Day 6 - days off are the best!

Morning juice

morning juice with banana & coconut

Today we got up early because John had to pick up Zephyr for football practice and then he had a thing at church.  So we got up and made our morning and mid-morning juice. Morning juice, which is usually my favorite was aweful today!  I added a grapefruit and it made the whole thing sour!  Even after we put 1/2 a pineapple into it, it was still awful.  John says when our juice tastes bad we just have to tell ourselves "this is pure life juice" as we drink it.  Not so sure that worked for me today. 

Mid Morning Juice

Mid morning juice

 We're getting low on many of our fruit and veggies so our drinks today are basically the things we have left.  Our mid morning 'veggie' juice was a sweet potato, beets, radishes, celery, carrots, apples, lemon and lime.  No pineapple left to sweeten it up.

Johns packed lunch

John had to work today after he took Zephyr to football so he had to pack his lunch.

Saturday afternoon

Lili & Lolli with haircuts

While John was at work I shaved one of the dogs.  I shaved one yesterday but really didn't feel like doing both.  But last night while John and I were on the porch watching movies we had both dogs outside with us and the unshaved dog (Lili) was panting and seemed miserable.  So out of guilt I shaved her today too.  Not much else going on today.  Today is an 'easy' laid back weekend day.  Love these days.

Day 5 - off today from work

Ok so I realize now that my best blogs come from the days I'm sitting at my desk in front of the computer.  I hate to disappoint so I will post about day 5.  Today has been great.  We slept in until 9 am. and only woke up because the dogs know their schedule and started letting us know they needed to go out.  After we let the dogs out I enjoyed my tea while John decided to have a protein shake.  The protein shake didn't hold him though and he actually felt dehydrated!  I was feeling great knowing i didn't have to be anywhere at any specific time today so I was just flowing like water.

Morning Juice
Since John was the one feeling hungry he was in charge of our morning juice. We have a lot more veggies than fruit left so he was limited with the options for our morning juice but he managed to make us a fabulous morning juice.  He threw in pineapple, apple, pears, kiwi, oranges and a lime and it was great!


Afternoon
We weren't very busy today since I was off so we didn't need as many calories.  We made a great mid morning juice using what we are running down to: beets, kale, carrots, apples, and pineapple.

The day
It was a pretty easy, laid back day.  We weren't hungry after our drinks so didn't worry about eating.  For dinner John had left over veggie soup and I had a left over acorn squash with mushroom stuffing.  It is very hot and humid today in Maryland so eating doesnt sound that fun.

I made more sweet potato and carrot fries for us to munch on while we sit on the porch and watch movies.  Life is good and we're doing great on this juice thing;.  I am certainly looking forward to day 16 when we can have some chicken or fish along with what we are currently doing.

Day 4 - Slowly making new habits

Here we are. Day 4.  Whew.  And it's my short week so today is my "Friday".  I don't have to stress tonight about preparing tomorrow's juices and lunches.  That has helped to start my day off on the right foot.  I'm a little tired today but probably because I stayed up to watch the end of a movie last night so I didn't go to bed when I should have.  I tend to do that on the night before my last workday.  I figure, who cares if I'm tired all day at work tomorrow?  I am off after that.  John went to bed well after I did (at least in my groggy sleepiness I thought I heard him come to bed what seemed like HOURS later).  But he was up at 7:30 this morning ready to get busy with things.  I'll bet money he'll take a nap later (jealous!). He complained about his allergies today though.  He took some allergy meds so that should help him function.

Breakfast

This sentence is going to get boring to all of you after awhile but, I LOVE the morning juice!  Today I did what another friend called "a clean out the fridge" juice.  I used up all the few things left in the fridge like the 10 raspberries we had left, the 5 strawberries, the blackberries, the mango, the 1/4 watermelon, etc.  I can't remember what all I put in this thing but all refrigerator fruits went into this thing today.  Scrumptious!!

Mid-Morning Juice

Mid-morning juice (limes not pictured)

John's vote is that this is the best mid-morning juice yet!  I added two limes in it and it really helps to mask the smell and taste of all the other green veggies! My vote on the other hand is not the best one yet.  I'm glad I put two limes in it because it does taste like a lime juice drink but I think I like the beet juices better!

Lunch

Mmmm....I LOVE avocados so I went generous today and put an entire avocado on my salad.  Normally, I wouldn't use that much but if I have to do without the meat and cheese I'm going to add my most favorite other topping.  Yum.

Maryland Weather

It is super hot and humid today.  John's allergies flare up when it's this bad.  He could feel it was a bad day right away this morning.  On a true cleanse we're not suppose to take any pills or drugs so we can truly clean out our systems, however, modern science is good for somethings, right?  Sacrifice is part of a fast but this is not a sacrifice of personal comfort in all aspects of the word.  He still enjoys his cigars during this fast too but he has given up coffee!!  He misses coffee so much.  We were watching a movie the other day and one of the characters was grinding coffee beans. He almost had to close his eyes because he didn't want to be reminded of what he is missing!

Dinner

I came home from work and took a glorious nap.  Tonight is my 'Friday' so it's a chill night for us.  I made us more sweet potato and carrot 'fries' and some kale chips to much on.  We are sitting on the porch watching movies and munching.  Doing what we do.  Life is good.  Day 5 here we come!!

Day 3 - We ARE eating, people!

When we tell people we are on a juice fast their first impression is that we're not eating and we're starving ourselves.  This is far from the truth.  Yes, for those of you following my blog so far you know that I got hungry yesterday and turned into "mean joni", but that has nothing to do with whether or not we're on a fast.  I get that way when I wait too long to eat between meals and that's what happened yesterday.  We are for sure eating.  We are still consuming between 1300-1500 calories each day.  They are just in the form of fruits and veggies.  A lot of people call this 'being vegitarian'.  We're also NOT doing this as a 'lose weight quick' scheme.  For us this is a way to clear the toxins and poisons we've had building up in our bodies over the past 40+ years.  The program we're doing is called 'Reboot'. So think of it like how a computer reboots.  We shut down our computer at the end of the day after searching the internet collecting cookies, cache folder items, temp files, and exposing our system to viruses, trojan worms and hackers.  When we 'reboot' the next day the assumption is whatever malware we have on our systems will catch and kill the previous days 'poison'.  But sometimes you have to do a system restore.  You have to clean out a lot more than just an average day, or weeks worth of stuff.  That's what we're doing.  When you do a system restore you don't have to remove all the programs already on your computer.  You just have to clean it up.  We aren't removing FOOD from our diet.  And we're also not consuming all of our meals just in juice.  Right now we're having two juices a day as meals and two meals of actual food we have to chew!

Morning - Day 3
I love morning juice because it's fruit.  Yum.  I am feeling relatively well.  I slept better last night than the night before.  No dreams about juicing anyway.  John woke up this morning and said he was feeling a bit nauseous.  I haven't experienced that.  I must mention that this isn't the first time I've ever did a detox though.  I have actually used a detox product from a company I love (Arbonne) to detox twice in the last 6 months.  So maybe I've got a head start on John and I've already cleaned out some of the toxins.  Just at thought.

Mid-morning juice
Another beet type of juice but this time it was made with a red bell pepper, carrots, apples, poblano pepper and a little bit of pineapple to make it sweet.  Maybe I'm just getting used to the beet juice or I'm adding enough fruit in the drink to make it palatable, but I am not hating this drink today! 


Lunch

Left over 'green soup'

Left over squash

Last nights dinner is today's lunch.  I am in love with this mushroom stuffing!  The soup reminds me of a thinner version of pesto....minus all the oils!  Happy and satisfied with lunch today!  And call me crazy...but I'm FULL!  My other half, however, went into the office for a little bit without taking his lunch with him so waited to long to eat and was feeling weak. 

Afternoon thoughts...(need suggestions)
It's only day three and I am tired of vegetable soup.  I've never really cared for vegetable soup much throughout my life so now all of a sudden we have to make some sort of veggie soup every night.  Bleh.  Anyone have any ideas about what to have for dinner that is plant based that's NOT veggie soup?? I'm starting to question my will power to stay on this fast unless I can make some modifications to it.
Here's some of the things I am currently struggling with:
1) if I want to help teach people how to live a healthier lifestyle, then I need to lead by example.  What kind of an example am I if I give up on this on day 4 (I'm not counting today because the day is nearly finished and dinner is already planned and under construction) and YES it's soup with sweet potato fries (AMEN!)
2) I have detoxed twice (one week each) in the past 6 months (as I mentioned earlier), so am I truly gaining anything by doing this for the next 11 days?
3) If I gave up on this now, it wouldn't be because I can't eat healthy.  It's because I am not a fan of all the veggies on this plan cooked the way they are called for.  I'd rather juice them and drink them and not have to worry about it.

Dinner
After last nights talk between John and I part of our plan was for him to help me with some of the prep work.  Let me tell you, it made such a huge difference!  Tonight's dinner was sweet potato and carrot "fries" and vegetable soup so a zillion veggies needed to be cut up and onions with garlic sauteed prior to any of the soup can be made.  So he did all the cutting and even sauteed the onion and garlic before I got home.  I felt like Rachel Ray because I got our dinner cooked and on the table in 30 minutes or less!  And it was awesome!

Sweet potato & Carrot 'fries'

Veggie soup

I had my doubts earlier this afternoon but after tonight's dinner and how much more smoothly all the prep went I can do it.  WE can do it!  John and I have matching bracelets that I have say "I am strong if you are strong."  I need to read that more and more right now to keep us doing what we've set out to do.

Day 4 juices and lunches have been made.  Tomorrow is my "Friday" so I already feel a lot of stress lifted off me.  Really, we only have one more work week to get through.  Those are the tough days.  I'm imagining the weekend will be easier because we don't have any plans or places we have to be (besides church on Sunday).  Talk to you all tomorrow!  Another day to mark off our calendar.

 

Day 2 - Juice to Reboot - Glimpses of 'Mean Joni'

What I didn't tell you...
What I didn't tell you at the end of DAY ONEs blog is that I did NOT follow my own advice and make an extra afternoon juice to bring with me to work.  I also did NOT make my lunch for DAY 2 which was suppose to be a big salad.  What I ended up doing was grabbing one of the prepacked boxes of spinach, a whole tomato, salad dressing and part of an avocado and threw it in my lunch bag.  At lunch time I went down to the cafe at work and bought $6 worth of stuff I already had at home but didn't feel like chopping up the night before (mushrooms, cucumbers, onions, artichoke hearts, green bell pepper and beets).

 Day 2 - Morning

Delicious Breakfast drink

I woke up feeling great!  Although I didn't feel like I slept that well.  I dreamed a lot about juicing!!  Oh no, after only two days I'm having juicing dreams!  I'm hoping as the toxins leave my body I'll be able to sleep more soundly.  I again had a nice cup of green tea on my way into work.  I was REALLY looking forward to our breakfast drink this morning. It's a combo of pineapple, blueberries, kiwi, banana, coconut milk and mint leaves. The lesson I learned from DAY 1 was to TASTE the juice before packing it up and bringing it to work because it might not taste that great.  So I tasted the breakfast drink and wanted to drink it last night for dinner.  It was that good!  Glad I saved it for today though.  I needed a delicious juice because I knew that the mid-morning juice would not be so delicious...

John texted this morning and said he's feeling bloated and gassy.  Which I read is perfectly normal.  Because we're not eating things that are hard for our bodies to digest (meat, dairy, grains) our gut lining enzymes are now breaking down the build up of toxins and poisons that we've been loading into our bodies over the years.  The toxins are looking for a way out.  I have read that the toxins will look to escape in any means necessary.  It can be in the forms of extra earwax, runny nose, watery eyes, urination, diarrhea, gas, etc.  Sounds fun right?  One book I read said something like poison hurts on the way in and on the way out.  So when I feel those feelings mentioned above I know my body is working on eliminating the crud!

Mid-morning juice

The 'not so terrible' beet juice

Well I seriously thought I was going to struggle with this one.  But you know what?  It wasn't that terrible!  John, on the other hand said in response to that same statement, "it wasn't that delicious!" To which I replied, "I like it better than the green juice we had yesterday." His come-back was, "They are running neck and neck."

Sharing with co-workers
So when I brought out my big cup of beet juice I asked my co-workers if anyone would like a taste.  Only one took me up on the offer and she said, "Not bad!  And I hate beets!"  But get this....I'm sitting at my desk at my computer and I keep smelling this odor.  At first I thought maybe I had left some food at my desk that had spoiled so I was looking around to see if there was something rotting (my desk in NOT that messy so I was certain I couldn't have missed anything like that).  So my next thought was maybe the co-worker in the next cube was having gas.  I kept sniffing around, taking a drink of juice, sniffing some more, taking a drink of juice but couldn't find the source of the odor.  I finished my juice, rinsed the cup and sat back down at my desk.  Amazingly the poopy smell was gone.  Ewww....sure glad it didn't taste like it smelled!! 

I share in other ways too.  People are really curious about this new crazy diet we're on. And if the people I talk to would have read the things I have or seen the things I have they would not think it's crazy at all.  They would be jumping on board the health wagon. So I've been trying to educate folks who ask me questions.  A close friend of mine at work and I were chatting via instant messaging about my upcoming mid-afternoon drink.  I had told her that I wasn't looking forward to it because last night when I followed the recipe it tasted N-A-S-T-Y!!  So I started adding things in to sweeten it up a bit.  An apple and some pineapple helped cover up the strong beet and celery taste. This friend of mine said, "I hope it's worth it.  I could do it for maybe a day or two but there is no way I could go 15 days on only fruits and veggies."

What makes me most sad about the comment coming from this particular friend is that she has gained a lot of weight over the past couple years.  She has all these ailments popping up that I think are big signs that she needs to start living a healthier life style.  Some examples are: needing a biopsy for her breast; a pinched nerve in her neck and needing an epidural shot for pain; pains in her knees...just to name a few. Not to mention she has a son who has ADD and another son with type 1 diabetes.  The more research I've done the more I'm convinced that her entire family could benefit from taking the bull by the horns and changing their lifestyle. 

Lunch

Salad

Lunch for me was a salad full of veggies (see the first paragraph)

Mid-Afternoon
Unlike Day 1, I didn't feel hungry and wasn't too bored at work so the day ended without me feeling dissatisfied or hungry.  My plan was to swing by Whole Foods to pick up MORE fruits and veggies to supplement the ones we already had and those that we were running out of more quickly (pineapple, apples, avocados, to name a few).

The drive home from work...
I started thinking about all the things I had to do.  I had to stop at whole foods. Then I had to cook dinner.  Then I had to make our breakfast juice, clean the juicer, make our mid-afternoon juice, make Day 3 lunch....and so it began.  I started getting frustrated as i was driving home already.  I felt like I had so much to do while John was at home all day enjoying his vacation (as he should!).  I kept telling myself "Joan, don't say anything to him.  You brought this on yourself.  You didn't ASK him for help.  He TOLD you it was a lot to take on so maybe we should do a more modified version of the plan"

I thought I had talked myself out of it and was ok.  But as the hunger set in while I was shopping at Whole Foods I started to get myself in a tizzy again.  And then the cashier rang me up and I mentally was not in a good place.  Another $100 and we were just at the store on SUNDAY.  That's only three days!!  So I started thinking, "How will we be able to afford 15 days of this???...How are we going to afford for my son to do this too??...How am I going to be able to keep up with all the juicing and preparations for THREE people???"  Those are all the thoughts going through my head between Whole foods and home.  John knew my energy was bad from the moment I sent him a text saying "this is an expensive experiment".

Knowing me as he does, he knew which Joni walked in the door last night:  Mean Joni.  And just so it's clear for anyone reading this, this is very normal behavior if I am hungry - this has NOTHING to do with the juice fast we are doing!!  So John pretty much stayed clear of me while I prepared our dinner.  He came in the kitchen while I was finishing up and while I told myself NOT to say anything negative to make him feel like he wasn't doing his part, the bitch in me came out. Fortunately dinner was done so we could EAT.

Dinner
John said it was the best one on this plan yet.  We had mushroom, onion and sage stuffed in acorn squash with a 'green soup' which was delicious!  There wasn't a lot of point to discuss the previous 15 minutes when 'mean joni' was still in the kitchen until after dinner.

Mushroom, onion & Sage stuffing in acorn squash

After Dinner
Nice Joni was back and my sense of reality came back with it so John and I were able to rationally discuss what changes in our plan needed to be made.  We came up with a few things.  Like I need to tell him a couple hours before I come home if I need his help with starting dinner.  He took the pressure off (that I put on myself - he didn't do it) of me having to make his juices and lunches.  I like to follow the plan and he's more of a 'what juice do I feel like today' kind of guy. Nothing wrong with either of these approaches.  We are both adjusting to this new lifestyle and are keeping mental notes about what will and will not work for us as a lifestyle change.

Heading for Day 3
John and I helped each other make Day 3 juices.  I made one of them and he made the other.  He helped me clean all the veggies for the week and put things away.  He's always been the kitchen cleaner so he did that too.  He is an amazing man, partner, and husband and I'm glad we're sharing this journey together.  Let's get to day 3!!

Day 1 - Reboot Juice Fast

Yesterday was DAY ONE of mine and John's 15-day juice fast.  Why in the world would we attempt such a crazy thing you ask??  While yesterday was the first day that we only consumed fruits and veggies either in their raw form or as juice, this journey started for us well before now.  We're always looking for ways to be more mindful of what we eat, our diets, fitness, and overall health so we've watched many documentaries and read articles (mostly I read the articles and give John the nutshell versions of them).  They all have made a lot of sense to us but one documentary in particular got us moving on this journey toward reboosting ourselves from the inside out.  Thanks to a facebook post of a childhood friend, we were made aware of the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead".  Within two days the Amazon order was placed for our Breville juicer.

In anticipation of our juicing fast I bought a book about juice fasting and detoxification.   Good information there.  And I found a website that laid out the entire 15 day fast. http://jointhereboot.com/. I printed out the entire 15 days worth of recipes and put them in a binder.  Because John and I had to wait for the juicer to come in the mail AND we had all five of our kids last week AND we had a brunch to go to on Saturday AND we had a wedding to go to on Sunday we decided day one would be Monday, July 18, 2011.

This blog will be about our 15 days to reboot our bodies and prepare for an even healthier lifestyle.  They say the first three days are the hardest.  We have lots of daily routines that we'll have to adapt (like the nightly glass of vodka out on the porch as we sit and watch movies and smoke cigars).

Stocking Up on Supplies

John at the store.  Look at the cashier's face!

The first thing we had to do was make a grocery list based on the recipes.  I decided to only get enough for the first 3 days of recipes.  We made our way to the grocery store and spent our entire time in the produce department.  I did have to go down one aisle for coconut milk and seaweed(which turned out nasty and I will no longer include it on the shopping list).  The cashier thought we were nuts!  We spent $200 on fruits and veggies!!

The goods on the counter

The fridge stockpiled

 First Meal

Trying to crush up the apples.

The Reboot plan suggests a morning cup of herbal tea before you do anything else so on my drive in to work I sipped a cup of Green Tea.  My first meal consisted of 2 apples chopped up, 1 cup cherries, 3 TBL raisins mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg that I put in a dish and baked the night before.  It doesn't sound half bad, right?  Well, I'm not a big fan of baked apple peels so I struggled to eat it.  Then John said he mashed his up more and it was better.  I obviously was at work so I had to figure out how I was going to mash it up like he did.  My brilliant idea was to put it in a ziplock bag and use the tupperware container to mash it.  Let's just say at 10:12 a.m. I was STILL working on those damn apples and cherries!  I'm moving on to my mid-morning juice.

Mid-Morning Juice
Mid-morning juice is: Kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, 2 apples and some ginger.

Mid-morning juice

Well...it wasn't terrible.  The apples made it sweet with a cucumber, celery aftertaste. John's report was that he started out sipping it but then ended up just gulping it down as he told himself "this is 100% life food."  I started to do the same but the closer to the bottom I got the more it tasted like celery.  Oiy...14 more days.  Maybe I'll learn to love it!  Can I have a piece of gum??  John commented to me later that after he finished drinking our green juice he felt like he had revitalized his life from this inside (or something like that).


Let the Cleansing Begin!
Ok... 45 minutes after I drank the mid-morning juice and I found myself in the bathroom three times.  Oofda.  My tummy was rumbling and gurgling. Nice. I mentioned it to John and he did not have the same result...at that time.  He texted me about an hour later and it hit him too.  However, after that we both felt great.

Lunch
Carrot Ginger Soup and a salad with tomatoes, onions, avocado with a mustard vinaigrette. First, the carrot soup is super sweet!  I'm more of a savory type of person so I'm not sure I'm diggin' the soup that much.  And truthfully I'm missing my crackers in the soup.  The salad dressing was pretty darn tasty though!  It was apple cider vinegar with full grain mustard and then olive oil.

After lunch
Well, I didn't eat my soup but I ate most of my salad. Was I full??  No, not really.  I guess I wasn't that excited about my lunch.  The salad was pretty good but I missed the turkey and cheese I normally have on salad.  And I  wished the carrot soup had been  in a glass that I could have chugged down.  It has chunks of...I don't know...avocado pulp...it was my own doing.  The night when John was juicing the carrots for the soup I had the brilliant idea of putting the whole avocado into the juicer (even though ALL the juicing books say that they don't juice). So when nothing from the avocado came out I had another brilliant idea of taking the green pulp out of the juicer and adding it to the soup.  Not a great idea on my part.  John on the other hand said the soup is scrumptious!!  So it's all about personal taste buds/preference.

 
Mid-Afternoon...
As it neared the 3p.m. mark and I was getting bored at work so I was thinking about food.  I'm not talking big fat cheeseburger because I don't crave those.  I actually think I was hungry because I didn't eat my soup at lunch and I didn't eat all of the apples and cherry's for breakfast.  I continued to drink tons of water which is good,  but my guess is I was possibly needing calories??  Day 2 I will avoid this by making myself an additional juice drink for the afternoon. John on the other hand says he is feeling a little shaky which is typical for him because he tends to be a bit hypoglycemic.   Usually he gets shaky if he doesn't eat enough protein.  I told him to make another juice but he says he's not hungry. I settled on a cup of tea which helped a lot.

Evening
As soon as I got home I started working on Day 2 juices.  I also put the rest of our cherry apple bake stuff in the food processor and made it more like applesauce.  While it was much better than earlier, I'm still not a fan of peels in my baked apples.  I also doctored up the left over carrot soup.  I put it in the blender with more avocado, coconut meat, cilantro, salt and garlic.  Smelled fantastic and tasted better but it still didn't turn my crank that much.  Our dinner was another big salad with fruit and veggies on it, the rest of the doctored up carrot soup, and the rest of the apple cherry mash.  And more water, of course.

We took a walk down to our community beach and relaxed there for a bit before taking each other on in a mild game of ping pong before heading back up the steep hill home.  For those of you who know our neighborhood you all know that the walk from the beach home is a good hike uphill!
We did not participate in our usually nightly ritual on the porch last night.  John did have a cigar but no drinks for us.  We both sipped our herbal tea before going to bed.  Ready for day 2!!