end of week 5! (Day 36)

May 31, 2008



I didn't get to post yesterday, but above is a picture taken this morning: after 5 weeks of juice feasting! You can visit here for "before" and "week 4" pics.



A couple days ago I learned about Black Locust Flowers from Anthony (The Raw Model)'s blog, and we had to go out in search. We found one just down the street, overflowing with ripe flowers! We harvested them and of course I had to try them (or I'd have to wait until next year.) They were sweet and delicious and would be lovely in juice. The one we found was really just past it's prime, but driving around we see them everywhere, so if another opportunity presents itself, I'll harvest a bunch more for juice and report back.

Here is a closer view of the flowers:



They look like pea flowers and the tree is in fact a legume. Here is more information about Black Locust Flowers.

My juices today:

• 2 quarts watermelon with 1 Tbsp chlorophyll
• 1 1/2 quarts beet, carrot, apple, garlic, ginger, celery, cucumber, parsley, cilantro, greens with hemp oil, kelp and spirulina
• 1/2 quart orange juice with water and bee pollen
• 1 qt tomato, yellow pepper, onion, garlic, cilantro, celery, basil, olive oil, lemon, salt - I decided to add the nightshades back in because a week without them didn't make any difference in my achiness

And back from grocery shopping, so I did chop up a bit of avocado with DULSE (which I was absolutely craving...still am) and fermented veggies. I wonder if I'm craving salt/sea veggies because I haven't been quite getting my full bunch of celery in every day? That would put me lower in sodium and probably craving it.

Oh, a special note: those jam/jelly bags from the kitchen store work brilliantly! Really, really well (dare I say better?) They are nylon, but don't have the tie string, instead they have an elastic band around the top. So I couldn't hang it up, but it didn't really matter - I hooked it around my big measuring cup and held it open, poured in the blended juice (yeah! The blender is sooo much easier to use and clean than the Champion!) and squeezed it through. So easy! So sturdy! I'm so happy about that! They were: Fox Run Kitchens (TM) 2 Jelly Strainer Bags for $3.99 at "In the Kitchen" - a kitchen store in The Strip (Pittsburgh.)

Day 38

June 2, 2008

Yesterday I ran the Greenfield Glide (5K = 3.1 miles)...slower than slow! And then my ankle hurt the rest of the day and I was asleep by about 6:30 pm. But I had fun, and E and D ran, too...Ella got a medal for finishing! Yeah, Ella! And our friends also went and their three children also all finished.

I drank a whole gallon of juice by noon, though. (2 quarts green veggie, 2 quarts watermelon.) I think I must have made more, but I don't even remember, and it was only yesterday!

Today I made:

• 2 quarts (though a lot of it was water) peach, raspberry, green apple, mineola orange + chlorophyll and bee pollen
• 3 quarts tomato, yellow pepper, ginger, garlic, onion, greens, cilantro, parsley, cucumber, celery, green apple + hemp oil, spirulina, kelp
• Also had about a Tbsp msm in water with lemon
• tiny salad of avocado, tomato, yellow pepper with lemon juice, dulse and fermented veggies
• I'll probably make some watermelon juice to take with me into work tonight (along with some of the green veggie juice)

Also, I must say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has been following my blog and encouraging me along the way! Your comments and emails are so great, and it's amazing to be out and about and run into people who tell me they've been following my blog. I really appreciate the support. Thanks again.

xoxo

Day 39 - Tips from David Rainoshek

June 3, 2008

Tonight I listened to the hour long interview that Kevin Gianni did with David Rainoshek, the man behind the 92-day juice-feasting program (though he explains that he learned about the concept of raw foods and juice feasting from his friend John Rose - ? - oops, not sure if I have his name right...should have written it down. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong.) The interview can be listened to on www.globaljuicefeast.com.

Here are some of the notes I took:

• Before juice feasting, it is recommended to buy a blood sugar monitor and test your fasting blood sugar first thing in the morning. Do it for 10 mornings and get an average, then follow this protocol:
  
  1. 70 - 85 is normal, you can have 2 qts fruit juice and 2 quarts green veggie juice
  
  2. 85 - 100 is pre-prediabetic, should drink only 1 qt fruit juice and 3 quarts gvj daily
  
  3. 100 - 115 is prediabetic (according to Dr. Gabriel Cousens) and should consume only gvj with no carrots, apple, yam, beets. At this point, you are considered insulin resistant.
  
  4. 115 + means you are diabetic and should see a doctor and maybe go to a center such as Tree of Life (his recommendation).
  
• We need to be juicing 2 lbs of leafy greens and 1 bunch celery a day (more on why to follow)
  
• Magnesium is 17 times as prevelent in the human heart as in other tissues. The chlorophyll molecule is identical to blood, except that chlorophyll (the green pigment in plants) has Magnesium in its center whereas blood has iron. The color of the heart chakra is green and greens literally feed the heart.
  
• Although fiber is an essential nutrient, we take it out on the juice feast so that the body can do cleansing and house cleaning, ridding itself of old scar tissues and inflammation.
  
• Reasons for juice feasting: cleanse, rebuild, rehydrate, and alkalize. Organic sodium (not table salt) is the main alkalizing material the body. When our body's pH drops the pH of our bile drops toward acid and gallstones form. Celery contains abundant organic sodium. In fact, David Rainoshek claims that 1 head of celery a day for two weeks is a cure for acid reflux (which he suffered from before finding the living foods diet.)
  
• other books and authors he mentions are: David Wolfe's Sunfood Diet Success System, Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell, Helen and Scott Nearing's The Good Life, Eliot Coleman's Four Season's Harvest, Thich Nhat Hanh (Buddhist monk, poet, peace activist) and Hanh's Plum Village.
  

Today has been a slippery day for me, in that I ate a bit. I collected greens from the garden, massaged them with salt, oil and garlic and ate some with a bit of avocado, tomato and pepper and lemon juice.

I also was craving seaweed and so I soaked some wakame and made a dressing of honey, tamari, hemp oil and lemon juice. I felt quite full and tired after that and had to lay down a bit. The tamari was wheat-free, but not Nama Shoyu, so it was indeed a pasteurized food.

For juices:

• 1 quart watermelon, mint and chlorophyll from yesterday
• 1 quart green veggie juice from yesterday, which had kelp, hemp oil and spirulina
• 1 quart apples, strawberry, mint and chlorophyll
• juice of 3 oranges with water and bee pollen
• 1 quart of lemonade: water, juice of a lemon, ginger, handful frozen blueberries and honey, through straining bag
• 3/4 quart of the remaining green veggie juice from yesterday

I'm actually quite hungry now and could use more green veggie juice, but Ella is asleep in her hammock and I don't want to wake her by making more juice.

I've also taken MSM in water and lemon juice a couple times today, and am drinking water, nettle tea, and a bit of chai with honey (earlier.)

Day 40!!!

June 4, 2008

Wow, day 40. Today has been such a better day.

Last night was pretty bad: I must have been having some kind of blood sugar reaction, which I've never had before going on this juice feast. I think for me having too much fruit juice (the lack of fiber in everything, the sugar just makes my blood sugar sky rocket and then drop) throws me way off. Also, the honey in the lemonade I had last night seemed not to do me good. I should have done that blood sugar monitor thing before starting. Anyway, last night I was very woozy and light-headed, even as I lay in bed focusing on my breathing. I drank some really strong nettle tea and some water with chlorophyll, which helped but did not totally alleviate. I felt better by this morning.

Today I had mostly green veggie juice. I juiced my entire bunch of celery, plus a huge bag of greens from the garden (but was it 2 lbs? I don't know,) and parsley with tomato, ginger, garlic, onion, pepper, cucumber and one green apple, which made 3 quarts of juice (almost.)

I had two quarts of this (with hemp oil added) before having one quart of watermelon juice for lunch, and the rest of the day finished up the green juice. Wow, so much better!

I also had some coconut oil with honey and spirulina.

Twice I almost had an avocado or the rest of my green salad from yesterday, but a voice in my head said, "No, let the cleansing continue," ...or something like that, and I was able to walk away.

I read Penni's blog entry for her day forty (way back in April), and I really like what she had to say about the significance of the number forty. Interesting.

Day 41 - Greens to the rescue

June 5, 2008


Here is the big colander full of GREENS, mostly from the garden, but there were some beet tops from store bought organic beets in there. I juiced all of it for my green juices today. I think that must have been 2 pounds? I don't know, but it was a lot of greens! Plus, of course, the bunch of celery and the cucumber.

Our garden is amazing this year. I am in awe of it! The cilantro - which I've tried to grow many times - unsuccessfully - in the past, is flourishing. The spinach, lettuces, kale, chard and collards are overflowing. And then the wild things...! Last year I really started getting into wild edibles, combing our yard for lamb's quarters to add to my green smoothies. They were there, but I had to search and once I harvested them I had to wait for them to grow back to harvest again. This year: there must be well over a thousand, WELL OVER, little plants shooting up all over the place! It's like they said, "You want us? Here we are!"

And then our tiny tomato sprouts that I was lamenting over a few weeks ago...they are still small, but starting to grow. But, we have found two much bigger tomato plants that we did not purposefully plant...one growing in a large pot on the porch with a cucumber, and one in the garden in the beet patch, that are doing very well! And then...Dave moved our big compost barrel (not an easy task, but it was taking up prime sun/gardening space in our little 20 by 60 foot yard), and now, where the compost was, hundreds of little tomato shoots are coming up. Wow. I am so in awe of the abundance of nature.

So, today I made a gallon of green veggie juice. Celery, cucumber, tomato, ginger, garlic, onion, yellow pepper, green apple, and greens galore. Included were beet greens, cilantro, spinach, lettuce, chard, (I didn't even make it over to the collard patch today!), lamb's quarters, comfrey leaves, plantain leaves, quickweed...hmmm, what else? There was just so much to harvest out there! Oh, I thinned the carrots (carrots! we have never been able to grow carrots either!) and I didn't use their greens because I don't know if they're ok to eat or not (though I know I have sauteed them in the past when I was macrobiotic), but I put the tiny baby carrots in my juice. Fun! So, I made three quarts of that green juice (and drank it today), and then I used some of the greens in a carrot, beet, apple juice, which I did not get to today. My fourth quart was: apples, strawberries, raspberries, mint and plantain leaves. In that juice I added bee pollen and chlorophyll. In the GVJ I added hemp oil. I also had my coconut oil, honey, and spirulina "dessert."

But, I must admit, I did eat some raw food again today...and felt so full! I nibbled a couple peas right from the garden this morning (sooo good). Later I had a bit of avocado and the homemade sauerkraut, two small tomato slices with dulse, some green salad from the other day, and a grape or two and a strawberry. I was thinking, "Should I just be on a modified juice feast?" But then I think if I decide that, I'll just give myself permission to skimp on the juice and eat more, and it's a slippery slope from there to cooked foods (the pita pizzas (lunch), potatoes and peanut noodles I made for my family today sure smelled good!) So, I'll just buckle down and keep cheering myself on.

Week 6 Pictures

June 6, 2008

Top: Today, after 6 weeks of juice feasting; Below is the before picture

Wow, I really do see a difference. Which makes it stink even more that I ate some (cooked) food tonight. Yes, I am annoyed with myself. I was so tired and hungry after having been out all day and my green veggie juice was so oddly tasteless and uninspiring, which I have no idea why. I'm also stressed that my parents are coming Sunday and I know they'll want to eat out and they don't know I'm juice feasting and they are not usually supportive of things like this. But as my husband says, "there's no reason you can't go and juice again tomorrow."

Starting weight: 182 lbs
Today: 161 lbs

Today's juices:

• almost a quart juice of a bunch of oranges with water and bee pollen and chlorophyll.
• 1 quart beet, carrot, apple and greens with hemp (very good)
• 1 quart watermelon with chlorophyll
• 1 1/2 quarts green veggie juice: greens (I'll write about them below), yellow pepper, ginger, garlic, onion, tomato, cucumber, celery, cilantro, parsley.

Above are my garden greens and weeds that went into my juice today. You will see some nice big red clover blossoms on top! Today I've included information about some of the herbal greenery that goes into my drinks: comfrey, plantain, borage, red clover, lamb's quarters.

Comfrey: Peter Holmes, in The Energetics of Western Herbs Volume II, writes: "There is no doubt that Comfrey has always held pride of place as the foremost botanical for promoting tissue healing." It is mainly used for treating bone fractures, hemorrhages, wounds and ulcers, as well as all types of lung ailments, especially bronchitis. It is also particularly effective in treating painful arthritis, gout and the like.

Plantain: In Holmes' book plantain is categorized as "clears heat and toxins, reduces infection, inflammation and relieves swelling; promotes detoxification, removes lymph congestion and benefits the skin."

Plantain: Plantago Minor

Borage: Similar to comfrey, borage also clears heat in the lungs. It also relieves constipation and promotes lactation (great for me!), supports the heart and lifts the spirit. Nice. I had some in my juice today...I'll be sure to add some more leaves tomorrow. (The blue star shaped flowers haven't bloomed just yet in my garden.)

Red Clover flower: According to Holmes, red clover flower promotes detoxification, clears damp (a term used in Chinese medicine), dissolves deposits, relieves eczema and reduces tumors; promotes urination and relieves irritation.

red clover blossom on the left, lamb's quarters to the right

Lamb's Quarters: my herb book does not contain lamb's quarters...but this is one of my favorite edibles! Here is what wildman's website says: "This European relative of spinach and beets, which grows throughout the North America, bears large quantities of edible, spinach-flavored leaves you can collect from mid-spring to late fall. It's one of the best sources of beta-carotene, calcium, potassium, and iron in the world; also a great source of trace minerals, B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, and fiber."

close up of lamb's quarters

Much love,
~ Melissa

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