Day One

If you let me,
Here's what I'll do...
I'll take care of you.

Okay, so I doubt Drake and Rihanna are chanelling God, but for some reason this song popped into my mind last night as I drifted off to sleep.  It was like all the fears and doubts I have about starting this 10-day juice fast were ready to boil over and erode my ever fragile self-belief, and then... Rihanna started singing in my head.  In my hazy, sleepy state, however, it was like a message from God that I could do this, that I would be taken care of, I just have to let him work in my life.  I have to believe that I can accomplish this 10 day fast and start some major cellular healing.

http://youtu.be/H86m44hQgy0

This is Erin by the way, Margaret's friend from the Great White North.  Margaret told me about Raw Radiant Health's 10 Day Juice Fast (http://www.radiancecentral.com/) and she never fails to inspire me when I feel like all hope is lost.  I was sitting in a foggy haze of self-hatred after an evening of eating gross forms of food (i.e. processed crap) when I got her email about the fast.  Suddenly, I felt that perhaps, I could give this one more shot.  I could give my body the gift of love and prove to myself that there is another way.

So today, I bought major supplies.  I swooped in on all the Booster Juices I could find and sweetly asked for a kazillion juices.  I think they probably hate me.  I just didn't want to give myself any excuse to be without juice when I have to work these next few days.  So they're all stacked up nicely in my freezer and I'll take them out as I need them.  Right now I'm sipping on juice #3 and it totally curbed my cravings, thank the good Lord.

 I'm such a sucker for the aroma of food.  I smelled something like lasagna in the hallway of our apartment building and my mouth started watering...and again that little voice of doubt whispered in my ear.  I grabbed a green juice and poured it into a wine glass and I'm sipping it now as I write.

 

It feels good to know I have the power to change my day with each small decision not to impersonate the cookie monster.

I also realize that as I nourish my cells with juicy juices, my cravings will lessen.  Our bodies are more intelligent than we give them credit for.  If I am deficient in certain nutrients and life force energy, my cells will scream out for food, and if I am feeding it cardboard, it will scream for more because cardboard will not give my body what it really longs for.  My body wants nourishment and vital energy, not a bunch of processed filler that will sit in lumps and clumps in my digestive tract. I am not a human garbage disposal. I am a body that is housing a soul on this earth.  Everytime I choose to abuse this home, I am telling my soul that it is not worthy of safety or love.

Today I choose love.  Tomorrow I choose more love.  In the form of green juice...and mango juice...and orange/pineapple/carrot/parsley/pear juice.  Yummmmmy.

Thank you Margie-poo for the inspiration.

Luv u to pieces.

Erin

Preparation for a 10 day Juice Fast Part 2

This is what always goes through my mind as far as 'what to do' the day before I am about to embark upon a cleanse:

cookies and shakes, num num num!

But I have learned the hard way that this is just going to make it a LOT harder and that if you can, it's best to prep 3 or so days beforehand by "juicing 'til dinner",  a concept I learned from Natalia Rose, author of Detox for Women, that I will have to get to in another blog. Aside from buying groceries, which I will discuss in a bit on this blog, it's important to prepare on the psychological front, since I won't lie: this cleanse does involve focus.

So here are some highlights of what to keep in mind, all of which I have gathered from a variety of sources:

• Everything is going to be OK even though it may be hard to feel like it is. You are. The first 3 days are the roughest but after you get through those, it's relatively effortless. And from experience of having fasted for 3 days, I recall realizing that I could easily carry on painlessly.
• At the end of this 10 day cleanse you will feel more rejuvenated and have so much life force energy you will feel quite possibly even better than you did when you were a kid.  
• You'll be cleaning out your system, rejuvenating, re-energizing. and making breakthroughs.
• You may feel lethargic or you may feel invigorated - it all depends on each individual. 
• When you get out of bed, have a quart of water with a slice of lemon or lime in it. It'll go to your joints, wake up your brain, go to your blood, etc. Lemon has Vitamin C and will alkalize your water.
• Keep in mind you'll be consuming 16 cups of juice per day so be assured you are getting the calories that you need to the point you can go and exercise and just carry on your usual day where you'll be freeing up time for more creative pursuits because you won't be in the kitchen so much. You'll be doing more than what you normally do because as the days go by, your energy is just going to get higher and higher and higher.
• That you're  on a "hero's journey" (as coined by the JuiceFeasting guys). They say, "you need to focus on it at all times, much like following the Appalachian trail. How much juice am I making for the day? Is there a party I'm going to today? "You're always thinking ahead like a "chess player". 

• They also suggest this: "If you've been chronically constipated, you'll probably need to do an enema to get out the stuff your body processed during the night. This might sound revolting at first but what is far worse is NOT doing this when you're on such an intense cleanse. Note: This is not to be a life practice! You just need access during the juice cleanse because otherwise you only get 1/3 of the effects of the cleanse. You will likely have a severe headache and experience sluggishness as well, otherwise. If you skip it during a cleanse, you typically don't feel good and you don't want to continue on. Even though this topic is somewhat controversial, think about it this way: NOT doing it is far more toxic for you because you'll awaken and release old waste and fermented matter only for it to become reabsorbed. That mass is what was digested or putrified or fermented over time and if you don't get rid of it, it stays inside you and will continue to attach to the walls of your large intestine or your colon. It's important that people realize that matter will re-poison your bloodstream.  Because what does the intestine do? It's designed to absorb. It's what moves matter from your digestive tract into your bloodstream. That's the whole purpose of it. So if you have old putrified meat, candida, and you have growths that are just not healthy, they are producing poisons, and those poisons are going right through your blood stream, making you feel, "crappy"".  HHAAAA!!

spinach, swiss chard, bok choy, kale, collards and more.

So here are the groceries you need on hand and a few tips.

• You want to get a large variety of greens-at least 5 or 6 bunches of different greens.  The reason you want to rotate them is because there are alkaloids and if you were to eat the same green day in and day out, the alkaloid will build up in your system and can cause problems later on.  Rotate your greens! Rotating 3 at a time is great but feel free to rotate up to 10! 
• Bok Choy & Celery: you want to take in at least 1 bunch of celery per day (or bok choy) because these are just about the only sources of natural sodium, and we need them to balance out the other minerals we are going to be putting into our bodies. Green celery also helps to move the digestive system.
• Kale: Kale and Swiss Chard are a great source of minerals and you'll notice different kinds of kale and Swiss Chard taste different. The more 'purply' they are the more pungent they taste but the idea is to gradually build up to them and play around with different combinations, ensuring that there is never a juice that you don't like. 
• Basil or "baaaasal" as some people say who want to sound fancy, (great for tomato juice) parsley, coriander (great for fruit juices), cilantro can all be mixed into various juices. 
• You can juice the green tops of beets and carrots and that counts as your greens so it's a great way of getting 'free greens'. In fact, using the top and bottom of a beet, for example, will have the added benefit of giving you the amino acids and sugars to balance out the sweet coming from the fruit. 
• Red Pepper: great to add to green juices or lemonade to give it a twist; Red and Green Onions are great to add into the green juices or a savory juice (like tomato).
• Cucumbers are super important because they dilute the juice, especially fruit juices. You don't taste it much and you get the rich chlorophyll from the skin (ideally, go through 2-4/day)
• Play around with your vegetable and have fun with the combinations! Even sweet potatoes and squash (just not white potatoes)--no deprivation!

Last, this is in NO WAY comprehensive, it's what I have time for tonight. There is so much more I could write and somehow 'enemas' made it to the first blog and that is not what I had planned, although in retrospect, it's important when embarking upon a ten day juice cleanse, especially if you're new to this and you have a of toxins to rid yourself of.  I plan to update this blog tomorrow when I'm feeling more awake but hopefully here are some helpful getting started 'basics' to put in your pipe and smoke. Or juicer to masticate?

Preparation for a 10 day Juice F[e]ast - Gulp.

I am accustomed to 3 day juice fasts but I have never braved a 10 day juice fast (or 'feast' as some call it) and this is how I'm feeling; just like Kermit above.
(gggulp!)

I think Kermit is feeling fear at the pit of his stomach because he's trying to land a job that will not only pay the bills but be good enough for Miss Piggy. Similarly, this will not only be the first time I am going to brave a 10 day juice feast, I am working on another creative endeavor that also terrifies me but for now I need to keep a cap on it; but nonetheless my level of 'gulp' is about the same.


My good friend and neighbor from the great white north and I are undergoing an online juice cleanse headed by Natasha St. Michael (RawRadiantHealth.com)--stay tuned as I plan to blog day by day.  Today would be Prep Day so I'll be blogging about that soon but it involves getting a lot of groceries together and just getting down to the basics. If I am lucky, Erin will be making her grand debut on this here blog. Stay tuned and as always, STAY JUICY!

Why Chris Traeger is LITERALLY my favorite character on Parks and Recrea...

quickie green juice: cold be gone!

As was the case this weekend, I felt a fluish cold coming on which is something pretty rare since last year, when I've started integrating juices into my daily routine. This has been one of the biggest breakthroughs in life, as lame-sounding as that might be, because I used to be fending off colds every week.  It's been really liberating (for me) to know that colds and flus don't even have to be an option if we take care to nourish our bodies through juicing with fresh produce while keeping our stress levels down. This realization alone has completely transformed my way of looking at pretty much everything. Being sick is an option for the most part. Why doesn't anyone tell us that?  When I reflect back on the past few weeks, I realize I was not taking in enough greens, nor was I coping with stress in a way that served my 'highest good' as they say. And wallah, a cold. Again, it's been a YEAR and I used to get them every week just about my entire life. So this lifestyle more than pays off in my view. 

So wallah again,  the insides of my frige. I try to keep as much produce on hand so I have all the necessary ingredients to make green juice daily-- for detoxification and fending off colds and to be ready for when they do strike. As you can see, today I meant bidness.  Do I enjoy this drink? Mmmaaaaybe. .. But I will say that the green drink does taste a lot like lemonade, you don't have to drink this much to reap the benefits and it's really something my body *literally*(to be read in Chris Traeger voice) wants everyday now.

By the way, while I'm drinking this, I see fried chicken being eaten on, "The Help" and  that ain't helpin'! Butchering that heartfelt movie aside, when I drink this, I find I don't have cravings for even meat right now, much less meat saturated and fried in lard.  And while I'm talking about the Help, I'd say this sums the movie up best: "The Help is a high-functioning tearjerker, but the catharsis it offers feels glib and insufficient, a Barbie Band-Aid on the still-raw wound of race relations in America". Thank you Rotten Tomatos! Now back to green juice! 


Here is the recipe:

1 bunch of fresh collard greens (sometimes I use kale but I feel like collards deserve more 'hype' these days..)
1 package of organic romaine hearts
3 fuji apples
1 lemon
3 inches of aloe
An insane amount of ginger-root (I broke off roughly 5 inches)

*note:  if you are juicing non-organic ingredients, your juice contains concentrated pesticides.  But if you're accustomed to more mainstream foods, these juices are so rich in alkalinity, you'd still be doing yourself a tremendous favor taking them in. So you have to factor in what will serve your highest good for where you're at.

Collard Greens: lowers cholesterol, aids in detox, prevents cancer. In fact, The connection between collard greens and cancer prevention should not be surprising since collard greens provide special nutrient support for three body systems that are closely connected with cancer development as well as cancer prevention. These three systems are (1) the body's detox system, (2) its antioxidant system, and (3) its inflammatory system. Chronic imbalances in any of these three systems can increase risk of cancer, and when imbalances in all three systems occur simultaneously, the risk of cancer increases significantly. Greens are extremely rich in iron and magnesium (two vital nutrients most Americans on the Standard American Diet (SAD) are lacking and according to the juice-feasting site (www.juicefeasting.com), magnesium is crucial to fighting heart disease, which coincidentally happens to be the #1 killer in the US. 

Lemon: aids in weight loss, cleanses one's liver, prevents kidney stones, promotes immunity, fights infection, aids in digestion, helps mitigate body oder, removes fatigue, eases anxiety, fends off chills associated with a fever, erases eczema.

Romaine Lettuce Hearts: while this part is more-or-less to create a watery base for the collard greens, it too aids in weight loss, promotes a healthy digestive tract, prevents plaque formation and helps to increase muscle strength.

Fuji Apples: taste amazing in juice, act as a natural sweetener, and apples are now known to significantly alter the amounts of two bacteria: Clostridiales and Bacteriodes in the large intestine. The bacterial changes alter the metabolism in the large intestine and as a result, helps with bacterial balance in the large intestine, necessary for health. 

Ginger: prevents and treats colds and flus, prevents migraines and cancer; helps with PMS.


Last, if you drink this juice, you'll experience the biggest surge of natural energy. If you keep drinking this daily you'll learn to discover what authentic health feels like and I promise your life will have more 'zing'.