The Juicing Experience

The more I read, the more I learn.  :) 

Over the past several weeks I have been reading about how healthy juicing can be. I have seen the before and after pictures of people who have successfully juiced.  Since I have been battling my weight for the past year due to Prednisone, I thought to myself:  what is stopping you from giving it a try? 

So, I have been taking notes from several sources:  

• https://www.facebook.com/VegetableJuicing who also has a Juice Challenge on www.JuiceUpYourLife.tv. 
• http://www.bewellbuzz.com/wellness-buzz/juicing-benefits-recipes/
• http://www.juicing-for-health.com/how-long-to-juice-fast.html

I have decided to give juicing a try; even Mario will be joining me. Beginning Monday, October 15, 2012, Mario and I are going to try a juicing fast until Thanksgiving.  We would like to make juicing part of our daily routine with small sensible, non-gluten meals in between.

During the course of the six weeks we will share our juicing experience and post before and after pictures.  Please keep in mind we are not in our 20's anymore :).  This should be a very entertaining experience.

Mario Before Juicing

Age: 39

Weight: 235 lbs

Height: 5'9"

Mario is self-employed and sits behind a desk 11+ hours per day.

Exercise routine before juicing: I think I will start working out next week.

Rhonda Before Juicing

Age: 40+

Weight: 173

Height: 5'4"

Rhonda works as a loan document specialist.  She sits behind a desk 8+ hours per day.

Exercise routine before juicing: can't wait to be able to breathe and shake this stupid virus, I plan on working out again.  I miss the gym. 

Let's not forget to mention, I have tons of good books to read too. (I read on the elliptical and steam room.)

The behind the scenes research:

It was recommended that we start with an enema during the first one to three days as it helps your bowel to move along quicker to end the digestion in the colon and get into a fasting state sooner.

We will experience hunger pains the first few days; that is where I may have to throw in a chicken breast to keep us from cannibalism.  :)  Also, before Mr. Man (Mario) starts complaining he is starving and lists his aches and pains, I should tell him that experience very early on in the fasts are very common:  diarrhea, lethargy, headaches, nausea, light-headedness, bad breath/body odor, aches and pains.

It is recommended that we contiue drinking green juices to melt the fats.  When the fat melts we may experience skin breakouts as the oils in the body are looking for an outlet and comes through the skin, causing pimples, acne, rashes or eczema.  Bring on the Pimples!

After the first week, your body is ready to get rid of poisoning by toxic agents, an old illness, a disease, a surgery or a trauma that had not healed properly before.  The nutrients from the fresh juices begin to stir up old toxins in old scarred tissues.  These toxins are being dumped into the bloodstream to be eliminated.  They register as irritants that cause the same pains that you had when that injury first happened; we need to drink plenty of water to aid with the elimination.  Another enema is recommended to relieve the pains quicker.

I am looking forward to the third week; energy, mental clarity and alertness.  Vision might improve, the pimples gone and the hair may appear shiny.  Downside: fecal encrustations might be released through bowel movements.  No worries, quality pre/probiotics and add 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar in your juices will help re balance the intestinal flora and the electrolytes for about 1-2 weeks from the time you noticed purging of the encrustations.

 Did I mention the pimples will be gone?  :)

I started off by going through my Food Facts and decided we are starting our day with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice as soon as we wake up.  

Joy. Joy.  Nothing like a pucker in the morning.

After our showers - approximately 30 minutes later - we will have a glass of water while making our first juice of the day.  Due to our busy schedules we will also make the afternoon juices and refrigerate.  Because we can not live on juice alone in the first few days, we will be packing fruits and vegetables to snack on throughout the day.  The challenge will be staying away from processed foods, so let's see how we do.

We are using our Smoothie Maker to make our first juice of the day.  Because it is a single use smoothie blender, we are cutting our ingredients to fit.  I have picked out a juicer should we become diligent with juicing.

Since we are on a juicing fast/feast, we are juicing all meal times and before a workout.  When feasting on a "juice meal" we are expected to drink at least 17 to 27 oz each time in place of a solid food meal; the more the merrier. We should drink only as much as our body can take at any one time.  Yes, we will be also juice and alternating with pure water in between meals.

Yippee!  I get to pee every fifteen minutes.  Going to wear comfortable clothing for quick access and no accidents. lol

To keep this fun, new and exciting we will be drinking a variety of different juices.  Thank goodness for all the recipes available.  From what I gather, drinking more vegetables than fruit, and green is good.  

My major drawback will be drinking water at room temperature.  Thinking I will have to go with detoxifying teas versus plain water, especially warm, will be very difficult for me.   During your juicing fast cold water could cause trouble with your digestive system. Distilled water is suppose to be best for our purifying experience.

Fruit juices:  Avoid drinking fruit juices if you're juice fasting/feasting for the purpose of losing weight.  Some green apples and lemons/limes are fine, to be included in your green juices for taste.  Drink only fresh fruit juices.  Avoid canned juices that are sold on the shelves -- those are loaded with harmful sugar, additives and preservatives. 

You want to drink as much moisture-rich fruits as possible for proper hydration of vitamins/minerals and phytonutrients.  Some common fruits that you can use during a juice fast:  green apples, cantaloupe, carrot, cranberries, grapefruit, grapes, guava, orange, pear, strawberries, watermelon and whatever else is available from your farm market or are in season. 

Even though citrus fruits tastes acidic, when consumed they do not make the stomach acidic.  Remember to rinse your mouth after drinking juice to avoid teeth decay.

Vegetable/green juices:  Fresh vegetable juices are the best foods for melting away fats and they are very healing/detoxifying for cleansing the blood/organs.  No juice fast/feast is complete without drinking green juices.  It may be difficult to extract green leafy vegetables if you're using a centrifugal juicer, but a gear juicer will give you a very high juice yield.  If you don't have a gear juicer, choose what's suitable for your type of juicer: asparagus, beansprouts, beetroot, bittermelon, broccoli, celery, cucumber, garlic, ginger root, kale, onion, parsley, romaine lettuce, spinach, watercress, wheatgrass. Any vegetables that you can eat raw are good for making green juices.

Vegetable broth:  Boil a simple vegetable broth with any green vegetables.  Watercress juice is bitter but it's suitable for making a broth for its many health benefits. Other vegetables that are suitable for making broth are amaranth leaves, broccoli, cabbage, celery, kale, bok choy, any squashes, and any other vegetable you fancy.

When making vegetable broth, the minerals and phytonutrients from the vegetables do not get destroyed but will leach into the soup.  That's what we want, discard the fiber when juice fasting.  Do not put seasoning or oil when juice fasting so that you do not awaken the digestive system.

Others:  You can get creative and add other liquids to your juice fasting. Some examples are liquid chlorophyll, or mix spirulina/chlorella powder into your juice/water and drink.  If available, you may also boil Chinese or Korean ginseng that helps filter toxins from your system. Not to be taken every day as these are highly potent.

The reason that you should not add any pulp into your beverages is to prevent your digestive system working.  This will keep your body burning the low-grade stored fat, so that you will not feel hungry.  Any protein or fat or pulp taken when you're juice fasting will cause your digestion to restart, causing you to feel hunger pangs and a little discomfort.

Herbal teas:  Store up on caffeine-free herbal teas to be sipped between "meals".  Peppermint and chamomile teas are excellent in reducing the feeling of bloatedness.  Oolong tea is good for those who want to lose weight.  Rooibos and green tea are excellent sources of anti-oxidant.

http://www.juicing-for-health.com/what-juices-and-how-much.html

Note to self:  remember to rinse mouth after drinking juice to avoid teeth decay.

I hope you enjoy sharing our juicing experience.  We welcome any advice and/or recipes from experienced juicers.