Vegetable Juice Fast - Day 4 - Total Fast Day 5

Day 5:

Morning: Really tired this morning again.
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Afternoon:
Made these juices throughout the day:

• 11:30am - kale, apple, orange, ginger, celery, lemon, cucumber -  very good!
• 1pm - tomatoes, cabbage, celery, orange, garlic, arugula, cucumber, parsley, turmeric, wild greens, lemon, red onion - very good tomatoey soup.
• 3pm - pineapple, spinach, lemon, cilantro, ginger, cucumber, apple, kale
• 4:30pm - carrot, orange, apple, kale, ginger, lemon, red cabbage 
• 6pm -  apples, oranges, wild carrots, wild greens, celery, ginger, lemon - very good
• 7:30pm - orange, apple, basil, kale, ginger

Evening:  Feeling better and more energetic.

Night: Slept really well and woke up refreshed the next day.

Overall: I can't believe it's day 5 already and I think I'm used to this. I felt pretty tired and worn down in the morning but maybe it's just a detox symptom. Although juice fasting isn't too hard by now, I still want to go back to real food soon... I will wait at least another week before breaking the fast though. My eyes are brighter and my skin looks better so that's a plus.

Vegetable Juice Fast - Day 3 - Total Fast Day 4

Day 4:

Morning: Really tired this morning although I slept well. Still hungry although manageable. Perhaps the hunger will go away tomorrow? We will see... I had some wheatgrass juice made from powder again and I always liked it for its milky taste but today I've noticed that it is sweet, like actual sweet milk. I don't know why, not everyone agrees with me but I find this so interesting.
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Afternoon:

Not tired anymore by noon and not too hungry which is great.
Made these juices throughout the day:

• 11am - kale, apple, ginger, celery, lemon, cucumber - repeat from yesterday, very good!
• 12pm tea
• 2pm - tomatoes, apple, garlic, arugula, spinach, celery, parsley, turmeric, lemon, red onion - Kind of like yesterday but had no peppers left. Still very good!
• 4pm - carrot, beet, apple, swiss chard,  cilantro, ginger, lemon -
• 4:30pm - water kefir
• 5:00pm - carrot, orange, ginger, wheatgrass - a little too sweet
• 7pm -  spinach, apples, cucumber, carrots, wild greens, celery, ginger, lemon - very good
• 8pm - orange, basil, spinach

Evening:  Went to the gym at 5 and had lots of energy after drinking the carrot, orange, ginger juice.

Night: OK

Overall:This was a good day and I felt good overall.

Vegetable Juice Fast - Day 2 - Total Fast Day 3

Day 3:

Morning: So far so good, got my lemon and ACV water in and waiting to take in some wheat grass juice and then start juicing delicious things. I have way more energy  now and my skin seems to be clearer and more vibrant. I also see some weight loss on my body.

Afternoon:

Today I felt way better and alive, although hungry and craving food at times. This, however, was not as severe as in day 1.

Made these juices throughout the day:

• 11am - kale, apple, ginger, celery, lemon, cucumber - this was very good, kale is really great with green apple.
• 12:30pm coconut water 
• 1:30pm - tomatoes, garlic, peppers, arugula, spinach, celery, parsley, turmeric, lemon, red onion - I made this yesterday and it was delicious, so I made it again!
• 2:00pm kombucha
• 3pm - celery, apple, ginger, cilantro, lemon - also very good, getting hungrier as well. 
• 5pm - carrots, beets, apple, swiss chard,  ginger, lemon - very tasty
• 5:30pm - coconut water
• 7:30pm -  spinach, apples, carrots, celery, ginger, lemon - this is one of my favorite!!
• 8:00pm - water kefir

Evening:  I am learning to appreciate the freedom I have in eating the food I want and the importance of savoring every bite that there is rather than eating really quickly. I am starting to miss actually eating solid food but besides that I like my skin and how the juices taste. The only other thing that bothers me is how much produce costs and how I long to live somewhere where I can gather wild greens without driving and not breaking the law for foraging.

Night: I slept fine and had vivid dreams again.

Overall: Hungrier today than yesterday.. otherwise everything is great. A little bit tired in the legs but otherwise fine

Vegetable Juice Fast - Day 1 - Total Fast Day 2

After yesterday's water fast I feel OK but still have no energy to move around and do stuff.

Day 2:

Morning: Some lemon in water and ACV in water in the morning, along with green and herbal tea. A surprising burst of energy about 2 hours after waking up! Going to the grocery store to stock up on veggies for the fast and hopefully I will have this energy to make it to the store. Here is my work in progress grocery list and will get more stuff at the store probably. I usually get organic everything but will probably but conventional green apples as organic ones are out of season now and impossible to find; if I get the conventional ones I will just peel them before juicing.

• coconut water
• kombucha (maybe)
• lots of celery
• carrots
• ginger
• green apples
• beets
• cucumbers
• spinach
• kale
• lemons
• more greens
• parsley/cilantro

After my trip to the store and drinking the coconut water, I felt super great. I drank some wheat grass juice after as well. I can't believe it's still morning and I've already done so much!

Afternoon:

I felt fine generally and waves of tiredness came and went. 
Made juices of all kinds including:

• 11am celery, cucumber, apple, ginger, parsley, turmeric, lemon - this was so delicious!
• 12am carrots, beets, celery, ginger, turmeric, cilantro, lemon - this was OK, filling and good but not amazing.
• 2:30pm tomatoes, garlic, peppers, arugula, spinach, celery, parsley, turmeric, lemon, red onion - Now this was paradise!! Like a nice cold gazpacho soup :)
• 4pm - Some bilberry kombucha.
• 5:30pm celery, apple, cucumber, ginger, lemon - simple yet delicious.

Evening: Wow, I may need to run to the store in a few days with how much produce we are consuming. Water fasts are definitely way cheaper... I went to the gym after the last juice and surprisingly felt pretty good and went to a dry sauna as well. I had this juice afterward

• celery, kale, pineapple, ginger, tangerine

Night: Slept well, had way more energy than last night and got around 9 hours of sleep.

Overall: This was a good day and I felt great. Getting exercise also felt very good today so I will keep it up when I feel like it.

Water Fast - Day 1

So I am doing a 2 day water fast, then 3 weeks of a vegetable juice fast as per the idea in Markus Rothkranz's book Heal Yourself 101. I am doing this with my husband in order to detox, cleanse, hopefully heal some ailments, and improve overall well being. I am expecting this to be hard but worthwhile and it is summertime so this should be easier to do now.

Day 1:

Morning: Feeling OK, a little bit tired, and a little bit hungry but making myself busy with other things so that time passes by. I am drinking tea, a little lemon juice and ACV in water in the morning and in the evening.

Afternoon: Hungrier now but still manageable. I am drinking more tea and water which helps with the fast. I also noticed getting colder, sleepier, and a subtle headache. Getting some time out in the sun helped a lot but I just really wanted to sleep at this point. I find water fasts pretty easy to a degree because you don't have to do a lot of preparation and a lot of free time opens up in the day. 

Evening: Really tired and hungry by the evening and thinking of switching tomorrow's water fast with a juice fast. Starting to crave some food now.

Night: Extremely tired as if every muscle of my body was malfunctioning. A hot shower helped temporarily but I became really tired again 5 minutes after it. Even so, I could not relax and fall asleep easily and still had the headache. But I went to bed by 9 and fell asleep by 10 and slept relatively well with vivid dreams as usual and woke up at 7.

Overall: I did one day water fasts before and handled them really well with lots of energy but for some reason this fast made me so weak and unable to focus or do anything useful.. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day and will probably do the first day of the vegetable juice fast instead of another water fast.

Kidney Cleanse - Celery Seed Tea

I am doing a kidney cleanse at the moment for a few weeks by steeping celery seeds in boiling water and drinking 1-2 cups a day 3-4 times a week. I haven't tried this before but it seems like an easy and  natural way to cleanse the kidneys. To get all the benefits of longer steeping, don't discard the used seeds and simply add another tablespoon the next time you steep.

Celery Seed Tea:

• 1 tablespoon of celery seeds
• 8 oz of boiling water

1. Pour the boiling water over the seeds and steep until cooled. Drink up!

I dug up some facts on celery seeds and using this method as a cleanse. These are one of the more important things I found:

• Lowers Blood Pressure: This is very important to know for people suffering from high blood pressure. However, this doesn't solve the cause of the elevated blood pressure so use it as a medicine until the cause is taken care of. 
• Calcium: I'm not sure how much calcium you will get from the tea, I guess you can eat the seeds as well after drinking the tea to get the calcium. 
• Relieving Joint Pains: Some reported studies on this.
• Diuretic: Good for reducing swelling before important events :)
• Assists in Liver Cleansing: This is good to take in conjunction with a liver cleanse.

The key is to take this tea in moderation as it has other properties to it that can worsen certain conditions but is excellent as a short term cleanser. I will try it out as a kidney cleanser these next few weeks and see what has improved. 

Raw Chocolate Truffles

• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 1/4 cup of pine nuts
• 1/4 cup of sesame seeds
• 5 medjool dates
• 1/4 cup of cacao nibs
• 1 tbsp cacao powder for filling, 1 tbsp for dusting (optional)
• 1 tbsp maca powder
• 1-2 tablespoons of coconut nectar

1. Process all of the ingredients until they start to clump together, adding coconut nectar to help the process.