Vegan

My kitchen counter is turning into a little indoor green garden area and I LOVE it!

Today is Day 4 of my 14 day juice fast. I, like so many people, have been inspired by the movie, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, to give my body a “reboot” and do a 14 day fresh squeezed “juice feast”. If you haven’t yet seen this awesome life changing documentary, you totally need to download it on Netflix or Amazon.

I have been battling this yucky disease, Ankylosing Spondylitis with Colitis, which really just boils down to lots of inflammation in my body. The AS causes fusing of the spine, and like many with this disease, you end up going years before you are properly diagnosed, so I already had fusions of my sacroiliac joints (pelvis) and in a few vertebrae before I had a name to call this disease. And I have been dealing with an inflamed and very unhappy gut & colon for years also, known as Colitis. These two diseases generally go hand in hand.

There is a lot of great research out there that supports eating a starch free diet full of fruits & veggies (and for some this also includes meats, eggs, and dairy), but no baked goods, rice, or potatoes in order to fight AS. There is a mean little booger of a bacteria known as klebsiella that love to dine on undigested starches in the gut/colon and then in turn they create more inflammation and fusing for those with AS.

I jumped fully into a Raw food diet at the same time I went starch free last October, and instantly noticed a huge improvement of my symptoms. Over the past 5 months I have been eating about 80% raw foods, and the other 20% consisted of cooked veggies, some seafood and a little big of grass fed beef, wine, and just a little bit of coffee. Well, while I was seeing improvement and having some really good days, the inflammation kept creeping back in and creating more bad days, and I found myself reaching for NSAIDS and pain pills again, which in turn destroy my poor stomach even more.

I am doing this juice fast in an attempt to get my body out of inflamed “auto-immune” mode, and back into a healthy happy pain free living mode. It all boils down to having healthy gut bacteria, an alkaline body vs. an acidic body, and the right fresh & nutrient dense foods to continue to support the body. I am fully committed to make this happen!

I am only 4 days into this fresh juice feast, but so far I can feel my joint/back pain and sore guts finally really easing up. I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time, it’s almost like Juicing is Nature’s own “pain medicine”. I just feel a new calmness, completely stress free, very open minded, and a true sense of love for myself. Oh, and I now have this incredible sense of smell, that must be on the same level as a wild animal, I can smell EVERYTHING – good and bad. I would honestly say that being on a juice fast creates a more heightened sense of awareness for the universe.

The juice fasting is WAY easier than I thought it would be. I think my determination to heal my body certainly helps me keep going forward with it, and the juice is so satisfying, that I have yet to feel any hunger pains. I also love that I get to continue shopping for organic produce and I really enjoy picking out all sorts of fun juice combinations like:

Cucumber + Mint + Basil + Lime + Green Apple + Parsley

Carrot + Ginger + Lemon

Dandelion Greens + Kale + Grapefruit + Spinach

Green Apple + Lemon + Ginger + Parsley + Wheatgrass

Pictured below is the Omega Juicer I bought on Amazon, but you can find used juicers all over the place too, check your local craigslist!

Also, read more here on how to do make fresh juices without a juicer!!

Pictured above you will see my Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner that I drank on 3 of my Fast.

I love waking up to fresh squeezed apple + lemon + ginger juice, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, especially not over the next 10 days!

Here is a link to pages of wonderful juice recipes published by those who made the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.

Everything you need to know about juicing can be found on their Reboot Website.

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Breakfast is Ready!!

Apples, lemon, ginger, wheatgrass & parsley. My most favorite juice so far!

I am happy to report amazing progress so far on my 9 days of juice! Only 5 days to go. Other than some vivid dreams last night of fresh salmon fillets served with crisp slices of cucumber lightly seasoned with a vinaigrette, fresh dill and slices of bright green avocado, I haven’t had a hard time not eating anything yet. Not eating has actually been the easy part.

To sum up my juice fast so far:

Day 1: Sleepy. Very sleepy.

Day 2: Sleepy. Some light headaches.

Day 3: Noiceabley less inflammation in joints & tummy. Feeling relaxed. Normal work day.

Day 4: Feeling super relaxed, a bit dazed, no real pains, my nose is working overtime, I can smell EVERYTHING. Pretty normal work day.

Day 5: Massage & Chiropractic appointment after work. Overall, pretty good day. Small bouts of pain in joints, almost felt like healing pains.

Day 6: Got in some exercise at the gym after work. Feeling pretty good. Still a bit tired.

Day 7: This was going to be my home “Spa Day” but turned into a really crappy “Sick Day”. Icky, lots of snot, sore throat, headaches. Some back pain.

Day 8: I basically made 2 noises for half the day, “Aaaoooo” and “Uugghhh”. Still really sick, some fevers. Just let my body go through the process of detoxing. I was able to crawl out of bed and make it to the Mac Saturday Farmers Market for some more amazing produce, made some great juice, and then crawled back into bed.

Day 9: HELLO World!  My tummy hasn’t been happier in years and it’s flattened right out. I can barely feel any inflammation in my body. I am definitely on the right track, it would be easy to stop cuz I feel pretty great, but I am determined to experience a full body healing, so I will push on!

Last night I also incorporated the help of this little product called Oxy Powder. I had read good things about it cleaning out your insides, and people report great results while fasting. While I don’t usually endorse pills or supplements, I will say that I believe this gut cleaning powder is helping my body work through the detox. Since I felt amazingly better the day after taking it, I will continue to use this in the week to come. I should also add that 3 weeks ago I tried colonics for the first time, and I did 2 back to back appointments as recommended, but I personally did not feel any better after the experience. Again, I had read good thing about colonics, but they weren’t true in my case. I will say though that the juice fast & oxy powder is working without a doubt and I am feeling tons better!

Be sure to check out this amazing post by Farmer K on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly symptoms that come along with a successful body cleaning detox, which is definitely worth every sacrifice! Farmer K is helping her husband fight AS, and she has done an excellent job of summing of what to expect in the beginning of a juice fast!

xoxo

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I just completed two amazing weeks of 100% juice and water fasting.

They say your appetite will return with vengeance when it’s time to come off a juice fast, and I can say that was definitely true for me. Initially I thought I might go for 30 days, but after two weeks of drinking only fruit & veggie juice my body started screaming at me to start eating again. Around Day 11 I started intensely craving fish, and I was thinking about it day and night.

While there are definite ups and downs on a juice fast, it wasn’t nearly as hard “not to eat” as I thought it might be, and my body was ready to do some detoxing and it happily went to work. I rode the detox roller coaster through some painful healing moments, but was able to take it easy and rest assured my body new what it was doing. You can feel old aches and pains come to life briefly during the fast as they heal up properly, it’s pretty fascinating. On Day 6 I had some stabbing hip/pelvis pain which I hadn’t felt in years return for an afternoon, in the same place I now have fused SI joints, but something told me the pain was a good thing, as my body worked overtime to clean things up and heal old wounds. I also experienced a short lived piercing earache one night, as a child I used to get ear infections constantly (which I now blame for my damaged gut, as the doctors constantly had me on antibiotics, which destroyed the well balanced eco-system in my tummy). I had not had an ear infection in over 20 years, but was quickly reminded of how painful they can be, and then as quick as the pain came on, it vanished again less than an hour later.

To sum it all up though, I was completely painless upon completing the fast. This is what made the juice fast one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I can’t remember the last time I was not in any pain. I am now used to living day to day dealing with painful joints, a cramped up bloated tummy, and a back that often screams at me. And here I am after drinking juice for 14 days, 100% pain free, as it wiped out all of the inflammation in my body. I am still continuing to juice daily, and eat a cleansing diet, but I have also incorporated fruit smoothies, fresh veggies, some nuts & seeds, and a little fish back into my diet. I am a firm believer that a diet rich in alkaline foods helps to heal the body and prevent pain & disease. This juice fast was living proof of that.

During my fast I also did a fair bit of reading on the strategies around food combining, which is something I had not yet explored. Over the years, I have come across a lot of people with Anklyosing Spondylitis, Colitis, Candida, and other ailments who have given up fruit. To me it just never seemed right not to banish fruit to the dark side. Fruit!?! Seriously!?! Like the most simple and satisfying food I have ever tasted, which happens to come in its own biodegradable packing, ready to eat and hydrate me. I even saw a doctor last year, who told me very sternly to avoid all fructose and he was completely anti-fruit other than a few small handfuls of berries on occasion (since they are so low in sugar anyway). I replied that we had a small apple orchard at home along with a blueberry patch and grapes. His response was to sell the apples to someone else and not eat them! Needless to say, I tried his crazy diet for a month, but quickly knew it was not for me, as it just went against all ingrained common sense.

So, what I have recently learned about food combining I believe could help quite a few people handle fruit better. The 1st golden rule to food combining is: Eat fruit alone. Eat your fruits in the morning by the handful, in smoothies, or juices, just don’t combine them with any fats or proteins, and don’t eat any fats and proteins for a few hours after eating fruit. Fruit digests very easily and quickly in the body, but fats and proteins can linger for hours in the tummy until they are properly digested, and when combined with fruits, the fats and proteins cause the fruits to then get hung up for hours in the tummy and in turn the fruits start to ferment. This is when the painful bloating kicks in. There are certain veggies & greens that go great with fruits, like celery, cucumber, and lettuce, so you are encouraged to incorporate these veggies & greens into your smoothies & juices. There are a few other simple rules to food combining, including don’t combine fats & proteins. Here is a link to an easy to read food combining chart.

I am excited to give food combining a try. So far so good. Over the past few days I have made a point to eat fruit with fruit and my body is really happy about it. I know there will always be exceptions to the rule, and certain raw treats, which are fruit & nut based, where I will bend the rules, but on a day to day basis I plan to give my body the healing foods it needs to stay happy, healthy and pain free!

This juice fasting experience has restored so much energy back in my body! Fasting is detoxifying both physically and emotionally. I am thrilled that I naturally removed all the inflammation in my body without the aide of anti-inflammatory drugs or pain pills!! If people knew how amazing you can feel by giving your body the right foods and nutrients it needs, there sure as hell wouldn’t be a fast food junk food industry, and we’d turn the medical industry upside down. I look forward to continuing to do juice fasts, with a goal of juicing to welcome in each new season.

Here is a picture of the local elk herd recently enjoying the “Green Diet” in our front yard.