Healthy Lifestyle Journal

April 29, 2013 – First Entry

Monday – DAY 1

Today I started my detox. I stayed up all night washing, peeling, cutting and juicing veggies and fruit so my mom, my brother and I could start today. I think it is going to be more expensive than I thought, so I am not going to extend it longer than 10 days like I initially planned. Instead, I will do seven days. Then I will transition in to blending (which takes fewer whole fruits and is therefore less expensive), salads, and whole fruits (raw food diet). I will do that for 2-3 weeks. After that, I will slowly add in legumes, quinoa, nuts, and seeds for 3 months (a vegan diet with mostly raw foods, blended green smoothies, and supplemental juices). Finally, I will add in occasional lean meat such as fish or chicken breast twice weekly.

I feel good about this plan. I think it is healthier, and more realistic and natural than juicing for 30 or 60 days. More importantly, I think it will work better for mommy and me. We can always do another juice fast in the future if we feel it is necessary. I think it would be nice to do one every two months, just as a kick-start and to stay energized and healthy. It is also kind of inconvenient, taking up lots of time and effort. In addition, all of the fruit and veggies take up tons of space, which is kind of difficult. This is what my refrigerator is going to look like for the next week.

That is my plan in short. Now onto the good stuff! The juice fast. It is interesting because this is not the first time I have done this. I actually did it three years ago. I did a two week juice fast and afterwards subsisted on juices (mostly fruit, not green) and whole fruits and veggies for three months. I lost a total of 40 pounds in that time. I was not really that informed at the time. I still am not, but I was even less informed then. Now I feel I can benefit even more that I did last time.

Goals – Juice fast – Detox – 7 days

1

2.      Finish the fast and get an energy boost

3.       Break the fast correctly

4.       Eat vegan foods for 7 days after breaking the fast

5.       Start exercising again regularly during the fast

6.      Run 5k race this summer

7.      Begin a new lifestyle of eating mostly fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, legumes and whole grains like quinoa and brown rice, with occasional lean meats (twice/week)

Day 1

I stayed up all night juicing (I know, ridiculous and not healthy. I had to in order to get my brother’s juices ready for him on time. Even working the whole time, I just made it.

So I was up for 25 hours, then 6 hours of sleep and had my first juice of the day at 02:00pm. It was great. Fresh, fruity, and sweet. I’m easing into it.

Drink 1 – 02:00pm

I really liked this one. It was nice and bright tasting.

Good Morning Sunshine

1 grapefruit, halved

2 medium apples, cored

Fresh Italian Parsley, several sprigs

Half a handful of grapes, seedless

Drink 2 – 04:00pm

Grapefruit Green

1 grapefruit

1 green apple

1 head kale

½ cucumber

2 cups spinach

1 inch ginger

I like this one too.

Afterwards, I was energetic, clear thinking and ready to start the day. I worked at my computer looking out over the lake. I watched the swans landing on the lake, the geese leading the new fuzzy, yellow chicks around, the crane standing serenely above his reflection, and a random ground hog skirting around the edge of the rushes. The tree by the balcony was finally sprouting green and I felt new and fresh as if I had a new lease on life

Drink 3 – 05:00pm

Beet This!

2 beets

2 carrots

1 apple

½ cucumber

2 cups spinach

1 in ginger

Really strong, really sweet, really intense. The beets are crazy. I just chugged it down. It wasn’t horrible or anything, just really really beety! I didn’t need to sip and savor this one. But I felt energized and I hadn’t felt hungry yet.

Between 5pm and 7pm, I started to feel a little foggy. My thoughts were not quite as organized and clear and I would have like them to be. My plans for the day fell through. I meant to cut up fruits and veggies for tomorrow’s juicing, clean my room and do some job searching. Instead, I ended up researching juice fasting, sushi, oil pulling, detox teas and new juice recipes. In all fairness, this was part of the plan too. I was supposed to go to the store and get some more ingredient for juice recipes and some detox teas, but that will have to go on tomorrow’s to-do-list. I did my Vlog and made sure my mom and brother were doing well with their juicing today.

Drink 4 – 07:00pm

By this time, I felt hungry, for the first time today. I was fine as soon as I drank it. I felt more foggy and dizzy when I walked around and had a constant dull headache from around 5 to 11 when I went to bed. I started daydreaming about sushi looking for pictures of it on the internet. My sister started cooking her dinner and it smelled wonderful, but I did not really want it.

I think today went very well. I did not take a walk or anything, but I will try tomorrow. I am oil pulling with olive oil right now, because I don’t have sunflower oil or sesame oil. I am just starting oil pulling and I thought this would be a perfect time to start, while I am detoxing. I am trying to stay positive and think about how good I feel and WILL feel instead of thinking about what I can’t do. I really want to take care of myself and this is a good start. I am also having a detox yogi tea before bed tonight.

 I think tomorrow will be more difficult. Today, I was just happy to be starting. I need to get up at 4am to make my brothers juices for work tomorrow. I hope to make all my goals tomorrow and finish everything that I have on my to-do-list.