Throughout the last 10 days, many of you watched & read my daily entries and statuses on my goal of fasting for 10 days off of pure organic juice. You saw the pics & recipes, if you missed out on all the fun, I'll be posting the recipes here too. You may even questioned, “what h#*@ is she doing?” Or maybe you've juiced before yourself… Well, I didn't quite make it 10 days... I made 5 full days on pure organic juice & 5 days on a modification maintenance to avoid instant water retention, weight gain, and inflammation.
I couldn't believe the amount of knowledge I had gained in a short period of time!!! I knew nothing about the reasons on juicing prior to Sunday March 3rd until I watched a documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I would encourage you to watch it, rent it, ready about it… it's so amazing. Frankly, for me this was another life-changing moment of my journey! I’ve seen people juice, I’ve heard about it before, I thought myself that juicing was a radical and unhealthy way to lose weight. Conceptually, you eat nothing and you're drinking juice.. DUH.. you're going to lose weight!!!!!!! But there is far more that happens within the body and I am excited to share what happened to me…the good and the bad!
The purpose of a juice fast is to turn off your digestive system, which is constantly working to breakdown all the foods we eat, turning, churning, turning, churning. It needs a break. By not having to digest food in our stomach, our body is forced to find stored food, aka stored FAT. So that hamburger I ate 3 years ago that is still being stored in my gut… YES… that’s what I wanted my body to “eat!” So again, it forces our body to burn stored fat to function! The easiest way to explain it is what I like to call the “bear theory” … your body goes into a hibernation-type mode and burns stored fat. It's quite fascinating because it starts to work instantly. Our bodies are a beautiful machine that will run properly when treated properly.
How toxic am I?
You can tell how toxic your body is as you start any diet elimination, food modification, detox or fast. Most people experience several "detox " side effects for the first few days. Imagine the alcoholic coming off alcohol…very similar and not fun at all. The most common symptoms are sleepiness, diarrhea, headaches, cramps, mood swings, energy peaks and lows. Sign yourself up for about three of these that will happen especially if who consume caffeine, meat, dairy, gluten, sugar, and have a high carb diet. Unless you are eating clean (organic greens and no meat consumption) you will have what my friend KG calls the “deets.” My body is still very toxic, I was smoker for 11 years (gross), eating clean now for about year but I still get some of those side effects; however, I was fortunate I was coming off a 5 day gut detox two weeks prior. I didn’t have any detox effects. But by Day 4, my brain was not processing information at its regular speed, I was sloooowwww. Complex carbs fuel your brain to produce energy that moves and motivates you. That’s why I was slow… my brain was deprived of complex carbs. This very same thing (sluggish feeling) can happen if you consume a large amount of simple carbs at one time too! QUICK TIP: There are two types of carbohydrates: complex carbs: (legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, raw vegetables) made up of three or more sugars, are rich in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, very important for overall nutrition & simple carbs (Fruit, table sugar, honey, white flour, chocolate, cake, jam, soda, cereal, FRUIT SNACKS) make up of one or two sugars, very little-to-no nutritional value to the body.
Trusting My Healthy Body & Mind to THRIVE!
I received multiple private messages through Facebook, several people concerned, some people interested in knowing more, & the best part of all, my supporters (insert applause): the people encouraging me all along the way and wanting to try it themselves. I even was questioned & encouraged by a few workout buddies, my trainer was supportive but concerned at the length of time I chose. Day 3, I spoke with my doctor's nurse to get the “stamp of approval.” Read articles online daily, exposed myself to both sides of juicing, the pros and cons. My belief is that juicing is a form of detox only if you're using pure organic vegetables and fruits “juice”, where juice is from raw organic vegetables and fruits (not from concentrate and not in a damn container). My belief is that juicing is healthy in short periods of time (less than 7 days) and the maintenance after is equally as important. And like everything else I'm finding our society is very misled on the perception of juicing due to the media's influence. It’s eye-opening and life changing when you embrace change and live-it! It was truly a moment in my life where I trusted my healthy body to not only survive but thrive! I lost 9.6 lbs & 2.5% body fat in the 5 days on pure juice. That is amazing!!! Friday afternoon, my body told me I needed food. Or it was GOD saying, “EATTTTTTTTTTT.” LOL! I was just ready. It wasn’t that I wanted it.. let me explain, the willpower you have when you realize you don’t “want food” isn’t even something I put in words. I needed food for the first time in my life (I’m 28). At first, it was hard for me to accept that I didn't make my intended goal of 10 days on pure juice, other people have done 30, 60, 90 days and I wanted to be accountable to that number of days I set for myself. But I listened to my body and chose to eat again. The first meal I ate, was sautéed vegetables (mushrooms, zucchini, onions), and OMG the flavor. I was in heaven. The following morning, I gained 1.6 lbs. I decided I needed a plan ASAP. I heard and read the horrors stories on the rapid gain back and just KNEW there had to be away to avoid it. I decided I will eat light food, foods with lower sensitivities – basically back to the raw vegetables I put in the shakes and slowly add back foods. I transitioned to 3 Veganmax protein shakes a day, and gradually added food on one meal. Not only did that offset the gain, I ended up losing more! From Sunday, March 10th until today (Thursday, March 14, 2013) I am down another 2.6 lbs. For a grand total of 12.2 lbs in 10 days.
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Albert Einstein
Anything unfamiliar triggers questions. That’s healthy! I exchanged chat conversations & happily answered questions and I can only speak on experience from my own journey. I am finding that this is my calling. This is my way that I can help others change their life as I have changed mine. I want to be an advocate for people who want to have similar life-changing experiences. Not everyone is ready and not everyone understands what that even means. I don’t even know what is in store for me from here on out! That’s okay! My friend Rain has seen similar success in her own life and her children, simply by exposing and educating herself to what is in our food and embracing an organic-plant-based diet since January of this year! My friend Jackie, is so intrigued, she messages me at least 3 times a week asking questions. I love that!
As I mentioned before, I was questioned on my choice to juice. It hit me like a brick wall, I didn’t see coming. At first, I didn’t know WHY this was happening. Up until this point, everyone that had every reached out to me was positive. This was different. This was meant to be hurtful. Thankfully, when you juice you become more spiritual and visual, the “old me” would have responded and reacted. I’ve learned not to react to the point of being able to transfer energy and control my atmosphere. If I don’t like it, I’ll leave it. I am in control. I am not afraid to be alone. I am not afraid of stepping outside of the box. In those moments of intended negativity, discouragement, and judgment, I relied on my mind and my willpower…. You don’t have food to comfort your emotions or to escape. You pray and live through the emotions. It’s quite fascinating and unreal to grasp without an open mind. The ability to “transfer energy” to the closed mind is a tough concept. Whatever their belief is or isn’t, whatever my belief is or isn’t I’m open to sharing mine and I’m opening to always being able to learn and make changes without judgment. I have determined that it’s hard for people to adapt to “my change” especially those who have been so closely tied to my journey, my success, and my life. As described to me, it’s like rewriting a contract without a contract being written in the first place. Theory one: I rely on someone to educate me, I learn from that educator, I am become educated and implement, I want to educate more people so that knowledge is shared, all while the original educator loses their sense of control. I was able to see more clearly those who were truly on my side, those “friends” of mine who have and stood on the sidelines, not encouraging or discouraging, yet existing. Something at some point will impact those “friends” to implement change in their life and I want to maintain those relationships and be open to helping them when they are ready. As I’ve shared before, I am here for you.
Sitting in the HOT seat
In my chat conversations, in person, and private messages… wherever “that person” was at in their journey, I had over 15 conversations and received the same questions from everyone! I thought I would share a few of top questions:
I'm always looking for ways to shock my system & becoming more pure. My overall all goal is to lose body fat, so I'm depending on my body to work off of fat that's been stored for a while.
#2: Aren't you scared you'll gain it back?
Yes. Will I gain it back? No. By maintaining my current diet, high protein, high complex carbs, low sugar, no dairy, low gluten, no soy.. basically staying plant based and eating organic greens, I will continue to lose more with ample exercise.
#3: Are you getting enough protein?
No.. I am not getting any hardly any protein. The purpose of the juice is to allow my body to work off of what I already have stored.
#4: Are you losing muscle?
Probably… by removing the fat which is harder to burn when I go back into my normal routine gradually increasing my protein in each meal, I will rebuild any lost muscle.
#5: Are you starving?
No. I never felt hungry. At first it was weird not to chew anything – I didn’t allow anything but the juice and water – so when I chewed for the first time after 5 days – my jaw actually hurt it was weird!
To pee yes.
#7: Will you do it again?
Yes! My goal is to juice once a month for one week.
One common assumption:
#1: You're not eating so of course you're going to lose weight!!!
Well, that’s actually quite the opposite! If you allow your body to go into starvation mode, it will actually hold on to fat rather than burn it having the adverse reaction of not losing weight or fat. Raw juice contains many nutrients and with the amount of nutrients of over 50 servings organic fruits & vegetables in a day on a juice fast the body is not in starvation mode.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...... XOXO ms. GREEN P
