Its My Birthday!

Yay!  Yesterday I turned 33 years old.  The gang at work took me out for lunch (Cheesecake Factory) and Eric and I are drove up to Boulder and saw a talk by Sergei Boutenko.  The talk was awesome!  Sergei talked about his family’s history,edible wild greens and all sorts of fun things.  If you ever have the chance to see him, you should!

I chose to give myself the gift of real health to myself this year.  I’m not quite sure what that will look like so I will give it some time to manifest and we can see what comes up.  Stay tuned!

Day 3 — end of feast

Well, I woke up this morning and was just not feeling right.  I was dizzy, tired (slept 12 hours) and very dehydrated.  I consulted my pendulum (I always use one for guidance when I feel the ego may be in the way,) and it told me to end the feast.

I don’t think my body is ready to do a feast.  I think I need to look at my hydration — I might be chronically dehydrated like David mentioned — and I am concerned that I don’t have a strong enough taste for the green juices, which means I will fail.  David and Katrina posted in their blog today about starting to build up the desire for greens and I really think that is a great tip.  To all you future feasters, make sure you like your greens!

Well, I will continue to use this blog as a way to share my growth and progress on the dietary journey.  I do see myself completeing a juice feast in the near future; perhaps I will consider starting March 1st with the Global Juice Feast.

Day 2

1 QT of 1 lemon, water, 1 T MSM
2 QT water
.5  QTs of 2 cantelopes, 2 T green powder
1 QT of yesterdays apple, celery, lemon, green powder

The cantelopes juiced up really weird.. their fiber was so small that it made it right through the nut milk bag AND the fine mesh strainer in my funnel. I figure since we can take fiber supplements, the fiber in the cantelope will be just fine for me.  Well, I only made it through half a quart of the cantelope juice and then I started to feel ill…

Slept in this morning.. till about 9:30. Then got up, had my lemon water and just vegged on the couch till noon. Still taking the day real easy.. don’t think I will be doing much but going through emails and enjoying the alone time (the house mates are off doing their own thing, a rare treat.)

Feeling pretty tired tonight, I think I will hit the bed early.  Slight head ache, I think perhaps I am still a bit under on my water intake.  Also, no bowel movements today.. tomorrow I will start the enema process.

And so it begins.. Day 1

Today was the beginning of my second attempt at juice feasting. I was sooo excited to begin, I could hardly sleep the night before and I woke up super early this morning. How is that for crazy? I don’t think I was this excited to begin last time..

1QT of water, 1 lemon, 1T MSM powder
1QT of 12 apples, 2 lemons, 1 bunch of celery, 1 bunch of kale, 1 scoop of green powder (made two quarts)
2 QT water

My day flew by at the office and again, I wasn’t so hungry. My lemon water lasted until about 2pm. I think I should have had more water, because by the end of the day, I was feeling headachy and tired. Around 3pm I started to drink my green juice and boy was it good! I was *very* surprised and excited. Last time I really felt like I was forcing down the juice and even then, not so much. My plan this time is to really enjoy juices that I know I like, and then start to slip in other new things in small quantities to expand my palate. I’m really going to give myself the first few weeks to figure that out, and go with the flow. I have a feeling it will shift quickly.

This evening I took a group hypnosis “class” — “Self Appreciation Thru Hypnosis:”

Are you tired of self hatred and self sabotage slowing you down? In this hypnosis class you let go of the negative thoughts that are keeping you from true happiness and learn how to truly love and embrace yourself. This class is great for anyone and everyone. Presented by Amber Olson, CN

The “class” was great, we learned a lot about celebrating ourselves, rather than judging and resisting.  In the spirit of the upcoming holiday (Valentine’s Day), she chose a hypnosis script that was about marrying yourself to celebrate being in love with yourself.  Totally amazing and fitting way to start off my juice feast!

Day 10 — end of the feast

Well, I chose to end the feast today.  I started having some serious pain in my digestive track — like double over in pain kind of pain — and felt that some serious fiber was needed to get things to calm down.  So I broke my fast with some heavy duty Reiki, brown rice and black beans with guacamole.

Where did the pain come from?  Well, that is exactly why I started the juice feast.  I think I will take some time in my next few blog entries to share the story of my digestive health journey.  Stay tuned..

Advice from the guru…

I wrote to the gang at juicefeasting.com asking for advice/insight on not being so hungry.  Here is the email and awesome reply from David:

Hi guys,

I am starting day 9 tomorrow and have found that I am just not hungry/no
desire to drink juice (about 1 QT per day).  Even water has been a challenge
to get in.   My friends who are 30+ days in tell me I should just go with
the flow.. that I will crave the juice soon.   Do you think I should just go
with the flow or should I try to force more down?

…

-Scott

And David’s reply:

*Hi Scott,*

Great to hear from you. Thank you for your letter.

Scott, without knowing your health history, it is hard for me to give you
focused insight on why you are not craving juice. It could be that you are
very overweight, and your body is happy using its old tissues for food for a
while, and your hunger for juice will pick up. You could also be chronically
dehydrated, and the mechanism that tells you that you are hungry is not
operating well.

You mention in your blog that you are working loooong days, I take it at a
computer. Get some exercise. Stress can shut down the desire for food. Have
a 30-45 minute walk or yoga, and then drink juice - the exercise will create
hunger for carbohydrates.

Thank you for your question! I have added your blog to our list - we will
follow your blog and look into posting it on JuiceFeasting.com

*With peaceful steps,

David Rainoshek, MA
www.JuiceFeasting.com*

Week 1 recap

I have to say that starting off on your juice feast is not an easy task!  You might want to make some practice juices before you jump.. just so you can plan.  I am finding that I am spending an extra hour in the morning doing prep for the day.. and I think that will get a little longer as I start to need more juice in me.

It has also not been easy emotionally — I have always used food as my stress reliever.. crazy day at the office always made me want to have a brownie in the afternoon and chocolate cake in the evening.   There were moments where that came up last week, and then they kinda went away on their own.  I found that deep breaths, getting out and walking really seemed to help.

I have been working this entire time.. and what’s crazy is that I have been putting in 15-18 hour days.  That is kinda normal for me (scary) but I wasn’t sure how the feast would integrate with that.  We had a new client launch last week and thats what required the long hours.  But jeeze, if I can do a juice feast and work that much, you can do one too!

The good news is, all of my juice feasting friends have been telling me that it gets easier as you go along.  I guess that would be true with most things, healthy or not!   I mean, isn’t that how we got into this mess?  I’m pretty sure I didn’t start off eating chocolate cake..
Ok, now that this new blog is setup, I am off to bed.  Hope you all had a great week too!

Day 8

1 QT of 1 lemon, 1 T MSM, water, 1 T royal jelly/honey
5 QT of water
4 ozs of wheatgrass juice

Went to bed kinda early last night. Woke up at 3am with running bowels and then when I got back to bed, i realized I had a headache.. felt like dehydration headache to me. Woke up and headache was still there.

Today was acupuncture.. woohoo! I *love* it! I have been going for three years or so, and I go for the balance. There are different types of acupuncture — this is 5 element and they don’t really treat symptoms like TCM (traditional chinese medicine); instead they treat your core balance. I highly recommend it for everyone.

Anyway, the treatment was amazing. Really intense. I think the feast has just lightened me up quite a bit and I have become a bit more sensitive to the adjustment.

Afterwards, I stopped at Whole Foods and got some wheatgrass juice. It was super yummy, but it has made me feel quite ill (or the combo of the energy work). I felt like I wanted to throw up a few hours later.. and just talking about the wheatgrass now gets my throat all choked up.

So, now I am feeling hungry and really really really really wanting to eat. I’m trying to look and see where the desire is coming from and if I should follow through or not. I wonder if instead of having the feast, I just needed the fast. I will keep you posted.

**Update: that last paragraph was silly. To be honest, my days have been filled with that kind of garbage. When I sit back and wait a half hour, the urge to stop the feast just goes away.

I noticed that my jaw muscles have been sore lately. Massaging them helps quite a bit.

Day 7

1 QT of 1 lemon, 1 T MSM, water, 1 T royal jelly/honey
1 QT of 5 apples + 1 bunch spinach

Today I thought I would try the honey/royal jelly in the lemon water and maybe then I would finish it.. sure enough, it was like a lemonade.

I am still not hungry, still not drinking a lot.  I think on top of what I have been listing here, I average a half quart of water.  I just can’t seem to force it down and there are no cravings.

My skin had broken out in some circular rashes, did I talk about that already?  I dunno.. but for sure from the skin brushing (still heaven, btw).  The rashes are starting to clear up.

I did another enema this morning.  Amazing to me that there are still small amounts of solids coming out.

Day 6

friday!

1 QT of 1 lemon, 1 T MSM, water
1 QT of 1 pineapple (made 1.5 QTS) + 1tsp each of spirulina and chlorella
1 QT of herbal tea (green something at coffee shop)

Mellow day at the office which was nice.  Thanks Teri for checking in, it is so soothing to talk to someone who has been there!   This afternoon, I started to feel hungry for the first time.. hungry as in I need calories, not hungry as in I want to chew food like chocolate cake.   Although, there were some moments of ‘give me chocolate cake!’