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.