Multi-Day Mono-Juice Feasting – Healing Journey Day 6

Journal:
Guys/Gals, I made it! I honestly can’t believe I made it through 5 days without any type of food. Oh my goodness. I was so scared of doing this journey, not sure how I would be able to bypass situations where food would be all around me, or with my students even opening their food for them. But I did it and never even once even picked up a piece of food. I am so proud of how far I’ve made it on this journey.

Now last night, I did manage to sleep pretty much through the night, only waking up once instead of multiple times like the night before. And once again, I woke up feeling like a normal human being. The stomach pain was gone and I was able to get out of bed with no problems this morning! I went straight upstairs and got my first apple juice. 🙂 Yes, for 3 days I will be drinking apple juice. I have always found apple juice easy on my stomach so I figured this would be a great beginning juice for my body.

I, of course, was still a little worried about how my body would react to the apple juice. Though after the first few sips and only a very minor uncomfortable feeling from my stomach, I knew it was going to do down well. Oh how happy I was! The taste of apple juice was so amazing, although I noticed there was a slight off-taste. Come to find out, my tongue was covered in white. I had heard about this happening from dry and water fasters but had not noticed it until today. Yuck. Thankfully, it does come off with either scraping or rigorous tongue brushing. I have a cleaning at the dentist tomorrow and I can only imagine what they would have said to me with a tongue like that!

A question I have been asked is what is the difference between juice “fasting” and “juice feasting.” Juice fasting is where you are on a specified amount of juices (specific calories). Juice feasting is where you are still limited to only juice, but you do not have to stick with a certain caloric guideline. Now of course, you do not want to turn it into juice binging where you are over consuming more than your body wants, but if you know your body well, you should be able to tell when you are really hungry or not. I am choosing to juice feast because I do not believe in limiting calories. Yes, I just spent 5 days eliminating calories from my diet, but that was to fast. If you make a decision to fast, then you are usually doing it for a specific reason outside of weight loss such as for religious reasons or body healing. Since I am spanning the healing spectrum, mine was to experience the healing aspects though I was also intrigued through my walk in Christianity to partake in such a journey because God calls us to take care of our bodies and this journey is hopefully going to help me see how to get my body to be the best that it can be. Plus, as I mentioned in my introduction to this journey, it was also an experiment to see if we can erase the hold that food has on us. Yes, in the long run we depend on food to live; we have to. But instead of not being able to pass by food that is not good for us and simply having intense cravings or even those that can’t help but binge on food because they can’t seem to stop, that is another part of my journey. And so far, I am beating all of those typical situations and for that reason, this journey has been good.

So I managed to actually have a pretty good day at school. Though I seemed to have to talk to my class a little more than normal, one of my toughest students actually had one of his best days today so that alone was phenomenal. And how did the juice treat me? So good. I didn’t feel like falling asleep all the time; I actually did not plan my walks. I didn’t feel like sitting down all the time; I felt confident when I walked. I just felt so much better.

Do I still feel like eating food? You know, my thoughts towards food have decreased a lot. Sure, the nice croissant (I have a student that has been bringing croissants to school everyday) does sound nice, but just having some sweet, delicious, pure apple juice to sip on all day is absolutely amazing. My body can definitely tell that the energy is coming back.

Is my apple juice fresh pressed? Unfortunately no. In fact, the apple juice I have for today and tomorrow are not even organic. I did my best to find juices that were organic, but the price difference is astronomical. So you will see that most of my juices are organic, but today’s and tomorrow’s are not. The one qualification for my juices were that they had to only include one ingredient: the ingredient being whichever fruit whose juice I was drinking that day.

So, I’m going to hand out a TMI WARNING again because this next part is not so pretty. I will keep it to one paragraph. I don’t really enjoy sharing these parts because they can be considered “gross”, but incase someone does decide to embark on this journey or one similar, I want you to be prepared for things that can happen. If you read my day 5 entry, you will notice that I couldn’t “eliminate”. Well, to my horror/surprise, I don’t even have to try today. Lo’ and behold, it’s essentially a watery liquid. Yes, I know it’s graphic. It did go back to normal by the end of the day, but the first half of the day was the adjustment period. My stomach “gurgled” more than I think it has ever gurgled before with the adjustment of an “energy source” coming back into its system. It made today a little trickier since I’m obviously working but I managed to take a tiny break away from the classroom whenever I needed it so it worked out alright.

So after I came home, I actually did not feel tired at all! However, I did lay down to watch some YouTube again, and noticed the beginning of that awful acid reflux/heartburn feeling again. Thankfully, it didn’t really turn into anything.

I did get up and go to the gym, although I kind of wondered afterwards if I should have done the cardio or not. I did 30 minutes of easy stationary cycling. The reason being, remember that clenching of muscles feeling I described previously? I had that feeling bad tonight. The best way I can think to describe it is to imagine doing a crunch with all of your ab muscles straining, then someone punching you. But instead of being repetitious, it was a continuous state. Now that is a feeling for the books but one that I hope goes away soon. Yes, I did try bending backwards to stretch my abs and to see if my stomach muscles would pull, but they didn’t meaning they weren’t actually always engaged. For some reason that was just the feeling I was having.

For the first time all week, I actually felt tired. I tried to stay up past 11, but my eyes were fighting me. As much as I still wanted to do things, this actually made me happy because instead of me having to decide when I go to bed because I’m not “that tired”, my body actually was acting normal and demanded sleep. This I can appreciate.

Review of Symptoms:
Acne is worse and yet the same. The pimples are still more pale than before, but I have tiny bumps all over my face. I’m not appreciating it. But I have also heard of this happening as a detox byproduct. There is a reason why the saying goes: It will get worse before it gets better. My tongue was COVERED in a white substance. Again, this is something I’ve heard is associated with detox so tongue scraping is now something I have to do. I haven’t reported this in awhile, but my skin still stays red more easily than before. My hair is still less greasy than it normally would be by this point. Had more energy, feeling stronger. Internal “movement” was much easier today. Heartburn/acid reflux was only the most minimal while laying down this evening. I had a constant feeling of ab muscle clenching while a dull ache of a punch to the stomach at the same time that lasted throughout the evening. My body actually demanded sleep around 11:00 pm which is awesome!

Weight at the end of the day = 180.8 lbs (0 lbs down in 24 hours, total of 8 lbs down in 5 days)

Total Calories = 1811.2 (99% carbs, 1% protein, 0% fat)

Week 2 Day 6

Oh how nice it feels to sleep in… those were my thoughts today! Of course, when I did wake up, I realized that I needed to get my butt in gear and get ready for my appointments. I had a massage, a chiropractor, and an acupuncture appointment back to back. I’m telling you, it was like being pampered in a spa!

As I was leaving, the fact that I had not eaten anything yet was starting to bother me. A few times, earlier in the summer, I would stop at the convenient drive-thru A&W on the way home. This thought crossed my mind again. But I began to mentally challenge myself. Do I really want something so greasy? Do I really want to waste my macros? Or possibly have a chance of going over? Is my body really being rewarded by eating that burger?

Then it hit me: It wasn’t the really the taste I was craving, it wasn’t really a love for the food, it was convenience, it was habit. How awful is that! Sure it would have been so easy to turn in, grab a burger, and satisfy my hunger sooner than later, but that’s not really what I wanted. I want to look good, to feel good, and to be in control of my body and the nutrition I feed it. So I kept on driving.

The rest of the day went well, until supper. My husband had to drive around to various tool shops looking for the right tools he needed for work. We had already driven around our side of the city, and decided we might as well drive to the other side of the city and get all the tool shopping done. So we planned on eating out (macros allowed for it).

Our favourite East Indian restaurant was on that side of the city. This restaurant has a buffet so it is very easy to control what gets put on your plate. But something happened that has never happened here before.

When we get buffet, the hostess always expects you to get up and start serving yourself. Then they always bring you a jug of water for your table. Well, this time, there was no jug of water when we got back. In fact, despite my trying to catch a waitresses attention (they were very busy), we probably didn’t have water for at least 15-20 minutes. When the waitress came over and realized, she gave me a look of horror and apologized so sincerely. I kept telling her it was ok, and she had a fresh jug of water rushed over to us. But that wasn’t the end. She also came over with a plate of 3 desserts. Oh boy…

The lady told us that as an apology she had picked out her top three favourite desserts from their storefront bakery and that she hoped we liked them. I felt so horrible. I could not eat them and run the risk of hurting her feelings, or I could eat them and let her know I liked them and that everything was good. Main point of the story, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and I felt really bad that she felt so bad, I tried to eat them. Half way through, she brought us a fresh, straight out of the kitchen dessert. Now don’t get me wrong, they were delicious, but FOUR DESSERTS! My husband took a couple bites to help me, and I tried to get them all down, but needless to say, I was STUFFED and managed only a bite or two out of the last one. This was the worst thing I could have done.

See, upon reflection, I could have politely ate one and then asked for a box for the rest. I could have figured out other ways of not hurting her feelings instead of just going to the worst alternative. Because afterwards, I felt SO SICK.

I did make it to the gym that night, but managed to only complete half of my workout which was a circuit of four exercises. I felt so awful. Not to mention I haven’t had processed sugar in quite some time, since starting this challenge. All I wanted to do was sleep so that I didn’t have to be awake and feel the way I did. It really was that awful.

What can I say to sum up this day? Lesson learned!

Sad Gym Events: Prayers Requested

Tonight as I was walking into the women’s washroom, I noticed a printed poster on the wall. It was a picture of a woman’s hand with a ring on it. Some poor lady had lost her engagement ring at the gym. My stomach sank.

You see, a little over a year ago, I had stupidly put my wedding ring and engagement ring in my pocket and thought they would be safe while I worked out. You cannot imagine my horror to realize they were no longer in my pocket. Not only that, but to know that my husband was unable to work, and he had worked MONTHS at his last and final job to pay for those rings. I was ready to freak out.

Fortunately enough, I found one of them. It must have rolled out of my pocket and stopped over by another machine where I found it. But I still was missing one of them, and that’s when I told my husband what happened.

To say he was upset would be an underestimate. He was quite devastated. Especially looking upon the fact that my rings were worth several thousands of dollars and there were many people at the gym. How easy would it be for someone to pick it up and put it in their pockets? Way too easy.

I went and notified the front desk, notified the custodians, and continued to look many times over the gym, praying the entire time.

I cannot begin to tell you how blessed I was. A man came over and asked what I was looking for. I told him I had lost my ring. He asked me to describe it, and so I did. And lo’ and behold, he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out my ring. Talk about a huge sigh of relief. How easy would it have been for someone to walk out the door with my ring in their pocket. I can tell you that I’ve never made that mistake again.

So seeing this poster hits home really closely. I feel for this woman. And to know the feelings that come with losing your ring; awful. So I’m going to pray and ask for extra prayer for this woman to find her engagement ring. The power of prayer can do extraordinary things!