Right around that time I happened to pop into a friends blog where she mentioned that she was going to start Juice Feasting and she would have a blog for it.
I met Jessica back in College where we worked in the same office for a year-ish. I really got into her family blog after we were both married because she is really funny and a really good writer. Then about the same time I started to get into running she did as well and started a blog about running. I am really excited that she was willing to write up a blog post to inform all of you about her experience with it.
Without further adieu,
Hey everyone!
I’m so excited to guest blog here and tell you my journey which you can find at www.jessicajuices.blogspot.com.
I first heard about the juice feast last summer, when my sister told me that she was doing one. I remember her saying, “Now, you are going to think I’m crazy but just hear me out.” I thought she was crazy. I mean, we’re talking about not eating anything except for the juices from fruits and veggies for up to 92 days! I was able to watch her journey as she detoxed, lost weight, and felt great. It was all from her example that I thought about trying to do one myself. If it wasn’t for her, I would have never considered something like this before. Plus, I do admit, I was jealous of the weight she was losing!
Back in October, I had decided to complete a juice feast. However, I didn’t want to set myself up for failure over the holidays so I decided to wait until January. It seemed fitting, right when everyone was making their new year’s resolution, I could do mine as well. Then, I found out that I was pregnant which threw juice feasting out the window for another 2 years or so (pregnancy plus breast feeding). This may be taboo to admit but I was mixed between happy and disappointed when I found out that I was pregnant. I felt happy because we would be welcoming a new baby in July but I felt disappointed in myself that I still was 10 lbs. over my pre-pregnancy weight. I didn’t feel good about myself and was guilty that I had gotten pregnant. Then I felt even guiltier because I know that so many women struggle with fertility and would love to have a baby of their own. Then, because I felt guilty, I would comfort myself with food and the vicious cycle continued.
In November, I lost my baby due to an ectopic pregnancy. It was really devastating and hard but in many ways, I have grown so much from that experience that I didn’t want (nor do I want again) and wouldn’t wish on anyone.
I decided to look into doing the juice feast again. I felt like in order to heal, I needed to take time to myself and really concentrate on getting me healthier. Juice feasting was that way to do that. I decided to do juice feasting for 3 main reasons:
1. Juice feasting heals scars and scarring in the Fallopian tubes can cause you to have an ectopic pregnancy. Because of the surgery from the ectopic pregnancy and from an ovarian cyst surgery I had when Jack was only a newborn, I wanted to heal myself and my reproductive system.
2. I wanted to jump start a new lifestyle of eating whole and raw foods.
3. I wanted to lose weight and look sexy!
When I told my husband about this, he was very supportive of me although the sound of the blender really started to annoy him after a while. I don’t think he knew entirely what I was getting myself into because juice feasting is a tad expensive and seeing as we are college students, there wasn’t a whole lot left in the budget for this. When you juice feast, you’re supposed to use all organic produce but being here in Rexburg, Idaho, finding enough organic produce is very difficult. However, it is still acceptable to use non-organic produce as well. In the end, it was about $10 a day to eat.
I talked earlier about how the juice feast was to help heal scarring. The purpose of the juice feast is to heal overall. Think about this: every single food ingredient that we put into our body leaves either through sweat, tears, or waste. Does the amount of food you put into your body equal what comes out? The average person has about 5-25 lbs of waste (AKA poop) in their system. Wowza!
This is the purpose of a juice feast. To cleanse out all of the waste that in your system and I’m not just talking about solids. Certain foods are digested a certain way which can result in production of acid.
Your body doesn’t like acid very much and without natural buffers, you would die. The more acid-producing food you put into your body, the harder your digestive system has to work to neutralize it. When you juice feast, it gives your digestive system a chance to relax so that your body can concentrate on healing other areas that need attention.
After 8 days of eating pure, blended juice, I decided that it was time to stop and start my new lifestyle. It has been about 3 weeks since I ended my juice feast but I still juice for breakfast. I think of it like a homemade V8 juice and I feel great knowing that I’ve gotten in all of my veggies for the day. For lunch, I’ve been eating cowboy caviar salsa with corn chips. My rule is to not eat packaged food with more than 5 ingredients. Dinner is usually my worst meal of the day. Last night we had homemade whole wheat pizza with mushrooms.
I absolutely stay away from sugar and white flour. I rarely eat beef or pork and eat milk products even rarer. I go by a whole foods list found here <http://www.therawfoodworld.com/wholefoods.html>.
Really I eat whatever I want and as much as I want. The other day, french fries sounded so good so I ran to the store and got a sweet potato, sliced it up, sprinkled it with olive oil, pepper and salt and baked. It was sweet and crispy. It just gives me shivers thinking about it!
Now I know the whole idea of eating as much food as you want seems counter intuitive but it works. At the beginning of my juice feast, I was 156lbs. When I ended, I had lost 5 lbs and with my lifestyle of eating, I have lost an additional 7 lbs. I am now 1 pound under my pre-pregnancy weight and still going!
Please feel free to ask any questions about my juice feast. As you can see, I love talking about it.
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