Juice Feast: Final Day

Holy crap...it's over!

I'm drinking a cucmber-cilantro-carrot-coconut water juice while I write this. It's intense, to say the least. I've eaten more cucumbers in this last 9 days than I normally do in the span of 2 months. The cost of eating this way was completely manageable for a short term feast. Since many of the staples are on sale during the holidays, like celery, apples and cucumbers, it was a good time for it. Doubly so since the holidays are also accompanied by immune system destroying "treats" loaded with sugar and flour...it's no wonder they call it the flu season!

I started adding some of the pulp back into my drinks today, and my Christmas feast will consist of two varieties of mango- one of my absolute FAVE fruits! So, we made it to the end of the feast, but we're far from done with our holiday cleanse. Tomorrow we begin mono mealing water rich fruits until digestion is back to normal. Never break your feasts or fasts with heavy cooked foods! Start with orange juice with all the pulp retained, and move on to mono meals of mangoes, grapes, and other water rich fruits. After digestion resumes normally, add back in the bananas and dates! Instead of eating my greens, I am going to continue juicing them in the evening indefinitely. I am able to get in an insane amount of greens, and I like to eat several ounces and sometimes even a pound of them daily. With a green juice, I can be sure to get all the minerals and amino acids I need, even on the days when a green smoothie or a salad doesn't happen for me.

Next week I've got plans to visit The Green Boheme here in Sacramento to finally add some overt fats back into my diet. Interestingly enough, my nutritional scores on Cron-O-Meter showed I got plenty of essential fatty acids from my juice feast. Don't forget that fruits and vegetables contain trace amounts of fat, so it wasn't a fat free challenge, it was an overt-free challenge. I'm looking forward to having a nice raw gourmet dish with some soaked nuts and seeds!

Let's talk about what's changed for me since the beginning of the feast. At the top of my list of improvements is my teeth. I had a tooth that was really starting to hurt, and it gave me trouble on a daily basis. I'm very happy to report that I have felt no pain from the area since the second day of my juice feast, despite consuming plenty of fresh squeezed fruit juices. I've also noticeably lost inches all over my body, especially in my midsection. I've slept very well, and I feel...remineralized. I don't feel as intense of a pull towards greens and vegetables, and while I'm not sick of them by any means, I don't crave them nearly as much. I feel as though I've gotten a good dose of healing overall, and I know I've detoxed plenty. However, I can feel my true appetite breaking through the fog of emotional and habitual hunger, and it's time to start adding whole fruits and vegetables back in. My interest in holiday foods and even cooked vegan foods has diminished drastically. I just want to chew on some romaine, eat some raw tomatoes, and I'm really excited to eventually start eating off of my big bulk order of local organic Bautista dates I've got in the refrigerator.

Also, remember that big pile of unripe bananas? Check this out:

They're waiting for me!

Juice Feast: Days 5 and 6!

I'm sipping on an apple-cucumber-celery-ginger juice as I'm writing this. Day 5 was not so fun. I'm having a hard time letting myself rest, and I keep getting frustrated with how little I'm accomplishing. I'm supposed to be letting my body heal, but the urge to "get stuff done" is strong. I completed about 35 minutes of weight training yesterday, which was fun, but my moods are a little erratic and the weird fuzziness in my mouth is now full fledged ick, and tastes bad. Brushing definitely helps.

Today was much better. I woke up feeling weird in my midsection, and I rubbed my stomach and found that any and all bloating and irritation in my digestive system is gone, and my stomach was MEGA flat. What a nice way to start the day. My clothes fit so much better. I don't have a huge amount of weight to lose like some people who do juice feasts, but I'm seeing a lot of water retention disappear rapidly, as well as any candida-caused tummy puffiness. I'm not using a scale for this feast because I'm not here to lose weight, I'm here to detoxify my body, but the good news is that excess weight is just a symptom that can usually be easily cleared up by detoxification. So, it's a win-win.

I spent 4 hours today grocery shopping for myself and my family, and not once did I feel pangs of hunger. I shop at a lot of discount markets where they sell some of the most horrific poison ever deemed safe for consumption, so it's always being shoved in my face at every endcap, but willpower is ALWAYS stronger when the body is filled with mineral-rich foods. That's why I always recommend green smoothie to all my clients, even the ones who aren't interested in raw foods. I drank 36 ounces of orange juice before I left, and made myself another juice when I got home. There's always Jamba Juice if I get stuck somewhere. They can make orange and carrot juice, as well as wheatgrass shots, although I'm already over halfway finished with my feast, so I don't really have to worry about it much longer. I'm really happy with how things are moving along, and I'm so happy that I decided to do this.

Juice Feast: Days 3 and 4 with Pics!

I can't believe how fast the time is passing! Today is day 5, and there's only 5 more days until Christmas!

Day 3 was by far the best day yet. I was at a holiday cookie party all afternoon, which normally would have been a nightmare, but I brought two huge jars full of mineral-rich juice and kept my tummy full the entire time. It's amazing how satiating the juice is, and my body seems to really like it!

Day 4 is where things started to shift for me. Yesterday I had a burst of energy in the morning, followed by a general tiredness that washed over me in the afternoon. By evening, I was pretty listless, and tried watching a movie, but it wasn't as good as I'd thought it would be (The Change Up) and it ended up making my mood worse. I gave myself a short Reiki session after everyone had gone to bed, and that helped my mood a lot, and I slept through the night for the first time in a long time.

I've got an icky taste in my mouth and a fuzziness on my tongue that won't go away. Completely normal, but still slightly unpleasant. I'm also experiencing a resurfacing of various memories that, while not forgotten, aren't ones I think about commonly, and these memories are accompanied by strong surges of emotion that run the gamut between joy and sorrow. I let these come, and acknowledge them. Detoxification happens on all levels, and I'm happy that I've done this before, because I'm better equipped to deal with a wide variety of possibilities.

Today is day 5, and even though I slept well and my body feels awake, I still feel listless, and I don't really want to do anything. I made scrambled tofu for my kids as a treat, and it wasn't the least bit appetizing, so if you're worried about your willpower on a juice feast, I'm happy to report that both times I've juice feasted I was amazed at just how awful cooked food starts to smell and look after a few days. Though, I sometimes sit and think about all the fruit I'm going to tear through when I'm back in the land of the eating. I'm planning on having a juice for breakfast on Christmas, a green smoothie for lunch, and either a juice or another green smoothie for dinner, and starting mono mealing fruit the day after. I was planning on ordering a take out meal from The Green Boheme, but I think that even raw gourmet would definitely be too much for my stomach after 10 days of juice only. However, I have BIG PLANS to hit them up the week after Christmas and have a nice dinner!

I haven't been exercising since I started the juice feast, and I'm feeling like it's time I should. I miss it, and my body is asking for it, so since I'm taking in plenty of calories I'll indulge in some seriously fun rebounding this morning! Rebounding is one of the best exercises you can do, especially during a cleanse, because the motion encourages detoxification all the way down to the cellular level.

How about some pictures? This was one of my first meals: a bag of organic baby carrots I snagged for 60 cents, a large cucumber, a couple cups of grapes, and an entire bag of romaine lettuce. Romaine tastes very romaine-y, just so you know.

This is breakfast on day 3: 5 apples, a large cucumber, 1 head of celery, and half a bunch of kale.

Today I'm going to try and get something done. I played about 5 hours of Skyrim yesterday and defeated The Wolf Queen, so here's hoping I can achieve something similar in the real world today :)

Juice Feast: Days 1 and 2 + Menu!

Right now, it's early afternoon on day two, and I'm sipping on this:

That is a juice made from green grapes, celery, cucumbers, and several ounces of local cilantro I got at the farmer's market this morning. It was SO GREEN I had to take a picture of it! Making juice has actually been pretty simple. It's not as much of a chore to juice with the Vitamix and a strainer bag, since I only have to wash the bag and the pitcher when I'm done, and I don't need to break down a whole juicer several times a day. However, after this morning's juice, I'm going to use my citrus juicer for my oranges from now on. Orange pulp doesn't work very well with the juicing bag.

I'm feeling better today, but yesterday was not so great. I usually have either a green juice or an orange juice for breakfast, so my body didn't get the whole "juice feasting" memo until halfway through the day, and by evening, I was feeling fuzzy around the edges and I was tired a lot earlier than normal. Went to bed at 9:30 and slept until 7:30 this morning. I went out to the farmer's market and got 3 huge bunches of cilantro about the size of my five year old's head, a big bunch of kale, a big bunch of yellow chard, 3 heads of celery, 6 pounds of carrots, and 20 pounds of oranges. Add to that my stash of cucumbers and apples at home, and I should be good for another few days.

This really isn't that hard. With some other fasts and cleanses, hunger is a big stumbling block, but I feel so full of juice all the time that I'm not craving anything else. My Cron O Meter nutrient scores are unbelievable. I get more nutrition by lunchtime than I was getting in a whole day before, and I was getting some pretty high scores even then.My high mineral intake is knocking cravings right out of the park.

Here's what I ate yesterday:
3 large cucumbers
10 apples
1 fennel bulb
2 cups green grapes
2 pounds carrots
2 small romaine heads
5 ounces baby spinach
4 stalks celery

I'm eating three meals a day, and each meal is roughly 500 calories worth of produce, so there's no chance I'm even close to starving myself. In fact I actually went a little bit over Cron O Meter's caloric intake recommendation yesterday. Win.

For those of you interesting in planning out a full cleansing schedule, here's mine. It might change over time as my needs change, but my overall framework goes something like this:

Wake up: Big glass of water with black walnut hull tincture (parasites)

1 hour later: Psyllium husk powder and Bentonite clay shake (colon cleanse)

10 am: 1 + quarts of juice

In between meals: herbal infusion made with herbs to support blood, lymph, kidney and liver cleansing

2 pm: 1 + quarts of juice

In between: more herbal tea

6 pm: 1 + quarts of juice

Before bed: 2 ounces of Aloe juice in water


I'm also drinking purified water throughout the day. It might seem like overdoing it, but it's actually very important to keep drinking plenty of water even though everything I'm eating has been juiced.

With day 2 halfway over, I'm feeling pretty confident about my ability to continue until Christmas Day. However, if I remember correctly, it wasn't until day 4 or 5 before I started to get into some deep cell detox, so I'm going to enjoy this easy going feeling while it lasts and get some more holiday presents put together.

Starting A New Juice Feast!

 Let's be honest- sometimes, in the winter, if you're not careful, you can end up a with a lot of unripe fruit and a dwindling supply of ripe ones to eat NOW. From December to about March, bananas take forever to get nice and spotty, and popular winter fruits like oranges and persimmons can sit for weeks before ready for consumption. Right now, I'm dealing with this:

A whole pile of bananas that won't be ripe for several days. What happens when the happy frugivore doesn't have perfectly ripened fruit? In this case, I take it as an opportunity to let my body do a little house cleaning, and get ready for the green juice paradise that is a Juice Feast!

Well, it's been so long that I think my first juice feast was one of my very first series on this blog! I believe it happened in September 2009, but it might have been 2010. It's been too long is the point! So, since cucumbers are on sale this week at 4 for $1.00, I've decided to start on a juice feast tomorrow that will take me all the way to Christmas Day.

I'm sure most of you have already read about or even tried a juice FEAST, but for anyone out of the loop, it's a way to completely detoxify and re-energize your body without fasting or giving up all of your daily activities, like one would have to do on a water fast. Since I'm going to be using my Vitamix and strainer bag to make awesome veggie, leafy green, and fruit juices three times a day at a minimum of 500 calories each, I'm going to be getting plenty of calories so I can keep up with my life and still get all the benefits of fasting. Hence, juice feasting!

If you've never done one, you just can't imagine the wonderful, tingly feeling of getting such a huge dose of chlorophyll (sunlight!), vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, amino acids, EFAs, and everything else your body needs in one sip. Instead of making your digestive system work for those precious nutrients, let's give that hard working system a well deserved break. By juicing all of your food and doing all the digestive work before even swallowing your meals, your body is given the gift of time, and your body, as smart as the rest of nature, knows just what to do with this free time: clean out all the years of backed up junk you shoved into it.

Juice feasts can last a week, a day, or up to three months. There's no fear of starvation because in a juice feast you consume plenty of calories and get far more nutrients than you ever would by chewing your food.

So, what happens to all those pesticides, herbicides, sprays, chemtrail residues, food additives, dyes, makeup chemicals, air freshener hormone disruptors, and the like, all of which is trapped inside your body? During a juice feast, they are unearthed from your body and given the old heave-ho, and they come out whichever way is easier for your body at the time. Toxins can come out through your sweat, your eliminations, urine, mucous...and since the colon is an important area of elimination, it needs special attention on a juice feast. Most juice feast consultants will advise a series of enemas or colonic irrigation appointments, and that is a very efficient method. However, for short juice feasts or for those who just don't have the cash for a series of holistic treatments but still want to detoxify, you can substitute with an at home colon cleanse. Many companies make them, and my favorite, as always, is Dr. Natura's Colonix and Toxinout programs. These kits provide everything you'll need for a whole month!

This is just the juice feast introductory post! Over the next week and a half, I'll be sharing with you my daily juice feasting schedule, my personally designed program (based on my own individual needs, so no copying!), additional things I may be taking, and the good (and bad) juice recipes I come up with. If you want to see what happens and start planning for your own juicing journey, don't forget to subscribe and follow on Facebook and Twitter!

Fresh Raw Green Juice- Minus the Juicer!

Who says you need a super expensive high powered juicer to enjoy the amazing simplicity of fresh veggie juice? I certainly don't, and since I'm all about saving as much money as possible, I use my blender! You'll need a high powered blender, one that can purify raw vegetables and fruits such as the Vitamix, which is what I have, but there are other options. My Vitamix is by far the most useful machine I've ever purchased, as well as the hardiest. I've been putting it through misery on a daily basis, sometimes twice a day, and it's never disappointed me yet!

You'll also need a good strainer bag made for raw foodists, such as a juice feast bag or a large nut mylk bag. I use this one, and at only 6 bucks, it's been a great investment.

This gorgeous green juice was made in a blender, not a juicer, and contains carrots, parsley, celery, romaine, and ginger root. I simply threw everything in the blender, crammed it down towards the blades with the tamper until it was completely liquified, and strained it through the bag. The whole process takes maybe ten to fifteen minutes, and the best is that I only have to clean a blender! As a former juicer owner, I know it's a big hassle to clean all the parts of the machine.

With dark, leafy greens being in season, why not do a weekend juice feast? With your blender and your strainer and a host of fruits and veggies, there's nothing stopping you from getting a huge dose of raw, vital phytonutrients! Even adding in a vegetable and leafy green juice a couple times a week is going to make a huge difference in your skin, hair, nails, energy levels, and your overall health and well being. Instead of settling for chewing on salad all day, why not run them through the juice bag and drink it down in a matter of seconds? There's no way you could chew your greens well enough to extract the amount of nutrients you can get by juicing, and trying will have you gnawing on greens for hours a day. Save your time, skip the salad, and double the amount of greens you would have eaten in the first place.

Raw Food Shopping on a Tight Budget/Giveaway News!

Part Three of Raw Food Shopping on a Tight Budget! Scroll down for new GIVEAWAY news and a chance to choose the next prize!

Another installment on shopping for a simple raw food diet is here on the CHEAP is here! Here's a nice pic of my spoils :)

This is an absolute WIN as far as shopping at major grocery stores. See those green stickers? Produce MARKDOWNS! The largest size of Earthbound Farms organic greens retails between $5.00 - $6.00 in my area, and this one has been marked down to $2.99. It has to be eaten within the week, but that's the beauty of shopping this way for the raw food lifestyle: we need ripe raw produce NOW, and the grocery stores mark down ripe, raw produce that need to be eaten NOW. It's a win-win.

Next to the greens is a small container of sweet tomatoes marked down to $1.49 and a set of four organic yellow sweet bell peppers (a FRUIT!) for $1.99. And behind those is my favorite bargain- five bags of ripe, ready to eat bananas for only 99 cents a bag. At prices like these, eating a whole foods diet is actually cheaper than buying processed food. Each of those bags has about 10-12 bananas apiece, and many times they are all organic.

All in all, I paid about $11.50 for this pile of produce. Add on my $12.00 twenty five pound bag of oranges I buy that lasts me a week, we're looking at almost $24.00. I'll probably add about ten more dollars over the week in 99 cent bags of spinach, celery, and eating off of my backup dates I buy in bulk from my local California date farm, and I'm looking at roughly $35.00 a week. With a dietary foundation like this, I always have some money left over to splurge on a couple of mangoes or a bag of grapes, whatever happens to be on sale in my area. I also like to grab apples now that they've gone down in price.

The point is, I've successfully found a way to drive down the cost of fresh raw foods so much that it would ridiculous NOT to eat this way. I'm eating so many whole foods nutrients that I can cut way back on the amount of supplements I take, which saves me even more money!

In the next raw food shopping post, I'm going to delight your eyes with yet another picture of fruit, this time, the gorgeous Persimmon, and also share with you a way to go grocery shopping without setting foot in a store or even paying a dime!

Giveaway Update!

Don't forget to subscribe here on Google connect on the right hand side of the page, as well as on Facebook and Twitter, because I'm gearing up for another natural health giveaway! I've got three choices, and I want to know what YOU want to win! In you comments, let me know if you'd like a chance at winning a current popular health and wellness book, a popular supplement, or a handcrafted natural herbal healing product. The next giveaway is up to you! You can also let me know on Twitter or Facebook!

For my Fruity Friends...Raw Vegan / Fruitarian Jewelry!

Oh, wow, I had a GREAT fruit haul this week and I took pictures! There's nothing sweeter than saving a ton of money on natural, whole, raw, ripe fruits and vegetables! I'll share those with you soon, but I just wanted to share this brand new vision with you all.

As you have probably gleaned from my haphazard postings, I really, really like fruit. So much so that I've been creating jewelry for the last few months inspired by my love for fruits. It's true, I've been making jewelry since high school, but only recently has my beading taken a slightly...fruity turn. My second Etsy store is the new home for my pieces, which I am now locally known for. Nothing can quite grab the eye like a brightly colored bracelet filled with adorable little fruits, and I get loads of compliments on my trademark citrus earrings! Instead of hogging all the fruit beads for myself, I thought I would make a few pieces inspired by the ones I've been sporting around town and share them with other fruitarians, frugivores, raw foodies, and other people who just love fruit THAT MUCH!

I hope you're all having a bright, fruity day! I woke up this morning to find FROST on my windshield! I've got to get out there and dig up those roots before the cold sets in! I've got my eye on a bramble of overgrown blackberry vines just waiting to be harvested for some wildcrafted Blackberry Root extract. See you soon with more adventures in living the holistic life for cheap!