kill you.  It is really important to stop telling ourselves that feeling hungry is something to be avoided at all costs. Did you know that experts say most of us could go up to two months without food and live?  A day or two is certainly not going to hurt any healthy person.  

One of my goals now that I am at an ideal weight is to work on gaining muscle.  I plan to get back to the gym now that life has calmed down a bit.  Now hold me accountable. HAHA.

May 2013: Just Juice Day 1 of 5

This morning I was off and running so there was no time to make juice until around 11am.  This is not a big deal since I typically do not eat breakfast anyway.  I used to always eat breakfast, but after my very first juice fast in April 2012 I never went back to eating it.  When I was eating breakfast I used to always wake up hungry.  Now I don't typically get hungry until around 10am.  

Let me just stop right here and say that if you have believed that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" or "you should never skip breakfast" or some other such nonsense... just google something like "never skip breakfast myth" and read up.  Besides.. what do most people eat for breakfast... most likely something loaded with CARBS and SUGAR.  The absolute worst thing to start your day.  If instead you skip breakfast, your body takes a nice meal from your own fat tissue.  Win-Win.

Anyway, I had already had a couple glasses of water and a cup of coffee (I drink coffee when I am juicing... it helps me get through and keeps me from getting massively cranky) before I remembered to weigh myself.  I don't typically weigh more than once every week or two, so I am not in the habit.  I weighed 104.0 pounds exactly.

Around 11am I made juice: 1 cucumber, 1 rib celery, 2 huge handfuls of spinach, 2 carrots, 2 apples and 2 handfuls of strawberries.  This gave me 3 cups of juice.  In my opinion strawberries make everything taste good.  If you use strawberries add them to your juicer last, because the seeds will clog the screen and you will yield less juice on anything put in after them.

This is what my juice looked like today.  So interesting how it formed in layers with the strawberry juice in the middle.  I shook it up before drinking.

So because today was crazy I only drank 3 cups of juice.  I would have made 1.5 to 2 cups "spaghetti juice" but I just didn't have time until after 7:30 and by then I was too tired to want to do all the clean up involved.  I did drink plenty of water, and hopefully tomorrow will be better!