Day 17, Leap Year Day and P90X

So today is Day 17 and still going strong. I went to a local gym today and was handing out free samples of wheatgrass and smoothies.

I have decided that my new goal is going to do P90X...it will have to start Monday since I am heading out of town Friday for the weekend...perhaps I will try tomorrow as my first day...

At any rate, Monday will be Day 22, so I will post a "before" photo for starting P90X and we will have as a goal BUILDING muscle on a raw vegan JUICE FEAST.  I am averaging 6% of my calories protein, so it should be interesting to see what the results will be...(I think I know what they will be, but here will be living proof).

At any rate, I am looking forward to the challenge. :)

Day 16: Armchair Quarterbacks

Armchair quarterbacks. This world's full of 'em. It's so easy to sit on the sidelines and critique those out there actually "playing" life's game.

Day 16 brings me to my second day of HIIT (high intensity interval training) running. I am feeling GREAT.

I feel this happiness and unstoppable enthusiasm bubbling up inside of me, kinda like "I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to".

As I said in my last post, my longest fast ever was 22 days. I am on Day 16 now and have no desire to stop. I feel like all of my needs physically and emotionally are being filled by juice.

I love this. Dare I even say that it's EASY???

I am having so much fun and it's work in the sense of actually making the juices and cleaning the juicer, but other than that, it's make, pour, drink, clean, done.

Simple.

I can't wait to fast-forward until the end just to see where this takes me, not because I can't wait to eat, but the transformations have been exciting. Mostly mental. That's what I really appreciate. And yet those changes are the least "quantifiable" and sharable with other people.

They have to be experienced. No armchair quarterbacks allowed.

So, who's with me? Let's juice, baby. :)

Day 15: What is your "Why?"

Someone shared the above picture on Facebook today and I love it. It is so true. We all may change ourselves to fit the mould that we think someone else wants us to be or do, but in the end, if it doesn't come from within, it's gonna eventually peter out.

So what is my WHY for doing a juice fast this long?

Well, for one thing, the challenge of it. I've done water-only fasts before for 12 days and 16 days and one fast that lasted 22 days: the first seven days were juice only and that last 15 days were water.

I learned a lot about myself during those times and this time is no different. Actually, in many ways, it is.

I am amazed at how satisified I am and how joyously I look forward to my juice. I almost am not looking forward to going back to eating.

The chewing, the chopping, the digesting of it. I love the simplicity of the juice and I love the variety of it. I love the satiation of it. I am just really loving it.

I am also noticing how detached I am from the "eating world" and how not jealous I am of them. In fact, I'm rather disgusted and feel rather sorry for them that they are missing out on what I am experiencing.

I am looking at all food so differently now and realize how vitally important hydration is and how dehydrated I was when I was eating before even when I was 100% raw. I never drank water because I was never thirsty, but now I realize a lot of my "hunger pangs" were actually cries for water and for nutrients.

Now that I'm getting BOTH as well as superb taste, I am TOTALLY SATISFIED. Even without fiber. It is  a very strange yet wonderful experience.

Today I made myself the "pizza juice" recipe. At first it didn't taste so good, but I played around with the recipe a bit and finally came up with a very italian-tasting juice. And Garlic breath.

I also had another first: I bought some guava at the store and juiced those. I added in some fennel and that was a very unique and refreshing juice. I then added in a blood orange, mango, romaine lettuce, celery and kiwis and had a very tropical-tasting juice. Again, I felt rich. I relished this "dinner" and loved every sip.

I had my produce guy tell me I was getting skinny and expressed concern about my desire to go for 90 days. My boss also was a little concerned, I could tell. I assured both of them that I was taking in 2000 calories a day and tracking all my nutrients in Cron-o-meter to make sure I was getting 100% daily of everything I need.

I even went running this morning and did intervals and then worked for 6 hours non-stop while on my feet all the time making smoothies, sandwiches and juices for customers as it was a very busy day and then went to a fruit tree pruning class in the evening and then came home and studied for my NH degree. No shortage of energy here!

I hope that my enthusiasm for this process is contagious and inspiring your own inner "fire" of motivation to test out the juicy waters. I have decided to help coach people through this process as it is so incredibly life changing that I desire everyone to experience it.

You can sign up here: http://www.thefruitdoctor.com/Juiceology.html and I create private groups or one-on-one sessions to track your nutrients and give you feedback and encouragement.

Stay tuned for pictures as I continue on this journey. My main goal at this point is improve my eyesight and some other health conditions and to change body composition mainly to gain some muscle while losing some body fat. I want to show that a person doesn't need tons of protein in their diet to gain healthy muscle and that all of that is just a myth perpetrated by the meat and dairy lobbyists as well as protein-powder supplement industry.

We can get all we need from fresh fruits and vegetables and their juices. :)

Two weeks down, Ten to go! And pizza JUICE????

If you can't relate to the above picture, then you are dehydrated. I can't say that I'm peeing constantly, but I definitely have noticed this last week the mental note I've had to make to myself "you better go now otherwise you're not gonna be able to think if you continue doing what you are doing".

Today is my two week juice feast anniversary and I feel great. I don't miss eating at all and am still finding amazing recipes to try. I am so bummed that kiwis are so expensive as they are SO high in selenium which only broccoli is the other juicing item that I know that has as much and uh, well, kiwi's taste a lot better than broccoli. ;)

At any rate, someone posted this juice recipe that sounds amazing that I gotta try now after I get me an eggplant. I make a raw pizza like this, but I never considered making a JUICE out of it:

PIZZA JUICE

1 small Egg Plant
4 medium tomatoes
4 basil leaves
4 cloves garlic (to taste)
Toppings: Be creative
1 medium Onion
1 Red Peppers
2 chili peppers (remove seeds , or leave in for heat)

Finally, juicy peeps, here is a large inspiration on why I do raw foods and juice feasts. This woman is amazing and I hope to be like her in 30 years....(she's 70 now and looks just as divine as in this video)

And lastly, another great smoothie to try when I am back to "eating land":

Purple Green and Gold  Smoothie
vegan, serves 2

yellow/gold layer:

1 large banana
4-6 dashes turmeric (for color)

purple layer:

1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 banana

green layer:

1/3 cup baby spinach
1 large kiwi, peeled (a chilled kiwi works best)
3/4 cup apple juice
1 dash cayenne
pinch of fresh ginger, peeled/chopped (optional)

Directions:

You will need to blend each layer separately – a high speed blender like a Vitamix works best.
Start with the yellow layer. Blend. Pour into a glass and set aside in freezer until ready for it.
Then blend the green layer (no blender rinsing needed). Pour and set aside.
Lastly, blend the purple layer.
Pour the purple layer into your serving glass first.
Followed by the green layer. Pour slowly.
Yellow to top it off.
You may have some extra of the yellow layer. Drink as you please!

Day 13: Kiwi/Honeydew/Peach/cucumber Juice and The Fruit Doctor

Day 13 saw a LOT of activity. I had some friends over that I had loaned my copy of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead to and let them taste two of my juices that I made and they said they had started juicing.

I also tried a new juice recipe: kiwi, honeydew melon, cucumber and peaches. YUM. :)

I also have launched my new business and website: http://www.thefruitdoctor.com/ and am officially in business.

What are my offerings?

Well, for one, I am a juice feast coach. I will offer private groups as well as one-on-one coaching for juice feasts providing daily recipes, and daily support as well as nutritional tracking so each person knows that they are getting all the daily nutrition that they need.

Also, I went to a class where we learned which plants to start indoors to grow for this year as well as how to grow them. I have a passion for organic gardening and will be writing some e-books and making some DVD's showing you how to grow your own food.

I also will help as a raw vegan coach for those wanting to heal from an illness as well as those wanting to transition from a SAD diet or ending a juice feast onto healthier eating.

A very new offering is Laughterology: how to boost your immune system by deep breathing, laughter and triggering the positive chemicals in your body through laughter, hope, faith and a strong purpose for living.

Lastly, I am offering fitness programs that you can watch in the comfort of your own home from P90X, Fitness Jam and others.

I am excited about this suite of offerings as I feel it's a comprehensive lifestyle that builds health.

As time goes on, I purpose to build an organic food co-op here locally that offers organic produce at reduced costs.

I want to share this love and fruity lifestyle with as many people as I know so that they, too, can feel this same joy that I do.

Day 11: Breaking Through the Barriers

The woman in the red bathing suit above is 80 and a Bikram yoga instructor. Bam! Breaking through the age barrier!

I love showing what "can't" be done.

And I'm humbled by my own mental barriers that I still have.

And yet I'm excited by how I daily smash them. Ones given to me by imperfect and wounded parents who gave me a bag of fears and lies that gradually one day at a time I am handing back as not useful to me anymore.

I am loving who I am becoming more and more. Really feeling comfortable in my own skin.

AND, I keep daily checking that Marilyn Monroe/Albert Einstein photo I posted a week ago and day by day Albert keeps appearing more and more and I can't focus on Marilyn. :)

This juicy journey has been so enjoyable. I am learning new recipes and thoroughly enjoying my juice. When I get hungry, I drink more juice and I am fine. I go to work and get done what needs to get done, no fancy resorts I need to go to, no expensive out lay, just juice, juice, and juice. And it's even not that time-consuming either compared to preparing your food meal if you make a dish that's got a food processor and blender that you need to use to prepare stuff. I love the simplicity and the joy that is vibrating through me of looking forward to my next juice.

My favorites right now:

butternut/carrot/orange

pineapple/parlsey/cucumber/romaine

carrot/apple/lemon/beet

tomato/chive/carrot/celery/cilantro/lime

fennel

Thanks to all of you who keep sharing your luscious recipes with me. They are opening my eyes to new vistas daily.

I want a juice that uses mangoes or blueberries. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

I am excited about this journey 11 days in and looking forward to a trip I'm taking to Northern California soon for some  R&R. Just called TSA and I can bring my juicer on the plane with me. So I'm good to go!

It's not always all about the Food....

As I close out my 10th day of juice feasting, I received some sad news: an acquaintance of mine died suddenly of a heart attack in their late 50's. They were married for 30 years and had 3 grown children.

As I remember their personality, I remember that they were definitely what you would consider Type A. I also remember reading somewhere that being prematurely grey is an early indicator of heart disease. They were prematurely grey. So were a lot of other acquantances who were what I would consider type A personalities.

I also remember the dietary habits of the whole family. They had a family recipe for cheesecake that was so good that they were able to sell it to a local restaurant...

But mostly, I reflect on the high-stress, rat race lifestyle of the area that they live in....the same area has produced a death from a friend who was 50 from breast cancer, leaving behind grown children and a spouse of many years....Another man in his 40's who died suddenly in his sleep. I remember his "go, go, go" personality and we used to joke about it. He was like a streak he was constantly moving so fast.

Then there was another man died in his 60's from a heart attack....and yet another woman who died in her late 50's from a brain tumor..just after seeing her daughter get married. She was  a Go, go, go, person right up until her passing. She could not relax and rest. She had to be doing something all the time.

I am humbled as I reflect back on all of this becaue I realize that while I eat healthy, I don't always manage stress well and often am a "go, go, go" person, too. AND THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.

The Okinawans in Japan have one of the greatest longevity records of centenarians in the world and while their diets play a large part (they eat very little animal foods and grow a lot of their own foods in their own gardens), they do not live slavishly by the clock and have great social networks to support one another.

I am also reading a book written by Norman Cousins, who used laughter therapy to heal himself from a very serious connective tissue disease. In it, he talks about psychoneuroimmunology--the mind/body connection of how our feelings affect our health. He presents very powerful evidence in that book on how our brains release chemicals into our bodies based on our emotions that powerfully affect our immune, nervous and hormonal systems.

I think there are some very calm people who eat junk all their lives but due to good stress management manage to live long lives and defy all the health food rules.

Then there are athletes who burn out at an early age due to burning both cylinders at both ends despite being very fit.

And finally, there are those who meticulously watch their diets but are angry, panicky, worrisome and stressed out and don't get the health results they want.

We need JOY and CALM in our lives and we need LOVE.

These are equally as important as what we eat. Vitamin J (joy) , Vitamin M (mellow) and Vitamin H (hugs) should be added to our daily recommended nutrients that we take in each day.

However, food does play a role and how we manage our emotions plays a part in which foods we are drawn too. If we are calm, we usually reach for more healthy foods, while when we are stressed, we go for refined carbohydrates, alcohol, sugar and chocolate to calm ourselves down. And those who already have even-tempers DO need to watch what they eat--they are not immune to eating a animal food based diet and junk food. Norman Cousins, while he survived, did get a heart attack while in his 70's.

So a good diet with a good inner attitude is a winning combination for JOY, longevity and good health.

While I keep juicing, I am going to focus on my thoughts during the day, letting go of worry, not letting hassles get to me, and being kinder to myself and others. I will stretch more, breath more, slow down more, criticize myself less and just let go more.

All of this is in memory of you, friend. Rest in peace until we meet again.Thank you for this gift in helping me to see myself in you and having the time to change...

Do Not Play Small

Today's post is a little personal vent on the negativity of other people. I know some people who have been juicing like I am and they shared that they lost their best friend when they lost weight and started to improve their life.

When I heard that my heart sank. Why should anyone have to lose a friendship, with all the time and memories invested in it, when one starts to improve one's self????

I also got online and was reading some posts that other's had put up that were rather discouraging as well. 

I decided that some peopleneed to be likened to radio stations: sometimes we need to change the channel until we find the right frequency, the right vibe. Change can be scary since we have to grieve the loss, but we also have to have faith that there will be new, positive people to fill the void.

This, my friends, is what keeps people in their addictions: toxic social connections to toxic people who are going nowhere with their lives and are stuck in fear and will try to convince you that that is your life sentence, too.

It's up to you to find the strength and courage to find new connections, new messages, new information and to forge ahead to new territories. Here's a thought that might be appropriate:

Many times in life we are going to come to a fork in the road: do we choose that which is good for us, or do we go along with the crowd? But does choosing what is good for us always mean that we're going to be alone? No.

Temporarily, perhaps, but not indefinitely. You will simply find your new "normal" that's all and you will find new people who will accept all that you stand for. There will be a temporary "gap" however, that will be uncomfortable and take us out of our comfort zone and cause us fear.

More attempts to better one's self have been sabotaged by other's who want to accept mediocrity for themselves. I will forever remember in horror my mother, who was a chain smoker and died from a prescription drug overdose after relapsing back into drinking (she was an alcoholic with 26 years sobriety) after my step-father passed away from emphysema and bone cancer. He, too, was a chain smoker and died from it after many attempts to quit. Trouble was, my mother was never supportive. Whenever he'd get grouchy or irritable after quitting smoking, she'd say to him: "Oh, just go and have a cigarette, will you, and leave us all alone??" She died at age 61 he was just 62.

Well, she got her wish. When I suggested juicing apples and other produce for him when he got diagnosed with cancer, she said "I will not have my kitchen filled with apple crates from Costco!"....

Folks, choose life. Do not play small. And with that, I leave you these words by Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”





What a Typical Day's Intake Looks Like

So in order to get enough nutrient and calories, careful planning to variety and daily tracking in a webtool like Cron-o-meter has been essential. Todays' intake didn't include a green drink (yet, I may have one later) and that will bring me at about 100% of my RDA's for vitamins and minerals, but here's a break down of the juice ingredients that I drank today:

1 Beet
2 apples
6 carrots
1 lemon


Ran for 1/2 hour

Juice @9am:

6 carrots
1/2 butternut squash
3 oranges

927 calories so far

2 CAB's (Carrot, Apple, Beet) not at the same time, I was at work and couldn't record these until later.
:
12 carrots
1 beet
1.5 lemon
4 apples

1608 cals so far

Juice at 7:30pm:

1/2 butternut squash
3 oranges
6 carrots

2026 calories

I have found that if I don't get in at least 2000-ish cals a day that I'm grumpy and tired and irritable. That seems to be the minimum. I am on my feet all day and have also been doing weight training and I added in running today which I noticed made me hungrier.

So, these are the juices I've been doing daily. Later I might do romaine, celery, cucumber, broccoli and green apple with some strawberrie. All the greens really add in some nutrients like iron, sodium and magnesium that are so important to our health.

Hope this helps give you some idea as to how to do this successfully.

Take care juicy peeps. Juice on. I am on day 8 and tomorrow is my last day in the single digits for a long while. :)

Benefits of Juice Feasting

Many people go into juice fasting to lose weight. And while weightloss is definitely a benefit of juice fasting, there are many, many other health benefits to be had, too.

Remember that in the movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead that both Joe and Phil healed a chronic skin condition and were able to come off of their medications that they were taking for it.

The woman that was suffering from chronic migraines and went on a 10-day juice fast cleared up her migraines and they didn't come back.

The gal I profiled yesterday also noticed some great health benefits aside from her weightloss. Here is what she had to say:

There were A LOT of benefits, one of the coolest was how flexible I became.  I wasn't even that much into yoga, but I got into yoga because of the flexibility my body attained while fasting.  I was shocked at  how bendy fasting had made me.  Also my hair and skin looked A LOT better, in fact that's when I stopped using shampoo.  (I went back to using it this year, but I went a solid 4 years without using it at all)

I felt so much lighter and more mobile...I wanted to run and jump everywhere, very energetic.  I got down to 90 pounds at the end, which was my lowest weight as an adult, and I started at 170.  One of the biggest changes was my mood disorders which I've struggled with my entire life - totally disappeared on my juice fast.  I was healed by the end.  No more anxiety, depression or bipolar.  My entire attitude changed due to this, and I became a much more confident person.  I felt super powerful. 

When I went raw afterward, I maintained a 110 pound weight for 3+ years.After juice fasting, I went to the eye doctor and the doc was shocked to discover that my eyesight had actually improved!  He said that was almost unheard of.  I went down a whole prescription number.  It kept going down too from being raw, I used to be a -8 and now I'm a -6.  So I did get some notable improvement there."

Juice fasting gets all the same benefits as water fasting, but without the dangers, expense, and having to be bed-ridden all day or even necessarily having to be supervised. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, who supervised Joe Cross' fast, in the movie Fat, Sick or Nearly Dead, wrote a book on water fasting and how he healed his ankle injury as a skater by water fasting.

I find it interesting that Dr. Fuhrman is now promoting juice fasting. Water fasting is controversial and very high risk for some groups of people and needs to be carefully monitored under medical supervision like at a place such as True North in Northern California to prevent electrolytes from getting too low. This danger is not present with juice fasting since you are getting a steady supply of nutrition and can even keep up with your normal routine.

Here is a link I found about what eventually happened in the Natural Hygiene movement with regards to fasting:

http://www.hawaiianfastingretreats.com/naturalhygiene.html

Throughout his career, Dr. Shelton supervised over 40,000 fasts that his patients undertook while under his care.  Fasting was advocated by the Natural Hygienists in cases of acute and chronic illnesses as the quickest means of restoring one to a state of health by removing the toxic accumulations within the body.  Despite his repeated jailings his hygienic practice continued to grow and he was respected and admired for his efforts.

By 1932, Dr. Shelton lectured internationally with hundreds of people attending his events.  Over the course of the next 40 years, Dr. Shelton continued to publish many books and run his health schools.  He united the hygienists of the day by organizing the American Natural Hygiene Society.

The year of 1978 marks the beginning of the rise and fall of Natural Hygiene.  Shelton takes in 49 year old Hal Conrad who is suffering from ulcerative colitis.  The medical doctor he had seen ordered a colostomy and iliostomy, the cutting of the large intestine and stomach area, and wearing a sack to collect fecal matter for the remainder of his life.  He died of a heart attack in the health school.

His wife sued for $890,000 on a charge of negligence.  While in litigation over the next 2 years, business at the health school was at its peak.  The School overflowed.  Trailers were brought in to accommodate the many patients seeking care under Dr. Shelton.  In 1980, Dr. Shelton's long-time assistant Dr. Vetrano left to open her own health facility.

Dr. Vetrano

The courts ruled against both Dr. Shelton and Dr. Vetrano in 1983.  Required to pay the $890,000 to Hal Conrad's wife, both Dr. Shelton and Dr. Vetrano were bankrupted. 

***************************************************************************************************************************

There are only a few handful of medically-supervised water-only fasting facilities in the U.S. today. There are other's outside of the U.S, but one must exercise caution and ask good questions with regards to experience of interns overseeing the fasters as well as what type of monitoring of health conditions before and during the fast to prevent electrolyte loss so that complications are prevented and you are getting the most out of your money as there is a considerable expense involved, not to mention the airfare out to the facility as well as you have no legal recourse in case something were to go wrong.

I commend the early pioneers for their courage to forego the medical route and let the body to it's own healing and I feel what we've learned over the years is that with proper nutrition, the body can indeed heal dramatically. The late Dr. Max Gerson used vegetable and fruit juices along with some judicious cooked meals in his healing program with patients that were dealing with illnesses that ranged from autoimmune, advanced cancer, tuberculosis and many other ailments.

Juice fasting is safe, it's delicious, it's easy, convenient, affordable and effective. There are virtually no side effects and great benefits.

I highly recommend that people try it for themselves at least once to see what it does for them. It can be used whenever someone needs to "reboot", recharge and rejuvenate.

Juicy Inspiration

Aside from the movie Fat, Sick or Nearly Dead that inspired me to go juicy for so long and know that I would come out the other end better than when I started, was the other inspiration of real-life people that I had that made me want to do this.

Meet a good friend who went on a 6-month ( yes that is six months and is not a typo), juice fast of fruit juice only and look at the amazing transformation that took place in her:

What really stands out to me in these pictures and in the transformation of Joe and Phil in the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead documentary, aside from the weightloss, is the GLOWING SKIN that they got after drinking all that raw nutrition for so long.

In the BEFORE photos, the skin looks grey and dull, in the AFTER photos, it's peachy and radiant. Unbelievable.

My friend is now mostly raw vegan and has been for a number of years after she ended her juice fast. Thus for many people, juice feasting is a perfect transition to a new way of life. In fact, when she sent me these photos, she said seeing them was a good reminder of why she still eats this healthy.

Another person who inspired me to go this long is Angela Stokes-Monarch. She went on a 90-day juice feast and I'm sure you would agree that she looks radiant in this video where is is finally breaking her juice feast. Look at how her eyes are sparkling!

There are other inspirations as well. This is Penni Shelton 30 days into her 3-month juice feast and she looks radiant:

Why all the powerful transformations?

Because Raw fruits and veggies provide such vital nutrition that cooked food simply can't give us. Raw food is ALIVE food and when we eat/drink it we look and feel alive, too.

Living things emit electro-magnetic energy whereas dead things don't. In the book I'm reading on weeds, it says that all living things give off infrared radiation that is invisible to the naked eye. I'm sure that you would agree with me on the pictures above, though of the before and afters, that consuming living foods produces effects that are very visible to the naked eye. The other photos above show Kirlian images of the life force emitted by raw foods.

If there is any fear to be had, it should be in consuming cooked foods in mass quantities. Indeed, for me, consuming them in any quantity is something that produces a  drop in vitality. Alas, not everyone has the desire nor commitment to go 100% raw, but I encourage you to try it via a juice feast and see how you feel. Going back to cooked food afterwards will show you the contrast between how you look and feel and you can then decide if eating cooked foods is worth it to you.

Drink up, Juicy Peeps!

Get Juicy!

So I started a 90-day juice feast of drinking nothing but veggie juices with a touch of fruit juice for sweetness for the next 90 days. I'm on day 5 right now.

Why would I do that you ask?

Well, several reasons.

1) To see if I can. I've known several people who have done 90 days and some even for 6 months and their before and after shots were unbelievable. Even seeing the difference in Phil and Joe's skin in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, and Joe only did 60 days.

2) I have some nagging health conditions I want to GET RID OF: allergies, Raynaud's and some deterioration of reading vision that's concerned me.

The above photo was posted on FB a week or so ago. Last week I could only see Marilyn. Now, Five days later, I am seeing more and more of Albert! This stuff really works. I can only imagine what's going to happen in 30, 60 and 90 days!

3) I turn 43 on day 89. I figure this is a great way to bring 43 in.

4) I work at a juice bar and make juices for people doing 3 and 5 day cleanses. So many people fear doing juice cleanses and missing a meal that they don't do it. I want to show that I can go to work every day, even build muscle and live my life while drinking nothing but juice.

I have water-only fasted before but this requires you to stay in bed while doing it. It also really depletes the body of nutrients. Juice feasting floods the body will tons of nutrients.

I have been logging my daily intake into Cron-o-Meter every day and here's what an average day's nutrient intake looks like:

1918 calories
Vitamin A: 351,038 (15047% RDA)
Vitamin C: 1084 (1445% RDA)
Vitamin E: 20.5 (135% RDA)
Vitamin B1: 3.2 (287% RDA)
Vitamin B2: 3.1 (280% RDA)
Vitamin B3: 27.3 (195% RDA)
Vitamin B5: 14.2 (284% RDA)
Vitamin B6: 5.2 (402% RDA)
Folate: 2793 (698% RDA)

Calcium: 1738 (174% RDA)
Magnesium: 829 (259% RDA)
Iron: 27.7 (154% RDA)
Manganese: 7.3 (406% RDA)
Sodium: 1518 (101% RDA)
Potassium: 14064 (299% RDA)
Phosphorus: 1751 (250% RDA)
Selenium: 22.1 (40% RDA)
Zinc: 11.7 (146% RDA)

My Omega 3's are off the charts, too: 1.8g (162%)

The only two things I am low in is selenium and my Omega 6 fats. The fats are on purpose and I'll blog on that at a later time.

The selenium I could bring up if I juiced a LOT of broccoli, but I'm not willing to do that, so if you have any better suggestions, I am all ears. :)

As you can see I am getting WAY MORE than I need in terms of nutrition and fuel to keep my body going, so this is totally safe for me to be doing.

I am excited about this journey and will blog when I see significant changes and milestones.

Please, if you have any reservations or negative comments to share, I ask that you reserve them. I am not interested in hearing any doubts. I know what I am doing is totally safe and have committed to share my story so that other's can ride along with me, but do ask for support only.

I have already noticed positive benefits and trust that I will continue to do so.

One thing that I've noticed already is that I am about a week late on my female cycle. And no, I am not pregnant. :)

I have not had any PMS, mood swings or cramps, however and that's been wonderful. I am also warmer than normal which is an improvement considering I am trying to get rid of Raynaud's.

I am learning all sorts of fun juicing recipes and my new favorite right now is carrot, butternut squash and oranges. I alternate that with a green juice and a "punch" (it tastes like punch to me) of beet, carrot, green apple and lemon.

If you have any cool juice recipes, I'd love to hear about those.

So.....here's to the next 3 months. Whooo Hoooooo!