Some Additions

During my first fasts I learned a couple of things just through trial and error. I went through the first week in a fog and feeling pretty tired a lot. I kept waiting for that magic moment when I would feel better. Most people report that they start to feel better around day 7 and by day 14 they feel great! I went through the first five days and couldn't stand how I felt so I broke my fast over the weekend with large salads and a little meat and felt instantly better. I went back to fasting on Monday and by Wednesday I was feeling really tired again and maybe a little depressed. My husband was flying high and people I knew would come up and say I bet you feel really great...and I couldn't say that I was, really. Another five days later I broke the fast and felt better again.

I was very curious to know why I was having this problem so I decided something must be missing that I need. While it's true, vegetables have more protein per calorie than meat they are a very low calorie food so you must eat tons to get even a little protein...I cup of spinach has almost one gram of protein. You would need to eat or juice twelve cups to get almost twelve grams of protein. I decided that I was probably a little lower on protein than what would work for me and started adding protein powder to my morning drink, which helped. The second missing nutrient I found is B-complex and B-12. This made so much sense to me. It was an “ah hah” moment.

I have long known that B vitamins are responsible for stamina and energy. They help metabolize sugars. One experiment took lab rats fed brewer's yeast and compared their endurance to a control group. The rats in the control would swim about an hour before they gave up and had to be fished out of the tank. The ones fed brewer's yeast swam for two hours at which point the experiment was ended. I added brewers yeast to my morning drink and viola, stamina and energy! I even found that it cured my 16 year old son's depression, which he had been fighting for years. He went from being a dark and depressed teen to being a joking, twinkly eyed young man almost instantly—as though someone had thrown a switch.

You may not need these supplements to have a successful fast but if you find yourself thinking you just can't go on feeling like you do, they are things to try. Another supplement recommended for fasting is an omega 3 oil. These oils form long chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory and help provide energy to our cells. You might know that you can get these essential fatty acids from fish but you might not know that flax seeds and walnuts have even higher concentrations than fish and without the risk of fat soluble toxins that we talked about earlier. You can easily add cold pressed flax oil to your fast...it has almost no taste and can be blended into the juice you make or used with lemon as a salad dressing. Many of the vegetables you might juice will have Omega 3's –squash, spinach, kale, turnip greens, green beans and broccoli to name a few but if you don't feel great, it is worth trying and additional boost of omega 3's.

Another great addition to your fast is herbs and spices. You can add them right to the juice you make in powdered form or juice them in fresh form. Great additions are ginger—especially in the early days when you might need support for your stomach as it adjusts to not having regular food to chew on. Ginger is the best aid for digestive problems I know of. It will take away nausea, tastes wonderful and will help with acid reflux—which you may have in the early days. Your stomach is assuming your diet will continue unchanged and it will take several days for it to get with the program and stop making all the stomach acid you used to need to digest the food you ate. You may have heartburn, acid reflux and stomach aches or nausea. Ginger is your friend at these times.

Mint adds a wonderful zing to a melon-apple-cucumber juice when you are feeling like a little something sweet. I brought the kids to the new ice cream stand with a cup of this to shore up my resolve and felt pretty spoiled and satisfied. You can juice fresh mint just like any other green.

To my dinner I add curry powder, chili powder, fresh sweet onion and a clove of garlic. Raw garlic alone is used in herbal therapy to treat a myriad of ills including heart disease and cancer. Garlic is said to be anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. Onions share in many of the same compounds as garlic and are extremely high in the antioxidant quercetin which fights free radicals and is considered by many to be helpful in avoiding colds and flu.

So be sure to add these flavor bursts to your juice for a health boost.

A Note to Caregivers

If you are taking care of a family while you fast you have special considerations and challenges.  I know some hyper-organized moms who freeze a weeks worth of dinners for their families...that would be a good strategy now!  Planning and preparing meals for other people will be a big challenge at first.  Planning requires thinking about the end result and will make you hungry for whatever you plan to make.  Then you have to prepare the food without even tasting it...this is really hard to do!  I realized that I add salt and spices to taste.  I usually call a kid over for that job during the fast.  Cooking delicious meals, standing over the stove while the wonderful smells churn around your head--that's the definition of temptation!

For the first three days you also don't feel all that great, so go easy on yourself.  Get ready with foods that your family likes but you aren't particularly crazy about.  If you can, delegate some of the cooking to other family members not fasting!  Have a juice ready that you really like to take the edge off.  Be curious and watch your thoughts...you will think some pretty funny, crazy and interesting thoughts as you resist temptations.  You can practically see the little shoulder devil and angel fighting it out as you wrestle with your food-demons.

Once I added spices to a black bean taco mix I was making for the kids and automatically popped a spoonful in my mouth...oops!  My eyes went wide as I realized what I had just done and I thought, should I spit it out?  I swallowed and my first thought was "Oh, well, you blew it.  Might as well have some more"!  The little devil had her moment but the angel triumphed.  Get back up, dust yourself off and keep on going.

I recommend a dinner juice that is different from your daily juice.  You will think I'm nuts but this is a wonderful and tasty way to fight dinner cravings.

Ingredients:

• 3 Large or six normal carrots
• Two large beefy tomatoes
• 3 sticks of celery
• one clove of garlic
• one quarter medium sweet onion
• one sweet potato
• One bell pepper
• one avocado
• spices: curry, italian or cumin and chili powder

Juice everything except the avocado and spices.  Put the juice into a blender and add the avocado and spices.  Blend til creamy.  Serve lightly heated or cold--it's great either way but sometimes you just crave something hot!

If you still are just JONESING for something, anything to put into your mouth that isn't juice...have a salad!  You heard me right, have a salad.  Get some healthy greens and some of the stuff you are already juicing and make yourself a salad to chew up and swallow.  You won't hurt your fast if you do this once in a while.  The main difference between chewing and juicing foods if that you don't get the concentration of nutrients when you chew your food but if it helps you maintain your resolve it will do more good than harm.  Make your own dressing though.  Here's another recipe for a dressing for two salads:

• smashed or finely chopped garlic
• onion juice or powder
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• spices
• 1 tsp olive or flax seed oil

If you wind up at a party--use the same strategy.  Get some of the raw veggies from the veggie platter and enjoy!  You are not going to add enough calories to do any harm and you will help keep your resolve while changing your appreciation for the simple food that will make up the bulk of your diet in the future.  You begin to taste the sweetness of green beans and carrots and appreciate all the wonderful flavors in foods you probably didn't enjoy before.

Ready, Set, Juice!

You've got your juicer and so much produce that you don't know where to put it. You have a journal at the ready and you've put in your first entry: your weight and measurements of your hips, thighs, waist and arms. You have taken a selfie that you will never ever show to anyone. It's time to get started. I recommend starting with a morning and noon juice for a couple of days before the fast and eating a dinner. If you are a regular working stiff, like me, you will want to do this towards the end of your work week and plan to start fasting on the last day going into your weekend. You will be the most discombobulated from fasting in the first three days. Day one is almost always o.k. You find yourself thinking “this is much easier than I thought it would be”! Towards the end of day two is when you will start wondering what you were thinking. Better to be home and take a nap then to be at work with deadlines and stresses that you can't put off.

The morning of day one get out your juicer and your pile of produce. Try juicing some of your favorites, whatever they are. I like to include apples because they help detox a body. My favorite morning drink contains carrots, cucumbers, spinach, lemon and apple—approximately 2 of each large fruits and veggies (if you have standard size carrots it will be more like six to ten). This should make about a quart of green juice. It is this juice in the morning that gets the nutritional yeast and protein powder added to it—about two heaping tablespoons of each. Nutritionist gurus, such as Joel Furman M.D., of the raw food movement say we need much less protein than we have been led to believe. The protein powder helps me to feel full and the nutritional yeast helps to metabolize carbohydrates and keep energy levels up during the day. I make twice as much as I need and fill a half gallon canning jar to take with me to work.

Other things you can drink when you are fasting are clear all natural vegetable broth, herbal teas and lemon water. In the beginning you will feel hungry and will want to have a juice handy to provide fuel for your brain during the day. Juices don't have the calories you are used to having but they provide excellent nutrition in the form of vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates to fuel you during the day. For the first three days you will be easing into juicing and learning a lot about your self and your eating habits. Drink juice all day and have a meal at night. Make an effort to have a healthy meal that includes a large serving of raw vegetables (aka salad) and a smaller portion of what you normally eat. Make more juice at night and use that when you want a snack.

When you arrive at work with what looks like a large jar or pitcher of pond scum, be ready to answer questions from curious co-workers. You may even discover some of them have done this themselves, been thinking about it or have incorporated green juices and smoothies into their lives already. Who knows, you may even find your juicing partner this way. It is definitely a conversation starter and you will probably get teased by your corporate joker. Some people will think you are flat out nuts. Those first couple of days of pre-fast will let you know what you are up against in terms of outside and internal influences...where you feel weakest and where your friends are. You may even find yourself enjoying a bit of celebrity as everyone who hears about what you are doing drops by to have a first hand look.

It's All in Your Mind

Your biggest road block will probably be your own mind. It helps to have a clear idea why you are doing the fast, what you hope to accomplish, how long you intend to keep going and what you will do when you are done. I wanted to lose weight, get rid of belly fat, and lose my addiction for foods that are bad for me so I could keep the weight off, for example. Knowing where you are headed and why will help when people you love think you have lost your mind and need to be “saved”.  You will also want to arm yourself with information so you can defend your choices—especially from yourself.

One great reason to do a juice fast for even a few days is that it changes your bad habits which you can then easily replace with the habits you want. If you binge on ice cream pizza and chips and feel out of control about those choices, not eating will prove without a doubt that you do have control and the final say about what does and does not pass your lips. Somehow not eating at all makes not eating junk a lot easier. In fact those stewed lentils and salad start looking really good after a few days.

You will also learn a lot about your relationship to food. On the first three days of my fast I would find myself looking into the refrigerator. I would get up and walk over to the fridge for no reason. How much did I do that during a normal day with nothing stopping me from reaching in and putting something in my mouth...how much extra eating did I do that involved no thought? I also thought about food all the time in the early days not eating and I know I probably ate when I wasn't hungry. Sound familiar? When you fast, these habits and thoughts are very easy to see and once identified, to break away from.

You will have moments of great weakness and even pain. It is a wonderful thing to have a partner to help you through and someone that you can compare notes with. My husband and I did the fast together. We compared notes to see if what we were experiencing was normal. We both had weak times when we felt tired and near the end of our ropes but not usually at the same time, so we took turns crying on each others shoulders. We both had ghost pains that came and went. Aches and pains that appeared for no reason and from no obvious cause—sore leg, sore arm, achy back which would just as quickly disappear. It is a wonderful thing to have someone to talk to or just to cheer you on. If you don't have someone keen to join you there are internet based support groups for people fasting and blogs that can be a support and inspiration in times of need.

One of the most helpful mental tools is to accept and love yourself right now. To love the belly you are trying to lose, to accept the thighs you want to hate and to realize all these things about yourself that you want to lose are there to support your life. You didn't get a big belly for no reason. Your body saved your life--took a bullet for you when your blood sugar would have been out of control. Saved every calorie for you for the famine to come when you sent the signal that disaster was imminent. You sent that signal when you stopped exercising, by the way. Animals are hard wired to move, forage and mate. As animals, when we stop moving, your body figures there's something wrong and it better prepare. So, appreciate your body right now and support and nurture yourself through the process of becoming the healthy, vibrant and vital person you really are.

And finally, great habits are made over time and often follow failure. Get back up if you fail. If day five comes along when you meant to go to day seven and you find yourself hitting the Hagen Daz, get back up, dust yourself off and get ready to go again. If you keep trying you will succeed. As you have probably heard from the anti smoking experts, most people will try to kick the habit several times before they are finally successful. Don't kid yourself. Your food habit is just as much an addiction, just as deadly and just as hard to beat.

For some people it is helpful to keep a journal and refer back over time. You will be amazed. When you think you are making no progress, read your journal and you will see that you have already made tremendous progress. I was amazed to re-read my journal after two years. I'm not the same person. Don't forget to count your blessings in the journal and cultivate a grateful attitude. This one thing will carry you like a wave carries a surfer...you can wallow in self pity or surf on waves of gratitude.

Getting Ready to Juice Fast

You want to get psyched up and motivated with a positive attitude going into a juice fast. You will need a juicer and a supplier for all the fruits and vegetables you will need, preferably organic. In my area there are farmers markets but other great sources for the hundreds of pounds of juicing material you will need are buyer's clubs, csa's (community supported agriculture) and don't forget farms in your area, many who will sell you bulk produce for much less than your average grocery store prices. If you talk to your grocer they may even be willing to buy bulk vegetables and fruits and give you a case discount. You will want to buy the freshest produce you can find in your area and you will want to buy as many different kinds of fruits and vegetables as you can. When you juice all day you crave variety for your palate but your body also needs variety to be healthy.

You will need to find a juicer. There are many available and I have tried several. In my opinion you will be much more likely to succeed and stay the course if you invest in an easy to use and easy to clean model of juicer. On my first juice fast I brought out and dusted off my old trusty, heavy duty juicer. It has many parts, is difficult to take apart and put together, takes up a lot of space and takes a very long time to use--45 minutes per juice. I would juice a half gallon at a time to save time cleaning and putting together this juicer--I quickly remembered why it had been gathering dust all this time. Getting home exhausted and starving from work would throw me into a tizzy...I had to get all the vegetables and fruits out, peel, cut and wash a table full of produce and then spend 20 minutes feeding the machine before I could have a juice that would make me feel human again.

Our next purchase was a vitamix. It is an excellent machine and if you can afford to, you should invest in one for after you are done juicing. Hardly a day goes by when I don't use the vitamix. I can make healthy "ice cream" for my kids, soups in minutes and smoothies that give a boost of nutrition to our eating. The only problem is that they are not as concentrated as the juice you will be drinking and you may come up short. These concentrated vitamins and minerals take care of cravings and fortify your body to heal.

I recommend investing in a Brevel juicer. Starting at around $150, it makes juicing a fast and easy process. This will be very important as you go through those moments where you really don't want to continue. When I arrive home tired and hungry there is almost no prep involved to get from vegetables to juice. Most things can be put through whole--whole apples, whole tomatoes, whole sweep potatoes, whole beets, whole bell peppers--and the rest need minimal peeling and slicing. The entire process takes about 20 minutes from start to finish--prep to clean up. The ease of use will help you maintain your resolve and the juice produced will help fight off any cravings. It amazes me to this day that juice will make a chocoholic like me lose any urge to eat chocolate.

Safety First

When you start a juice fast you want to make sure to be ready...mentally and physically.  If you are contemplating this, you probably already know your own physical problems and illness tendencies.  Getting a physical and blood-work done will not only insure that their are no hidden concerns but will also give you a baseline to compare your results to later.

I have a lot of visceral fat and I know I have issues metabolizing  alcohol as well as urinary tract infections and kidney stones so I wanted to support my liver and kidneys.  Visceral fat is an indicator for fatty liver disease which is a silent killer.  A juice fast is already a wonderful way to help reduce fatty liver disease which is caused by SAD (The Standard American Diet).  I found that silymarin is recommended to support liver function and help reduce fat in the liver.  It is found in Milk Thistle. Another herb that helps is coffee...yes, coffee.

I did fasts for cleansing early on in my life and one thing I found is that the toxins liberated by the fast put a strain on my liver.  Let me explain.  When you eat meats, dairy products or oils whatever fats were stored by the animal or plant contain oil soluble toxins that the animal or plant was exposed to.  All animals store toxins in their fat to protect themselves against the toxins, which they may not have had the resources to deal with at the time of exposure due to poor diet or illness.  Meats are the worst because these are the toxins the animal was exposed to during it's entire life...pesticides, herbicides, contaminated water and air all contribute to the toxin load carried by the animal in it's fat.  You eat the meat from the animal and the fat carries the toxins into your body and it get's stored in the form of fat.  When you begin to burn the fat you also liberate the toxins.

When I was younger I did weekly apple fasts.   Seven days with only apples, water, lemon and clear vegetable broth at night.  I would wake up and look in the mirror and see that the whites of my eyes were yellow tinged.  That's an over loaded liver--jaundice.  Coffee enemas or even drinking coffee will help the liver dump toxins into your bowel and out they go.  I find the milk thistle helps this along even more.

To help the body deal with the stress of fasting also plan to take vitamin B12 if you feel especially tired and it doesn't lift for a couple of days.  We also add protein powder ( pea or hemp) and nutritional yeast to our morning juice to fortify ourselves for the day.  We aren't millionaires who can afford to check into a spa for a couple of weeks.  We go to work every day and take care of our kids and all the other things modern life demands of us so we need to keep our energy levels up and our heads clear enough to function! Speaking of keeping a clear head, I will get to the mental part of fasting in the next post.

Back Story

I think I'm pretty typical...maybe a little worse than typical.  I'm a mother with a big family.  As anyone can tell you who has kids, they gradually eat up your time until you get to a place where you have given up on all the things you always did to stay healthy and you end up where you never meant to be.  I've always been super healthy.  I practiced yoga for a long time, ate a really high vegetable, whole grain and beans diet for a long time, ran and bicycled for cardio through two kids and college. Somewhere down this road I lost my way between budgeting for meals, being pregnant (again! and again!) fighting with kids to eat healthy foods and getting tired of being the bad guy all the time.  I caved in.  Meals became less and less home-made and healthy and more and more expedient and un-imaginative.

I found myself over-weight by about forty pounds and out of shape, barely able to walk without taking frequent breaks.  One big wake up call came the day I walked to the book store and wanted to cross the street.  True to Vermont nature, all the cars stopped to let me walk and I wanted to jog across to be nice and let them get on their way quickly.  Guess what?  I couldn't jog.  I did this Igor kind of shuffle across the street--how embarrassing.  One leg just didn't want to come along so I sort of dragged it.

 That was 2 years ago. I started walking, then riding a bike...it was hard and I was so bad at it.  I even kept a meal journal from that time.  And the truth is, I didn't really know how to eat any more.  Egg McMuffin was a big feature in those days, not much in the way of veggies, lots of protein and carbs though.  I did keep up the exercising and even joined a boot camp in town.  These things made a lot of difference to my fitness but not to my waistline.  After 8 months busting my rather large butt, I only lost about 15 lbs.

Then I found an interesting movie on Netflicks: Fat Sick And Nearly Dead.  It's about a man on a journey to regain his health who does a 60 day juice fast and re-invents a new healthier version of himself.  Intrigued, I showed it to my husband and we both got really excited to try this crazy idea.  It made sense...lots of nutritious fruits and vegetables in the form of juice (seriously, you get tired chewing when you try to eat massive amounts of raw plant foods).  This was the start of a real transformation in how we eat and how we feel and look.  I am writing this on day six of my second juice fast. This blog is the story of the journey.