Juice Fast

I'm starting a juice fast today, because I've let the sugar take over again, and I've got to clear out my system.  I'm going to try a 10 day juice fast à la Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  And who knows, maybe I can keep it going longer than that.  In any case, I thought I'd start a blog post showcasing all the wonderful juices I get to drink.  I'm making a big batch in the morning, storing it in the fridge, and drinking about 12 oz. of juice 4 times per day.

Here is day 1:

This contains granny smith apples, beets, ginger, carrots and a whole bunch of red kale.   Tastes pretty good.  I can taste the chlorophyll from the kale, but the sweetness of the carrots, beets, and apples and the tanginess of the ginger make it palatable.

Day 2:

I should cross post this one on my Pinterest post, since I did get the recipe from Pinterst.

This one is called Green Lemonade and contains lemons, green apples, celery, parsley, mint,  and fennel.  It's tart and salty tasting.  Definitely a change from the sweetness of yesterday.

Day 3:

Well, I didn't make it all day, yesterday.  I had a bowl of steamed cauliflower when everyone else was eating the dinner that I cooked.  It's really hard to be on a fast while still having to make food for everyone else.  I figured a bowl of cauliflower was not really going to throw things too far off, so I'm not worried about it.

Here is this morning's juice:

This is pineapple, oranges and grapefruit.  I decided to have a glass of just this for breakfast before I added the veggies.

Here is the above juice with spinach, red kale, ginger and carrots added in.

Day 4:

Yesterday was very rough.  I had promised the kids that we could go to Olive Garden with Grandma, so we went.  I ended up eating some salad, but I asked them to leave the dressing off, so I ate some lettuce (iceberg, so it didn't even seem like lettuce to me :P), tomato, black olive, red onion, and a little bit of grated parmesan.  It tasted absolutely delicious to me, I'm not gonna lie!  There was no way I could have sat there and watched everybody eat.  I was very hungry yesterday.  But, that's all I ate.  I drank the rest of the juice when I got home and went to bed early so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

Today, I wasn't hungry at all when I woke up, and the kids and I went to the store to get groceries.  I'm all loaded up on organic produce for the next 6 days of juice.  I made the following juice when we got home, and I'm sitting her sipping on it while I decide where in the heck I'm going to put all this produce!

Today's juice is carrots, cucumbers, celery, ginger and red pepper.  This is really tasty.  Not too sweet, not too sour.

Day 5:

I made it through yesterday with only the juice!  Hooray!  Let's see how I do today on the weekend . . .

Yesterday, I found a mango that I meant to include, so I juiced it and added it to the afternoon juice.

Here's today's juice.  It's called Green Energizer Bunny.  I got the recipe off the web, but I added a spare pear that I had lying around.

This contains apples, cucumbers, lemons, kale, spinach, celery, fennel, ginger, romaine lettuce and a pear.   This might be my favorite so far!

Day 6:

Well, I almost made it the whole day, yesterday.  I made it through cooking dozens of pancakes and making up lunch plates, and seeing what they wanted for dinner.  However, in the evening, I told them they could watch a movie down the basement with me while I did laundry.  Of course, they wanted snacks.  I was pretty hungry and was actually starting to get a headache, so while I got them some snacks for the movie, I made myself a very small salad.  It had a handful of baby spinach, two baby carrots, two green onions, a couple slices of orange bell pepper and a teeny drizzling of flax oil and raw apple cider vinegar.  I ate it and drank the last of my juice.  I was still pretty hungry after that, but I took a bath in epsom salt water and went to bed.

Here's todays juice.  It's called The Green Carrot, but it actually looks a little brown to me.

This juice has lots of spinach and lots of carrots, along with cucumbers, celery and apples.

Day 7:

Yesterday was another successful all juice day!  I'm 3 for 6.  Not bad for my first attempt at this, I think.  The secret to not being hungry is to rush around trying to clean the house and put away all the junk that's been piling up for weeks.  I was too busy to think about being hungry!

Today's juice:

This is the Orange Carrot.  As it name states, it contains oranges and carrots.  It's so bright orange that it almost looks fluorescent in real life.  It is also so sweet that it kind of tastes like candy to me.

Day 8:

I made homemade chicken noodle soup yesterday.  (If you're reading this, Mom, I did save some for you.)  When the mom of the baby I watch came to pick up her daughter, she commented on the good smell.  The kids were excited about having my soup and exclaimed about how I make the best soup in the whole wide world.  So, I couldn't resist.  I poured a ladle full of just the broth into a bowl and drank it.  Big mistake.  It did not sit well at all.  Apparently, the digestive tract is not happy with chicken fat after 7 days of fruits and veggies.  Lesson learned.

Today's juice looks absolutely revolting.  Ed says it  looks like gorilla barf.  I think it looks like I scooped up some dirt from the back yard and stirred it in some water.  Thank goodness I didn't choose this recipe for one of the first days.

The contents- red cabbage, lots of Swiss chard, apples and ginger.  Cabbage contains a surprising amount of juice.  It's a shame I didn't take a picture of the gorgeous purple of the plain cabbage juice.

Day 9:

I made it through yesterday with just the juice.  Okay, that's not entirely true.  I accidentally popped a baby carrot in my mouth as I was preparing a salad for the husband for dinner.  I had chewed and swallowed before I even realized what I had done.  Force of habit, I guess.

Today's juice I'm calling Salad Bar in a Glass:

This juice contains beets, carrots, celery, plum tomatoes, parsley, jalapeño peppers and radishes.  I can't say that I'm particularly fond of the radish juice taste.  I added a shake of salt and pepper to this one.

Day 10:

Ugh!  Yesterday was the worst!  NEVER JUICE RADISHES!  I could barely drink the juice.  I forced myself to drink it, because I didn't want to waste all those expensive organic vegetables, but I could only stomach 3 small glasses of it.  I poured the rest down the drain.  I mowed the front and back lawns yesterday after the baby left, so I was starving, and made myself a salad of baby spinach, romaine lettuce and a few slices of orange bell pepper with a little raw apple cider vinegar and flax oil.

Today's juice is fabulous, though!  This was a good one to end up my first juice fast.  I really have to think about what I'm going to eat over the next few days, though.  Have to ease back in.

While this looks eerily similar to yesterday's juice, the ingredients are quite different.  This one has sweet potatoes, carrots, red pepper, beets, apples and oranges.  Delicious!

I think I can give a summary of how this has gone.  It was much harder in the first few days.  I thought about food a lot.  But as the days wore on, my stomach got used to being empty and didn't protest.  I still got hungry during the day, but the juice satisfied the hunger.  I'm not as bloated as I was when I started.  I didn't weigh myself when I started, but I did weigh myself a few days ago, and I'm down 5 pounds from the last time I remember weighing in.  So that's nice.  I can feel that my clothes are beginning to get more loose.  Also nice!