Juice Fast Journey: Transition Day 5

Today was the first morning I didn't really feel like juicing. But I made sure to not eat anything else until I had made my juice. I still really think that having a juice is helping a lot in preventing constipation for me. Sorry for the TMI but it's the truth.

Breakfast:

- juice

- egg over easy

- bowl of fresh fruit

Nothing's better than the strawberries from my friends farm! Yum! And have I told you that I'm just juicing once in the morning now and storing my two small jars of juice for lunch and dinner? It is really nice to only have to make all that mess once.

So today I'm introducing corn for the first time in my diet. As you know by now I tend to suffer from constipation and I'm really being slow to introduce all grains and breads to my diet because I really want to make sure I'm going to be okay. Or at least learn exactly what foods cause my constipation so I can avoid them.

Lunch:

- homemade refried beans with onions, cilantro and fresh squeeze of lime

- organic corn chips

- juice

I made sure to give myself portion control and got a bowl of chips, so I don't just reach in endlessly into the bag for more. I actually didn't even end up using them all. I ran out of beans for dipping before that. Man was this delicious! 

I make homemade refried beans quite often. Being a vegetarian, they are a great source of protein for my family and are actually really cheap if you make them at home instead of buying the can. I even buy my beans in bulk from Azure Standard. If you haven't heard of this co-op you can thank me after your life is changed! I buy all my major stuff in bulk, like rice, oats, flours, beans, apples, etc. 

Today I actually had beans made because I was making ahead some bean and cheese burritos for the freezer. We buy the uncooked tortillas and since I haven't been eating much they were going to go bad soon, so I made a big pot of beans, cooked the tortillas and set up my work station.

I think I made about 20. These are great for on days we come back from the farm. I just grab a few from the freezer, pop them in the toaster oven to warm up and they're down in about 10-15 minutes, right when I've finished putting all my produce away from the farm. It's a perfect system.

On the agenda for today was also my husbands 30th Birthday party. I threw him a 'Stashe Bash! It was so much fun. I'll put some pictures below but I'll probably write about it on my other blog: Glued To Glory. You can head over there to see more pictures.

It was SO much fun!!

Anyways, I got distracted and of course I passed on all the crap food that I offered to other people. At the end I took what was left of my veggie platter and added some black beans, onion and I added olive oil and seasonings and roasted it. It may have been at 9 at night, but it was still my dinner.

Dinner:

- roasted veggies, with a squeeze of lime

- juice

- oh, and my very first small amount of fish! We had the smallest amount of mahi mahi so I added the few pieces of that too. My stomach did do some talking after this meal, but what's new?! Ha!

Well, that's pretty much the end of my journey. I have a few major food groups I haven't added yet, like dairy and wheat, but I'll write if something goes wacky but to be honest with you I'm not going to add them as long as I can go! No dairy means no congestion, right? At least that's what everybody says. My husband is still stuffed up and I haven't had a single nostril affected at all. It could be from the healthy eating or maybe it's specifically the dairy. Either way I don't want to mess it up. I'm feeling great and I'm so happy I've gone on this journey. It was a test for my own will power and I amazed myself to be honest. Now I know that with God's strength I really can do it! I know he is the source who helped me along the way.

Here's to a good, healthy life! 

Heather Joy

Juice Fast Journey: Transition Day 4

Breakfast:

- bowl of fresh fruit (honeydew, pineapple, blueberries)

-juice

-egg, over easy!!

This mornings breakfast was delicious! It's good for me to start getting more protein. Mmm!

Lunch:

- Roasted Cauliflower, onion and black beans with a squeeze of lime

- juice

So my favorite thing to do with veggies is to roast them and squeeze fresh lime on top. It's so delicious! If you haven't tried it you're seriously missing out!

Dinner:

- Asian salad with peanut sauce

So tonight was the first night for me to go out. My husband and I had a date at the Alamo Drafthouse. I do like that they have some good salads and a fruit plate etc. Normally I would get the endless bowl of popcorn but I refrained tonight. 

Then after our movie and dinner we went to the Whole Foods. Have you ever been to the whole foods in austin? It's amazing! It's their trademark store and I could honestly spend hours just roaming around and exploring. 

We walked out with another trey from So Delivious for me. Some mocha fudge coconut ice cream bars. OMG! These are my new favorite. I need to find out how to buy them in bulk!

Tomorrow I need to get back on track a bit but it was nice splurging a bit on my date. And before I went to bed I did have a juice. 

I think tomorrow will be my last day writing about my transition. I'm feeling great and I honestly don't have much of a desire for dairy right now and being gluten free is good for my system so I'm not introducing many new foods to my diet to even be writing about. 

Anyways, until tomorrow. 

Heather Joy

Juice Fast Journey: Transition Day 3

This morning I made 3 smaller servings of juice to have at each meal. I still really actually enjoy juicing and want to try to keep it up even if it's on a small scale. 

Breakfast:

- Orange Juice (carrots, pineapple, spinach)

- Honeydew

- Blueberries

I'm actually really enjoying my juice and fresh fruit in the morning. Most mornings I used to be energetic and then the moment I'd eat I'd feel kind of sluggish again but since juicing I've had more energy in the mornings now.

Lunch:

- my first salad!!

(Including: spinach, Swiss chard, bok choy mix, 1/3 diced pear, dried homemade cranberries and onion, with a drizzle of olive oil and local balsamic vinegar) 

- oh, and of course a carrot juice

This was delicious! Before this whole thing I lived off of salads and I'm so happy to be eating them again!

Dinner:

- romanesco cauliflower (my favorite!)

- mashed sweet potatoes with a bit of black beans and a slab of butter ( I've been craving onions and so I put some on but they didn't taste good with it so I ended up not eating)

- juicing

I'm still feeling great! Loving eating fresh and healthy...and then insert tonight's dessert!

My husband went out and got me some of that So Delicious Coconut ice cream since I am still trying to avoid dairy, although I had my first par of butter in the entire pot of sweet potatoes. 

Heather Garcia

Juice Fast Journey: Transition Day 2

Today is another wonderful day of eating!

I have been feeling good, actually great. I wonder if my body would have been doing better if I'd eating a small amount all along. Anyways, I am still working on gradually increasing food while still trying to juice.

Breakfast:

- Orange Juice

- About a cup of honeydew

Lunch:

- Guacamole: avocado, 1 lime, fresh cilantro, 2 Tbl. Onion, 1/4c. Black Beans

- small juice

I did get a little big gassy once I started eating this. Could be from the fat or the beans I'm not sure, but My goodness guacamole has never tasted so good! Avocados were what I was dreaming about eating on my juice fast. They are a staple in my diet and I have at least half a day. Good fats. Yum! And I really need some fat on my body right now. Did I mention that my weight got down to 116! That puts me for sure in the underweight BMI category. I am just glad to be not loosing weight anymore. I've already gained 1lb. Since yesterday.

Dinner:

- broccoli, about 1 1/2 cups

- 1 handful of blueberries

- glass of lemon water

Tonight was my husbands 30th birthday dinner. I made delicious salmon, broccoli and garlic bread. I wish I could have enjoyed everything but I was almost too giddy just to be eating broccoli. I think if I had eaten the salmon all the oils from the marinade would have made my stomach upset. But I felt fine all day.

So, one thing I'm noticing now that I didn't during this whole thing is my skin. I feel like my dandruff is the same but the rest of my skin feels youthful for some reason. I wasn't having an eczema outbreak on my hands during the fast and it had been a little while even before that since I've had one so its hard to actually judge, but my hands feel normal! 

Now, to understand what that means you have to understand what I occasionally suffer with. My eczema is mostly centered on my ring finger mostly but has sometimes spread to other fingers as well. Sometimes it just has small clear bumps and other times it's a full blown thing, dry, cracked, etc. My mom suffers from eczema on her hands and they get so bad they crack and bleed almost all the time. She wears gloves a lot of the time just so her skin won't snag on anything and make it worse. Anyways, even when I'm not having a full blown episode of eczema my ring finger is always abnormally shiny/dry-ish. It's kind of hard to explain but if you felt and looked at my other fingers you would see and feel the difference and now I can honestly say my ring finger looks completely normal! No bumps, no dryness and it's kind of amazing considering how much fruits and veggies I've been cutting up. A lot of the acidic foods react with my hands but they've been fine. 

Well, I'm happy to see some sort of healing in the outward parts of my body. Although I know I need to have patience to let my body truly heal from the inside out. 

Well, another day down and life is looking good!

Heather Joy

Juice Fast Journey: Transition Day 1

Well today is my first day of eating and I'm determined to not shock my system. 

Breakfast:

-juice, small pint size

- 1/3 pear

Lunch:

-pint of juice

-about 1 1/2 cup of colorful steamed carrots. I'm so blessed with a farm friend! These are beautiful. 

Snack:

-3 watermelon wedge sticks

Dinner:

-pint of juice

-roasted sweet potato tossed in olive oil, seasonings and a squeeze of lime

Today I felt so good! The juicing wasn't even that hard because I have the small portions of food to look forward to. 

The only time I felt trouble was a little bit after the sweet potatoes. My stomach started getting bloated and gassy. Now to be completely honest I tend to be a gassy person in general and my stomach always talks. Before during and after digestion my stomach will make noises it when I get gassy it makes LOUD noises. And I wouldn't say it was really bad but I definitely heard some stomach talking and it's surprising to think about it now but I didn't really have any gas problems while juicing. 

Anyways, I think the oil was to blame for my tummy rumblings, but it really wasn't a big deal. 

Anyways, I really am feeling great! Almost better than on my juice fast ever even though I'm only eating very little. 

See you tomorrow!

Heather Joy

Juice Fast Journey: Day 7

I am so so excited to be here, day 7, my last day of strictly juicing. Yes, that's right folks, I've decided this is the end for now but now that I know what I'm capable of in the future I plan to do at least an 8 day fast. 

So to finish things off strong I started my morning by making three juices: one for my sick husband, my breakfast and my lunch.

Here's the drink I made for my husband, just thought I'd show you for another juice idea:

It included: carrots, one apple, Swiss chard, small amount of red cabbage and ginger. What's awesome is that I'm trying to sneak in more veggies he wouldn't normally eat right now, and since he can't smell or taste very well he didn't even notice. Success!

Okay, well moving on to me, here's what I decided to add to this mornings juice:

That's right, it's a papaya! So I've read recently that papayas are supposed to be super helpful for preventing constipation and since I tend to be that way I was really wanting to add them to my diet and so I thought I'd start by juicing them.

Breakfast:

- red juice

Included:

- strawberries, about 2 cups whole

- one wedge of red cabbage

- 1 lime

- 2 carrots

- papaya, about 4-5 large pieces, roughly 1/5 of a papaya

So, I must share with you my lesson learned while juicing with the papaya. Apparently you shouldn't. That's the lesson. So when I juiced the papaya it actually bogged down my machine and more of a thick smoothie type consistency came out and not actually just juice. 

Can you see the texture of that juice. It was like slop. Now I have to tell you it was very good slop but honestly it was like having a smoothie so I almost felt like I was cheating. Anyways, needless to say I asked to see if my eldest daughter wanted some fresh papaya and she tried it and said she didn't like it. What?! In my 'smoothie' it tastes so good but honestly I've never had fresh papaya so I couldn't argue with her. So alas, all the rest of the papaya got cut up and frozen later for real smoothies.

Lunch:

- orange juice

Includes:

- 4 carrots

- 3 celery stalks

- piece of ginger

- Swiss chard leaf

- handful of sugar snap peas

- 3 large wedges of pineapple

This drink was okay. I think I added too much ginger. I'm not a huge ginger fan and honestly I can't believe some people add so much to their drinks. I'd rather not have my whole drink taste like fire down my throat, but I can suffer through a little for the health benefits.

Well, today was by far the easiest day of the fast and I'm sure it's because of looking forward to eating more fruits and veggies after this. I wasn't even tempted really all day. I just planned in my head to eat that another day that all. 

I honestly have had a lot of fun learning through this process of juicing. What veggies do I like in my juice? What fruits mask the veggies the best? What's a good combination? Etc. I have had so much fun with my girls being my helpers too! They will ask me to wait for them so they can be my loader and pusher for my juicer. 

What's exciting to see also is when your kids will drink your juice down and you have to make more. My eldest is even saying when she doesn't like one as well and suggests we add something to make it better. It's really great to see! Parenting success! 

I really do want my life to be filled with healthy vegetables and fruits and I realize how hard it is to fit it into a busy schedule but after this experience I'm wanting to try to at least juice once every other day. 

Well, here is how I finished it off strong.

Dinner:

- red juice

Included:

- 1 pear

- 1 cup of honeydew melon

- 2 carrots

- 1 celery stalk

- 1/4 of small watermelon

- tiny bit of leftover sugar snap peas

At this point I didn't even care about adding many vegetables to my juice! I just wanted to finish it off with something sweet!! And it was really good! And it made a lot!

Well, that's it folks. I'm done! Tomorrow I will be able to add some veggies and fruits to my diet. Although I know that I need to transition my body slowly. I made the mistake after a 3 day fast to eat some dairy right away and I had such bad gas I was curled over in pain I kid you not! It was horrible!! I've since learned that your body gets used to having readily available easily digestible foods and has to transition back to having some of the harder foods to digest like, dairy, meats and fats.

I will try to keep writing a few days of my transition diet to help people with that too. Hopefully I can do better this time. Fingers crossed people!

Heather Joy

Juice Fast Journey: Day 6

Well, I can't believe I'm here, day 6! Right on the cusp of the end. I feel so proud of myself it's amazing! I had church this morning and made breakfast before, along with a juice for my sick husband and my juice for lunch later.

Breakfast:

-red juice

Includes:

-2 cups pineapple

-handful of pomegranate seeds

-1 apple

-2 yellow Swiss chard stalks

-2 carrots

Was good. I love my sweet juice in the morning

Off to church today. Will power don't fail me, I know there's going to be those trays of donuts and coffee and all kinds of stuff that I need to not have this morning. 

Well, I made it okay through church but I was reminded this morning that today is Super Bowl. Boo! Today people will be eating galore; chips, dip, pizza, etc. To make it worse we are invited to a friends house for a party where I will be sitting around and smelling said foods without being able to indulge. 

I think I've hit rock bottom folks, maybe that why I'm craving everything right now. But I'm not giving up! I can and will do this for my health, for my kids, for my husband I CAN do this! 7 days. Almost done!

I'm needed some motivation and since everyone is asleep in the house I'm snuggling up on the couch and decided to watch 'Hungry For Change' on Netflix. I've watched it before but it's been awhile so I thought it might help remind me why I'm doing this: to heal my body from the inside out.

Lunch:

-my regular green juice

And to be honest I don't even feel like drinking it, but I will.

Well, while sipping my green juice and watching that film I did get a bit hungry and also a bit more motivated to stick with this. I'm in it to win it. I'm in it for my health and to prove to myself I can accomplish what I commit to.

We went to our friends Super Bowl party this afternoon and I made a fruit and veggie tray to being because that's pretty much all we have in the house right now because of my juicing. It was a fun time. And while my kids got to dive into the pizza and chips and veggies I was a little bit jealous for sure. They had even bought the good local pizza! But I just made sure to mention to the hostess right away to not be offended if I don't eat anything and that it all looks great but I'm on a juice fast. It actually made it easier to just mention it right off the bat and it helped to hold me accountable. 

It also brought up good conversation about why I was doing it. And when I showed her my tongue she guessed right away that I have geographical tongue. What?! She acted all normal with the whole thing until it hit me, duh! She's a dental hygienist and she apparently must see it all the time. She said there's really no cause for it and that she sees lots of people with it. I'm not completely sold that there's no cause for it, it just means they don't know what the exact pinpoint trigger is but it's still not healthy in my book so I'm going to have to do more research now. 

Well, I passed the Super Bowl test and didn't eat anything at the party. Actually to be honest I came home and with my leftover fruit and veggie tray I made my juice for dinner:

Dinner:

- Dark Green Juice

1/2 cup pineapple

1/4 cup snap peas

2 cups of carrot sticks

2 cups of honeydew melon

4 stalks of bok choy (the only thing not on my tray)

Was pretty good. Maybe not my sweetest but after watching that show I'm trying to make sure my juices aren't too sugar oriented.

 One thing to note: if your wanting more liquid to you juices celery or cucumber are really good as a base. And when I don't have celery I use bok choy because it yields a good amount of liquid too.

Well, another day gone and done! Tomorrow will be my 7th day and probably my last day of strictly juice but tomorrow I will officially make the decision. Besides my hemorrhoids being gone and my super easy stools which help in any prevention of that I feel like everything else is still the same. I realize, however that it takes time for your body to heal from the inside out and that is what I'm endeavors get to do. I don't want some quick fix or temporary fix that won't last. I am in this for the long hall!

Until tomorrow then!

Oh, and my weight seems to have stabilized, which is great.

Heather Joy