Confessions of a juice faster

Today marks the last day of our juice fast and after a few cheats, I am proud to say we survived. Since Wednesday we have been eating lunch as a real meal and juicing the other two and tonight I am pretty sure I am going to have wine. SO we didn’t fully make it through the full 7 days on only juice but I am proud of what we did do.

Here are a few of our results, some expected, some not so much:

• I lost a total of 6 pounds and Kyle lost a total of 10.
• I don’t see it but someone told me my skin was “glowing” so I’ll take it.
• Good energy levels and overall we feel really good.
• I slept really great especially the last few nights. I don’t have issues sleeping but I had those type of nights where your alarm goes off and you are pretty sure you just got in bed. I haven’t had that in awhile.
• Less/no cravings. Yes, we did get hungry but what was somewhat expected was that I thought when we did eat I would want a big burrito or something like French fries. Instead I just wanted a salad or soup or something else relatively healthy. I don’t crave sugar or caffeine or the various other things you may crave during the day.
• A reinvigorated desire to get on track and stay healthy. This was basically like wiping the slate clean and starting over. A juice fast is no joke and the effort that went in to it reminds us that we don’t just want to go right back to what we were doing previously. We want to hold on to the benefits of our efforts as we introduce food back in. I still want to lose a few more pounds and tone up in a few spots so we still have some work to do.
• A simplified week. This was definitely unexpected but it was so nice not to have the constant ‘What am I going to make for dinner?’ dilemma every day.  Same goes for lunch. We just knew and it was amazing how much stress that took out of the week. There was no planning or prepping meals, just juice. Which also reinvigorated my goal to actually plan meals. While I still think it will be more work than this I know it will help.
• WAY less trash. Plus one for Mother Nature! We didn’t have packing or boxes or food waste or anything like that. We pretty much used everything we ate. The pulp from the juice we either saved to make things like veggie burgers later or we put it in our compost pile.
• Money savings. When you just buy a bunch of fruits and veggies and see the total you think ‘How did we spend that much on just that?!’ but in all reality we spent less than we normally would in a week. No eating out, no wine, no coffee, nothing frivolous. 100% of our money went to completely necessary and nutritious items.
• No food waste. We juiced it all! Even the funky looking carrots or the apple that might be a little too soft or bruised. Fruits and veggies that you may not want to eat as is are perfectly fine to juice which means we threw nothing away. Food waste makes me cringe so this was a huge benefit for me.

So, all in all would I do it again? Absolutely. Two juices made me gag. I had a HARD time finishing them. But we noted it and won’t be making those again. Basically juices with strong flavors like onions or garlic can be a bit much in juice form. You either have to use more veggies and fruits to mask that or use less of the strong tasting produce.

Juicing can take some planning. It is a bit of a process to chop it all up, juice it and clean the juicer. So we developed a system to make at least two meals at a time and to always make our breakfast juice at night. If you have time you could do each meal by itself but it seemed more efficient to just have the juice ready when we were ready for it.

Did I miss eating? Yes, of course. But it was not even close to as hard as I thought it would be. The one thing I missed the absolute most was coffee. So tomorrow I’ll be pouring myself a big mug and patting myself on the back for a juice fast well done.

If you don’t want to take my word for it – these are some great documentaries on the importance and the power of good nutrition. Not all are about juicing but just about how good nutrition can prevent, ease  and even cure a lot of the health issues we deal with day to day. From rashes to infertility to cancer — good food makes a huge difference. They may give you that boost you need to make a few changes.

• Food Matters
• Forks Over Knives
• Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
• Vegucated