Post-Juice Fast Day 1: #Winning

First meal was a success: Savannah loved it, so there’s another new convert (all hail the power of rosemary & mushrooms!), and it was a nice mild reintroduction to solid food.

But the biggest success is that, while good, it wasn’t any kind of be-all, end-all food experience. I didn’t die of happiness at putting the first bite in my mouth. So yay! Food is not the solution I once viewed it as. It’s just, you know, food.

I also made the frozen-banana-peanut-butter ice cream, though the bananas weren’t quite frozen so it wasn’t as good as usual, but for a first try I think it was fine. Peanut butter had me closer to dying with happiness (and this was just plain peanut butter, made in the food processor) but still — eating solid food was just a’ight. Nothing earth-shattering. I couldn’t finish the banana mix, because my stomach all of a sudden felt way too full … I need to be better about assessing how much room I’ve got in there, but I guess that’ll come in time.

Got home with all my fruit and vegetable groceries (I’m spending a bit more than I’d like to, but you do what you gotta do, I suppose) and didn’t feel the need to bite into anything … though I did give in a little bit and taste the almond and cashew butter that I made. What, I needed to make sure it turned out right! And OHMYGOODNESS the almond butter is like cookie dough. Dangerous. I didn’t bring any to work today; I don’t think I’ll need any snacks.

What was truly exciting was finding that last night and this morning, the only thing I was craving was juice. Que?! How did that happen? It’s a great feeling. Juice just seems fresher, a more fitting response to what my body wants and needs … ahhh I feel like a hippie weirdo, but it’s true. And it feels so good.

Got up at 4:25 to do 5 a.m. yoga this morning, which really is the only reason I’ll get up that early. I like the smaller classes and getting done at 6 a.m. and still having so much time in the day. Also, I come home and go back to bed for an hour, so that works for me, too. Woke back up at 7:45, took a shower, made my carrot-orange-lemon juice, and was ready for the day.

Anyway. Going into hourly details of my life is kind of boring, but I’m just stoked that the juicing actually worked. I actually retrained my body to want good things, and I am determined to keep it up. All that delicious food in Seattle is inching farther away as I contemplate what it would do to my post-juice-fast plan … but you know, it’ll be OK if I don’t eat any of it.

Except Chipotle. I’ll be damned if I don’t get some Chipotle. 3 tacos suavecitos para llevar, con barbacoa, tomates, queso y mucha crema, por favor!

— molls

Day 16: Forward motion

You'd think today would be overt rejoicing for me, as I prepare to eat my first solid food in more than two weeks tonight.

And sure, I'm excited to cook. The stuffed squash I have planned for tonight is delicious. And I'm excited to finally get to try the nut butters I made on Saturday.

But more than excitement, what I'm feeling now — and have been feeling for the past few days as I looked ahead to the end of the juice fast — is caution, apprehension, and a very real fear that if I don't stay tightly controlled this week, I will simply revert back to my previous eating habits.

To that end, I just typed up a schedule of what I'm eating this week. I hope I won't have to continue this, but for now, I want to stay regimented so I won't be tempted to undo all the good work of the past 16 days. If I have clearly defined rules in place ahead of time, I am much more likely to stick to them.

So dinner tonight will be the stuffed squash. Breakfast tomorrow (and all week) will be juice, and I'll be stocking up on some more staple juice produce tonight at the grocery store to be prepared for that. Lunch tomorrow will be the leftover squash, and then dinner for the rest of the week will also be juice. I'll probably still be sticking with the ones I like (variations of the carrot-apple-cuc-spinach variety) and also trying to use up all the chard and cabbage still left in my fridge ...

Lunches are when I'll eat solid food, partly because I'm kind of tired of having to bring my gross-looking juices to the company fridge at work, and partly because I think it'll help me stay controlled at home in the evening. I'll be preparing the lunches the night before, so I'll be cooking solid food at dinner time, but I won't eat any of it. This will be hard, but I know I can do it, since I had to make all those nut butters without trying them this weekend.

So: Healthy lunches for Wednesday and Thursday: Sauteed/stir-fry veggies with mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, broccoli and garlic, served over a little bit of rice. Veggie tacos on whole-wheat tortillas with avocado, tomato, black beans, cucumber, lime and sauteed peppers, plus a little leftover rice.

Friday I'm going to go back to a juice lunch, because — vainly — I want to look & feel my trimmest when I go to the west side.

Healthy snacks, which will not be consumed at home; only during the day, as needed: Apple and celery slices with the cashew/almond/peanut butter; raw peppers and broccoli with hummus; avocado with lemon and salt; frozen banana-peanut butter ice cream, as a treat if absolutely craving.

The following week, I think I'll start making oatmeal for breakfast, adding in bananas and apples and frozen berries and whatnot. Maybe make homemade granola? We'll see.

This sounds so strict ... and probably isn't a good way to live, but I want to set up good habits and stick to them. Otherwise, this juice fast will have been just another fad diet, and that's what I've worked to avoid this whole time. These 16 days will not be in vain!

And for what I had planned to be my food-indulgent weekend in Oly/Seattle ... I'm worried about that. I still want to get butter chicken, pad thai and Chipotle, but I'll have to be careful about spreading the dishes out into multiple meals. Wings at Finns sounds really good, but the more I think about it, the more I imagine it would really hurt my stomach to eat something so spicy ... I don't know what I'll do about that. I wanted to go to Finns & gather a few friends there, but I'm not going to be drinking alcohol, and if I don't eat the wings, either, it might be kind of silly to choose that spot.

And speaking of alcohol; my friend is saying he wants to take everyone out to drinks in Oly after this climbing comp they have, but I think even cider (and they have my favorite hard cider, Spire Dark & Dry, on tap at the bar near the gym) would really make me feel ill.

OK, here's the plan. I will bring two to three juices with me in my cooler, and so I'll still have at least one meal replaced with juice over the weekend. I don't want the weekend to be a total let-go; it would be nearly impossible to come back to order once I get back home.

Man, I'm just really nervous! I'm worried about feeling bloated all the time, as even a small amount of solid food will probably feel really weird after running on liquid for so long; I'm worried about my ability to resist peer pressure, as friends who know I've been juicing will also know that I'm off the fast now, and they'll try to get me to eat things ... gah!

Also worried that my skin will never stop being dry & cracked ... my hands hurt so bad from washing vegetables & the juicer all the time. Wah-wah.

This is really where the hard work starts. This is the gray area after 16 days of black-and-white, easy-to-remember rules. And I feel myself being pulled into this super harsh discipline, and I know that's not what I want to be long-term. In "Sex God" (which is not about food at all, but so many things seem to overlap), Rob Bell writes about how we're not called to give in to all our urges, because that would make us like animals, and we're not called to resist all urges, because that would make us like angels. We're human, and we're called to live in the tension between the two. And that's so hard!

Well, we'll see. I've just proven to myself that I'm a lot stronger than I ever thought possible, so hopefully I'll remember that as I undertake the next step in this journey toward a healthy lifestyle.

And just to take a moment and recognize it — today is my 16th day. I've already had my breakfast and lunch juices. I really did last that whole time, and never gave in to temptation.

That's pretty remarkable, you know? "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." Word, yo.

— molls

Day 15: DAS RIGHT

TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Can you believe it? I barely can. Two whole weeks without putting any junk in my body. It's hard to fathom ... I keep thinking I must've snuck myself some trashy snacks, and just forgotten about it, or done it without my conscious brain knowing about it ... but nope! Two whole weeks on nothing but pure fruit and vegetable juice.

Well, OK. I chewed two sticks of gum and on Friday put a mint in my mouth for like a minute (because I am perpetually afraid of bad breath). But that's all!! And only 1.5 days left.

I feel another shout-out is owed to Ryan & Emily, because seriously, they make me feel so encouraged & excited about what I'm doing. Y'all have no idea — nothing like showing up in a mopey mood at the theater & being met with your smiling faces. Aw, now the show is done. We'll have to plan smiling-faces reunions somewhere else.

BUT YES. Two weeks. The last couple days have definitely been easier, probably because I know I'm almost done. At the same time, though, I'm kind of dreading going back to real food. It's been very simple, very black-and-white, doing the just-juice thing. Also, since the juice gets absorbed so fast by your body, I've gotten used to feeling nice & trim & not-full in this time. Not in a bad overly-hungry way, just in a, "This is what I need to sustain myself, and I don't need to eat any more" way.

Hhhh let's see. Went to hot yoga yesterday and today at 8 a.m., and since my two-week trial ended today, I signed up for the 6-month unlimited plan. Yikes ... that's a commitment. BUT, it's good flexibility & strength-training for climbing, and hopefully I'll be nice & toned by this summer. Also, I think it's good for me to have to focus that hard. I was talking to Court about this yesterday; I worry a lot, and lately, my mind has just been whirring out of control. It's really challenging to lie in "sa va sana" pose and try to empty my brain.

Yesterday, went to the house where Court's house-sitting and made delicious-looking nut butters:
Maple almond vanilla butter, salted honey cashew butter, and plain ol' peanut butter. (That's the maple-syrup-covered almonds roasting in the photo, plus flax seed to make it creamy.) I think I want a food processor. But duuuude it was torture; they smelled amazing, but she had to try them to make sure I had the flavor & consistency right, since I'm still on the juice. I'm planning on those being my snack/lunch this week, with celery and apples and whatever else.

Also, we started learning this awesome cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song," sung by a sister duo named First Aid Kit (from Sweden; why are all these cool people from Sweden? Tallest Man on Earth is from there, too, and he's my favorite right now). I think we sound pretty good so far, and Court's great on la guitarra. The harmonies are amazing! I'll link it on here when I get back to my own computer. Also I'm going to learn the guitar, too. I don't think it'd be too hard ... just that Fmaj7 that I don't know yet.

Also I need a capo. Details, details.

First meal will be tomorrow night's dinner. I'm going to coworker Savannah's house to watch the musical episode of Buffy (no, I haven't watched Season 5 yet, but oh well) and we shall cook. I think it's gonna be stuffed acorn squash with rosemary, mushroom and cranberry stuffing. One of my healthy favorites. And for a treat (if I have any room for one), I'll try to recreate Court's delicious frozen-banana-peanut-butter ice cream. That's all it is! Frozen bananas and peanut butter, in a food processor. MAGIC. Maybe a little cinnamon, coconut, some vanilla.

Still planning on juice being two of three meals a day this week. The following week, maybe I'll get down to one meal a day; I really like juice as breakfast, but I'm also excited to try out all these fun oatmeal recipes Courtney keeps talking about. (See the Edible Perspective link up top to find those.) We shall see.

Well, I am off to Target to reward myself with some cute summer dress or one of their amazingly neon swimsuits (yes, I know summer is still a good 4 months away. Now hush).

TWO WHOLE WEEKS! I'm feelin good, y'all. I never thought I'd have it in me.

— molls

Day 13: Into the home stretch

Welp, it's been almost two weeks, and I'm feeling good today. Yesterday was a pretty solid day, probably because I stayed fairly busy; was chasing down a story on fetal deaths at work (and I'm excited about that story; looks like Yakima has a higher-than-average rate, and the nurses I talked to were some of my favorite sources ever) and then had the play last night, so that kept my brain occupied for all the hours that I'm normally prone to that downward spiral.

Bummed, though, because I didn't make it to hot yoga this morning! Dangit. For some reason, every time I need to wake up super early, my brain decides to shift into hyperdrive, and won't shut off until the wee hours of the morning. This morning, right as it was shutting off (around midnight) my brother called me from Afghanistan. Which is awesome! I haven't heard from him in a long time, though he's called my parents, so I was really happy to talk to him, but it did throw off my sleep schedule even more. I don't actually recall falling asleep ... I just remember my alarm going off at 4:15 for yoga. I woke up, but somehow turned off my alarm and fell asleep, and didn't wake up til 5:27 ... too late for 5 a.m. yoga. Lame. Probably good, though, because I at least got a couple hours of sleep.

Mark's doing well, by the way, but I feel bad for him; he says it's freezing where they are, and they just have a tent, and they wake up all through the night because they're shivering so hard. Pray for warmth & continued safety ... poor widdle brudda.

But yes — juicing. I'm excited because other people are wanting to get in on the juice thing (Ryan & Emily!!) (also Tyler!) and I hope it works out well for them. Probably no one else will be as bipolar as I have been ... haha. I hope not, at least. I just way underestimated my emotional attachment to food, or how much I use food as comfort. But I feel good, like my body's working the way it should, and I want other people to experience that.

I'm expecting the juice thing to be fairly easy for these last 3-4 days; it's always less hectic over the weekend, since I don't have to prepare everything ahead of time (although I need to avoid last weekend's mistake, and make sure I don't skip a meal or go to the grocery store hungry). Court & I are gonna do yoga tomorrow morning then hang out & make our own peanut or almond butter, so that'll be fun (I want to have it ready for next week, when I plan to snack on celery and apples with peanut butter) and then the last night of the play is tomorrow night. Sunday is the last full day of juicing, and I'll have 5th Act and yoga to take up time, then I'm planning on Monday's dinner being real food.

Hokay, well, off to write about dead babies (not funny) (but hey, in the newspaper business, crudeness is the name of the game).

Three days left!
— molls

Day 12: Gonnamakeit, gonnamakeit

This is a good illustration of how I feel (minus the crappy filming-a-TV-screen video): It's Steve Martin in the *classic* The Three Amigos, after he's been imprisoned by the evil El Guapo during a rescue attempt for the lovely Carmen.

And he's "gonnamakeit!"

But then sometimes he's not.

But then he is!

Yep.

— molls

downs & ups

For the sake of keeping track of myself on this thing ... ugh. Tonight after work, after I tried to pick up my mentee and she wasn't there, my mood started to turn, then Ash Wednesday service just turned me inward & upset & self-pitying, again, (must be my favorite mindset, that one) and I had to just get out of there and like ... I was just exhausted by the whole thing. By the emotional merry-go-round this whole thing has been; by the act of having to juice & get everything planned out and ready ahead of time & having to schedule life around that; and by just the self-scrutiny this whole thing has brought on. It wasn't supposed to be for spiritual reasons! I wanted to do this cleanse to keep myself from eating Oreos all the time & to get rid of my headaches. I'm sick of analyzing my thoughts and my heart and where I am with God and how much I fall short. That's all I'm thinking about! (In this moment, at least; it's sure to change in the next 30 seconds, and I'm sick of that too. I'm getting emotional whiplash.) And I hate that all I do is complain. Blogs are for personal expression, I guess, so maybe it's all right to complain here, but I'm getting sick of hearing myself talk to other people about this. No one else really gets it, because (a) they're not going through it and (b) they're not me, and YES I know how self-indulgent and whiny and "wah wah poor me" I sound right now, and I hate that even more, but I'm trying to be honest in this. I got in my car after church tonight and just broke down because I felt so weak and disgusted with my weakness, and self-centered and disgusted with my self-centeredness, and just ... both utterly helpless and utterly aware that I did in fact have the power to right my mood if I wanted to. And crying for no good reason makes me feel even more like shit. Jesus, could I be any more of a hormonally imbalanced female?

UGH.
— molls

Day 11: Need a belt.

Whenever I talk about this crazy juice thing, I am careful to call it a “fast” or a “cleanse,” never a diet. I don’t like the idea of a diet. Diet, in our current perception, generally means something you’re doing for a finite period of time to get down to a target weight, after which you’ll likely revert to old habits. I don’t want that to happen to me. I want this to prompt a lasting lifestyle change (or at least a lasting abstinence from chocolate croissants and Oreos).

BUT, while the point of this has not been to lose weight, that’s definitely a perk. I’m having trouble keeping my shirt tucked in at work today, because mah pants is fallin’ down! Actually, that’s inconvenient, but it’s a nice feeling all the same.

Today is Day 11. Holy cow. There’s still this extreme mental duality — right now, I want to say that the second half of this juice fast has flown by, and it’s much easier than the first half. But then last night was a very weak moment for me. I was so freakin hungry, and I just wanted real food. Also I had a headache, which is not supposed to happen on the juice fast, and there was no parking at the Y so I didn’t go to the gym like I wanted, and blahhh.

But I got all my juices made last night by 8:30 or so, and Courtney came over & we talked about food and such, and then I did my yoga in my own living room with the help of this lovely posture guide. So I felt a bit more productive.

I still don’t feel particularly self-controlled, probably because it’s been such an emotional roller-coaster and I think about wanting food all the time. If I tracked my mood, it seriously would look like an EKG chart. But I’m hoping that this 16-day period will be a reminder in the future that I can control myself. If I’m looking at cookies, going “Just one more won’t hurt me!” I want to remember this fast, and say, “Hey wait a minute, you went for more than TWO WEEKS with nothing but fruit and vegetable juice — surely you can decide not to eat another cookie.”

We’ll see.
(Now I want cookies …)

Weird side effects of this fast: My hands are even more painfully dry than usual, and I’m running out of the nice Eucerin lotion I have at work. This comes, of course, from washing vegetables and washing the parts of the juicer in hot water at least three times a night.
Also, I think Court was right; my nails seem like they’re growing faster.
I think I’m colder than normal, too, but then again, I’m always cold. And let’s be honest, I still have a lot of insulation going for me.

What’s been exciting is finding that I actually crave the juice, too (not like I crave verde nachos, but hey, it’s a start). That first sip is delicious and satisfying, and I have to work to drink it slowly. (Except that nasty broccoli one. That was a struggle). This morning I had my own creation, “Rise & Shine,” with carrots, oranges and a lemon. So bright! Lunch has a beet in it, but hopefully it’ll be OK; it’s that watermelon-pineapple one again. And dinner is kale, chard, cucumber and oranges, so it’ll be pretty green but still good, I think. Mostly, today’s juices are just really pretty, in bright orange, red and green.

And it's Ash Wednesday! I'm still thinking I want to give up sweets for Lent, but I'm trying to mitigate that ... I'm thinking store-bought sweets. So if I make cookies for myself, I can still eat them, but there would hopefully be that deterrent of actually having to make them.

Happy ashes,
— molls

at this moment ...

ZOMG I WANT FOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!

whew. OK. yoga breath. remember the yoga breath. focus...

verdenachos.

DAMMIT ALL TO HELL!

I'm wondering now (in my weak moment) if 16 days is just asking for trouble. After being deprived for so long, won't it be extra ammunition for me to want bad food right away?

(not that time makes a difference, really, because I want bad food RIGHT NOWWWW gahhhh)

whew. this is stressful.

— molls

Day 10: Movin' right along

What I thought about on the way to work today, drinking my not-as-delicious-as-I-anticipated cucumber-watermelon-apple juice:

— Food is everywhere. I never noticed or thought about it much before, but now that I can’t have any of it, all I see when driving are the signs for food. Restaurants, mini-marts, grocery stores, fast-food places — it’s everywhere! And so much marketing goes into grabbing your attention. It’s all neon colors and big bold fonts and dollar-saving deals and exclamation points. No wonder we eat crap all the time; it’s shouting in our faces everywhere we look. (Also thought about how little effort goes into broadcasting food that’s actually good for you. Maybe Subway, but they’re not really that healthy. Better than McDonald’s, maybe, but still fast food. No one’s going, “SALAD HALF-OFF FOR HAPPY HOUR!” in bright orange on their marquee sign. Salad doesn’t sell to many Americans, at least not in fat-ass Yakima.)

— This whole fast thing is a practice in the slow, slow, steady process of self-denial. We talked about this at 5th Act on Sunday, how we hope self-denial leads to self-control, but really, I feel like what I’m learning is patience. I’m not a patient person. I get antsy and irritable and snarky when things are moving slowly. But this fast — it just feels like I have to slow down. Ties into fighting instant gratification, I guess. No, I can’t have whatever I want right now; I have to wait. No, I can’t drink my lunch juice at 11:25 because then it’ll be way too long before I have dinner, and I can’t just go to the vending machine to get a pick-me-up snack. It’s just a steady, constant pushing down of that urge to satisfy myself with whatever’s closest (like the mini peanut butter cups in bright wrappers on the table in the break room that I had to pass this morning). There are some acutely painful moments — remember my (physically impossible) urge to dive into a box of Snickers at Costco on Saturday? — but most of it is a low-level, ever-present wish to give myself whatever I want. And it’s really good for me to learn not to do that.

There might also be some masochistic enjoyment in self-denial, too, though that’s harder to pin down. But it can feel good to willingly deprive myself. Do I get off on punishment? Dear Lord, I hope not. Maybe it’s just exhilarating to find that I can do it, that I can resist food temptation when I put my mind to it.

I’m aiming now for 16 days, my favorite number, so that means juice fast through all of next Monday. And I’m hoping that I’ll take that new number to heart, and be as stubborn as I have been to the original idea of 14 days.

One odd thing; I find I have a much harder time being positive when I’m talking about this to other people. On my own, I feel strong and committed and, while deprived, fully able to go through with the juice fast. But when I talk to other people, I start mentioning all the temptations and difficulties, and I get myself down. It’s like I want to remind myself of what I’m missing out on. Maybe I’m subconsciously fulfilling what I think they expect me to say? I dunno. But it’s interesting. And now I’m thinking of what we talked about at church — that when you’re fasting, you should not let anyone else know what you’re doing. Maybe this is helpful in reinforcing that, or maybe this is another reason why you should do that in the first place.

Just musin’.

The long weekend helped the last couple days pass without too much challenge. One of the hardest moments was Sunday night (Day 8) at Courtney’s house, sitting next to her with my nasty chunky green broccoli juice while she ate healthy couscous and quinoa and salad. That was the only time I remember actively like, licking my lips and coming dangerously close to asking to eat some of her food.

But other than that, hey, it’s Day 10! That came a lot easier than Day 5 or Day 7 came. It’s helpful that I spent most of yesterday at home, cleaning and juicing at a leisurely pace.

Six full days left, so I’m still on the downhill slope, even though I added two days. (By the way — it drives me nuts how inconsistent I am with my numbers on this blog. Sometimes I spell them out; sometimes I use numerals. Gah! Also, sometimes I spell out “and” and sometimes use the “&”. Maddening.)

Lunch today will be the carrot-kale combo, which aside from those two, has spinach and an apple. Dinner is something I made up, with two pears, an apple, an orange … and something else. I wrote it down; can’t remember now. But it looks good.

Day 10! Please be impressed with me :P I'm impressed.

Also hungry. Dang, is it lunchtime yet??

— molls

Day 9: Breakfast of champions

There's just no way your breakfast was as good as mine this morning. I mean, really:



That's strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, an orange (that might have some kind of grapefruit strain in it? I dunno) and spinach to balance it out.
This is my reward for making it 8 days so far; I know it's sugary, but I don't really care. I had to make up for last night — I do not know why we had "brassica" in our "like" column, because it was verging on nasty. Mostly just ... thick. Very thick and very green. Broccoli, man. That stuff is hard to get down in juice form. But I finished it! Even though it was in the most gigantic bottle I have.

Blech.

Hot yoga again last night, and I'm planning on the 6:15 tonight. When I talk about going so often, it sounds excessive, but (a) I want to get as many classes in during my $20-2-weeks, and (b) without it, I wouldn't feel as convinced of the fruits of this juice fast labor. It makes me feel fit, inside and out. Plus, it's been really cool to see improvement, just in the last week. I can stretch further, balance better, hold postures longer.

People keep asking if this juice thing is giving me more energy, and I can't really answer. Maybe? I feel more inclined to do things, like yoga, but I'm not sure if that's because of more energy or because I want to stay active to avoid sitting at home thinking about food. I'm still sleepy when I wake up, which is kind of a letdown; I was hoping the juice would fix that. Actually, most mornings when I wake up and get out of bed, I have to lie back down again, because I get crazy intense head-rushes and feel like I'm going to pitch forward onto the floor. Hmm.

But it was nice yesterday to have a friend tell me I looked different — like my skin was better, and I looked more energetic. I know it's not the point of it all, but it feels good to have other people notice (even if he was just being nice, because he knows the fasting is hard).

Anyway. I am going to try to make this day off productive by scrubbing my shower & preparing all my juices for tomorrow. Ve shall seeeee...

— molls

Day 8: Hell yeah, halfway!

I didn't get a chance to post last night ... but huzzah! I've made it a week (and more, now) and I'm still feeling good. Went to yoga yesterday morning (rear-ended a gal on the way there who was also going to hot yoga, oddly enough ... it was super icy out, so that was no bueno, even though it's just a tiny little scratch. But, insurance is good, and because we're both Pemco customers, they're waiving my deductible to get my own car fixed. Yesss!)

Anyway.

So, yes. One week down. I feel no closer to caving in, though I still find myself in the middle of ordinary conversations or just working on something, and all of a sudden "TACOS" comes into my brain. Normal? Maybe? Dude if you knew what kind of tacos were available in Yakima, you'd have them storming your thoughts, too. Ay, mi madre.

Yesterday was a rough day; I cannot underestimate the impact of missing a meal. I had breakfast when I got home from yoga, about 10 a.m., then went North Town for tea & talk with a friend, then to Court's to have her be my Costco-card escort, and with extensive grocery shopping, I didn't get home to make my second juice of the day til almost 5 p.m. Twas very painful, especially walking down aisles filled with BOXES of candy bars at Costco. I told Court I wanted to dive into a box of Snickers; "You don't really, though, do you?" she asked (she is so nice & optimistic of my healthful mindset), and I was like, "No, actually, I really do." I could've eaten 10 of 'em. (Bars, not boxes of bars.) Even when not fasting, it's always a mistake to go to the grocery store hungry.

But I made it out of there alive, with all my pineapple and watermelon and mango and spinach and celery and errythang. Made it through Fiesta Foods, too.

I was quite a bummermuffins to Courtney, though; again, missing a meal when your meals are already pretty slim makes a huge difference in mood. I was going on and on about how there's no hope of this being a lifestyle change; how it will always feel like a deprivation; sigh. That's true for me, at certain times of the day. I feel much better during the evening when I'm thinking about it for myself, and planning how I want to go on beyond the juice fast.

Which leads me to: I will try to make this a 2 1/2 or 3 week juice fast. I know; I seem more than a little masochistic. But I think the longer I can go, the more likely it will be to make some sort of permanent impact on my eating habits.

At the very least, I want to go through next Sunday. So 15 days total. And from there, if I truly cannot juice 100 percent, I will at least make it so that 2 of 3 meals are juice. I'm thinking breakfast and dinner as juice, then lunch as something still healthy and mostly vegan that I cook at home and bring to work.

Not that I want to go vegan, mind you. But again — if I just jump back into eating everything I used to after this juice fast, then it'll feel like, "Well, that was a good exercise in self-restraint, and now this is my reward." I don't want healthy food to be a punishment or junk food to be a reward. I want to know what's good for me, and what I can have in moderation.

But yeah, never vegan. Sheesh. I quote Sarah Palin, dimwitted as she is, with this little gem: "If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?" Well said, you reality-TV-show-ing politician, you.

Other motive for continuing this through the third week: I'm headed to Seattle/Olympia the weekend after, and I would like to maintain my current slightly-more-trim self while I'm there. (Also, because my time in Seattle really will be an indulgence, with all that food that I want to buy there. Maybe I'll bring it all back and have 1 thing for each lunch of the week after? I bet it would keep ...)

Today at 5th Act (my church group thing), we read through the part in Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about fasting, and it really worried me, because I don't want to be the kind of person who goes, "LOOK AT ME, I'M FASTING, AREN'T I AWESOME?!?!" I mean, I'm blogging about it ... that's kind of out there for the world to see. I haven't gone out of my way to tell anyone about it; see below for my volatile reaction to a coworker making fun of my green lunch juice, and you'll know why I wish to avoid that. But with 5th Act, and folks at the play and other friends I spend time with, I kind of have to explain why I'm not eating and why I'm drinking what looks like baby diarrhea out of a Mason jar through a straw. (Today's lunch was disgustingly brown, but it tasted great: Red cabbage, carrots, apples, chard.) So I hope what I've done is just explanation, not parading through the streets like a pharisee.

I've got the juicer back at my house, now that Court has her own awesome high-powered machine, so I'm hoping that'll take some of the stress off the schedule. If possible, I'm going to make the next day's 3 juices the night before, so I can go about my daily business without having to worry about getting enough.

Tonight's is "bountiful brassica:" Broccoli, carrots, chard, apple, ginger, cabbage.

Anyway. I'm just killin' time here before I go to hot yoga again. I am going to be so sad when this two weeks is up and I actually have to pay for classes. But I think it'd be worth it, to keep feeling this good about myself.

Peace out, peeps!

—molls

Day 2 post (the lost files)

(I'm hoping I can switch the time stamp on this so it goes back in order ... I know I can do that on Wordpress; we'll see if Blogger stacks up.)

OK, if "sweat is fat crying," then my fat just had a "my-boyfriend-cheated-on-me-so-I'm-gonna-watch-the-Notebook-in-the-dark-and-throw-my-pint-of-ice-cream-at-the-TV-screen-because-no-one-is-as-perfect-as-Ryan-Gosling" sobfest.

Holy mother. The yoga we're doing is hot yoga, which I've never done before. And I'd only taken two yoga classes in my life before this (one at the drama festival in Nebraska summer after my freshman year of high school, "Yoga for Actors," and one in Chile at the studio down the street from my host mom's house ... which was a year and a half ago ...) so this was just a whole new level. I walked in and thought, "Love this!" because I'm always cold, but when we started working — joder. Sweat just poured out of me. It was good though; felt healthy. And different; it was just like rain, running off your skin. Crazy.

I was very proud of myself for the first 45 minutes or so (I think that's how long; there are no clocks in zen yoga land), and was keeping up and not in too much pain and able to do much more than I'd expected. But then I took too many sips at a water break, and we did something where we were jabbing our elbow into our side, and I went: Uh-oh. Nausea. Nausea in a very hot, dark room. My stomach felt sloshy; I was remembering that disgusting tomato-tastic glutathione juice for dinner ... it was not good. So I got out of the room into the relatively cooler reception area, and lay on a wooden bench out there and talked to the very nice gal at the front desk. (She said she was proud of me for how much I'd done, which is a totally cool thing to hear from a total stranger.)

Anyway. That's a long build-up to explain my low point tonight. Feeling sick, feeling grumpy about feeling sick, feeling worried that I might actually puke and then not stop puking as has happened so many times before; it just dragged me down. Then we got back to Courtney's house (had to prepare my morning juice) and her roommate (whom I love!) was making delicious-looking white-chocolate-dipped pretzels for her first-grade class, and we were still on juice ... it was just tough. That's the first time (I mean, we've only been at this two days) that I really thought, This juice fast is stupid. Who am I kidding? I'm not healthy!

But I'm feeling better now, so my mood is back up to where it should be. Feeling strong, body and mind (probably sweated out a pound in water weight, so I feel a bit trimmer, too), and ready for tomorrow.

I think what I have going for me in this is stubbornness. This is another one of those identity traits of mine I'm not sure defines me now as much as it used to, when I was a very hardheaded child, but I think it's still there. That mentality of, I'm not going to do this for any reason other than to do it — to prove I can — to bite my thumb at all the voices, internal and external, who scoff and disparage and doubt.

I don't think I've sat still long enough, in quiet, to really dig into the lessons God's putting before me in this. Courtney & I've touched on them briefly: the benefit of gently pushing down that desire for instant gratification; of strengthening the muscle of self-control; of teaching food who's boss. Hopefully I'll slow down soon.


It's getting late, so off to bed I should go. Here's what I get in the morning: The aptly named "Really green juice," with cucumber, green apples, spinach, and oranges.

— molls

day 6 (court)

well everyone, molly is stronger than I :) yesterday i had a handful of almonds, some salad and some beans, whoops! ha but I'm not disappointed actually.  i tutor 4 adorable children on thursdays in spanish and their family prepares dinner for us...so i figured what the hey, still plant foods! i plan to still juice, but just not exclusively, and im especially excluding sugar for awhile, that is a much needed change.

an interesting thing happened though when i ate a bit of solid food, it wasn't satisfying. all this time with just juice... solid, delicious, wholesome food has seemed like the solution to the struggle, but it wasn't! okay this sounds silly out here but in my head it was a cool realization. i woke up this morning more excited and dedicated to the juice fast because i realized that indulging in food isn't all that it is cracked up to be, it's just a mirage in this time of food deprivation. reminds me of that scene from 'fival goes west' when he thinks he sees his family in the desert....

sooo ya not sure what the next week will look like for me, once I'm out of ingredients i think ill be done juicing--but i plan to adopt the 'juice fast' experiment into my lifestyle, maybe a 3-5 day fast a few times a year. it just feels good and has brought me back to a healthy relationship with food. whoop whoop!

molls I'm here to cheer you on and i am excited to prepare all kinds of vegilicious meals with you after this thing! you're a star!

Day 6: Still in the race (molly)

Big shout-out to Emily and Ryan (who might actually be reading this blog!) for asking me about the juice fast last night and helping remind me why I started this in the first place. Whew. Those were a crankypants coupla' days there. Not fun for me or anyone around me, I don't think. But hey, Oreo withdrawal makes me irritable ... or something.

But yes — back on track! It feels good. Yesterday's juices, or at least the lunch one (more beets, and I'm still not a fan) weren't my favorite, but they weren't bad, either. This morning's breakfast was something very green; I don't exactly remember now, but I think just a standard spinach-apple-cuc combination. With a lot of lemon. And twas very good, and very refreshing.

Even before that juice, though, I woke up at 4:25 a.m. (I am NOT a morning person, in case you don't know) to go to 5 a.m. hot yoga at my new favorite place, Hot Spot yoga studio in this far-off train-track area of Yakima. It was so good. This was hatha, same as we did on Monday, but even with just 3 days in between, I felt stronger and better able to focus on the workout. (And I didn't sweat nearly as much, which I was actually a little sad about.) I've never liked yoga before, and I don't know what brought about the change, but it just makes me feel so fit and glowing and healthy and all that good stuff. My mom asked me what could have possessed me to wake up that early, and I explained that if I don't pair the juice fast with something active, I get dragged down too easily.

With yoga + juice fast, it's like ... I put good things into my body to get good out of it.

Also, having dropped a few pounds in water weight, I was just excited to feel confident in my stretchy yoga clothes. Ha.

Anyway — the juice fast is just chuggin' along. Still committed to two weeks, though it's still hard. I'm looking ahead a lot, which I'm not sure is a good thing (it definitely wasn't last night, when my brain was still whirring at midnight with meal plans for the week after the fast ends, and all I wanted was to fall asleep so 5 a.m. wouldn't suck as much) but helps me keep going, at least. Not looking ahead to eating junk food, but to how I'll be able to continue eating healthily — a big shift from where my mind was when I blogged yesterday morning.

I mean, yes, unhealthy food is in there, too. The weekend after juice fast, I'm hoping to go over to Seattle maybe, and I have a list of all the food I need to get in the U-District. Gyoza from Ichiro, butter chicken from Cedars, pad thai from Thai Tom, wings at Finns, CHIPOTLE (obvi) and maybe even sushi from I Love Sushi on Eastlake. Gahhhh hunger.

But I'm feeling good today. What a roller coaster this week is. The tough lesson in that, I think, is that I can control my emotions if I really want to. I was stewing the last two days because I wanted to stew — it was a very self-indulgent, self-pitying place that did no good for me, and I knew that, but I still wanted to stew. If I'd listened to my better half/rational side, I would have been much calmer and happier. But sometimes, I just cave to my petty side.

I'm not sure what I'm learning from this other than that yes, I do have self-control. It's interesting, though; I talk about the temptations of food, but really, the determination/promise to fulfill the entire two weeks is always on top of those temptations. I don't think I've been in any danger of breaking the fast. I would be too disappointed in myself. So I'm not sure if I have self-control, or just stubbornness. Stubbornness isn't a perfect alternative; it seems to make it more about myself, not about glorifying God in training myself to hold back from absolute indulgence. And it means I'm the one giving myself strength — which, as recent posts have shown, is neither reliable nor healthy.

Ah well. Tomorrow will be a week, and then I'll be on the downhill leg of the race. And "I just keep rollin' alooonnng."

— molls

Day 5, yup

I'm glad Court's able to keep things positive on here, because right now, this whole thing just seems like one long, uphill trudge, at the end of which I will briefly enjoy the view before gleefully sliding right back down to where I started. And there I will stay.

It's not unbearable, any more than that uphill climb would be. And there's a sense of accomplishment, of doing something good for your body, just like feeling the muscles pump as your legs strain beneath you.

But it's also not comfortable, and it's not easy, and it doesn't take much to think about all the other things you could be doing. Instead of climbing this hill, I could be back on the ground, with all the other normal sane people who have no apparent need to prove anything to themselves.

Hope the view from the top is good.

— molls

dawn of day cinco (court)

woo what a beautiful morning, like the morning face? ;) don't be jelly...

I'm drinking a berry mint blend this morning, but decided to add some carrot-apple-kale pulp that I saved from a few days ago...why not just pack it all in there! Plus, since I was blending the pulp just blends right in! It's delicious...if you were wondering.

Day 4 was most definitely better than any of the other days for me, and day 5 is starting out great too. I can feel myself getting mentally stronger and it's really exciting...for example, last night at youth group we had the lovely Audrey Van Horn and her small group bring in dinner for the kids, and it was chili, cornbread, enchiladas, spanish rice, salad, brownies, you name it. I was a bit tempted for a moment, but then I felt really content with my jar of green juice and it was great! I didn't find myself staring awkwardly and longing for their food, improvement from Sunday for sure! Also, i had some pure apple juice this afternoon and woohieee!! it was overwhelmingly sweet, that encourages me because normally i have a pretty tolerable sweet tooth, but now my palette is changing, YES! Okay one last thing, I did cross fit today and felt great! I was a little nervous about feeling fuel deficient.

Here is something cool I learned yesterday...

• it's important to know how to say "no" to good things
• i think many times in life we find ourselves surrounded, bombarded even with seemingly 'good' things...but, i think, to live in a way that is intentional we must know our priorities and be rooted in them, which means sometimes we have to say 'no' simply because we have already said 'yes' to something of greater meaning and importance. i'm so thankful to go through this experience and learn such profound nuggets that will help me to live better-crazy.

Day 4; truck derailed

OK, if this morning was all right, then this afternoon has not been.

I'm feeling spiteful. This is something that new friends probably don't believe/see in me, but I have a hateful, angry, vindictive streak that runs quite deep. Mostly I guess it lashes out at family, but maybe missing all real food is making me irritable, and emotions are running a bit closer to the surface.

I almost punched my coworker/cried when he saw my green lunch juice (kale, spinach, carrots, apple; not bad at all) and accused me of "fad dieting." How dare he! I'm not doing this as part of a fad; I'm doing it as a personal challenge/cleanse/reordering of my mind/exercise in self-control. Not jumping on the bandwagon. I didn't even know this WAS a bandwagon. (That I grew so irate & almost tearful is both a sign of my Irishness, I think, and the fact that I still care way too much what other people think of me. Sigh. Will that ever go away? Doubtful.) And I don't like people referring to this as a diet. I've lost a few pounds, which is great, but that's not the point of it. "Dieting" throws me in with all the people who are trying to get skinny with no other goals in mind — and "fad dieting" makes me feel like a sheep following the poorly informed herd.

And for other reasons, too, this afternoon just has me down in the dumps. Right now, the juice fast doesn't feel like some positive, exciting thing, but rather, something I'm going to finish because I started it. (Which I am; I'm stubborn and ornery and don't have any good reason to stop, because I'm feeling good and the headaches are gone.)

But it worries me. If I lose sight of the positive in this, then it becomes a chore, and it becomes much more likely that I will return to old habits. And that will be out of spite, too. I experienced this while in Port Townsend; my friends there were such hippies (and I love them, don't get me wrong) that it made me want to throw my recycling in the trash, deliberately ignore organic food, refuse to buy local, use paper towels instead of reusable cloth ones ... it's bad! And I don't know where it comes from, that desire to push back against people who are pushing so hard to just be healthy and save the Earth. I'm just an ornery person all around.

I've found lots of good healthy recipes I'm excited to try, but I still see that as punishment for years of eating poorly, rather than a positive lifestyle change. It will never be what I would choose on my own, if I had my absolute druthers.

It will never be as good as Oreos.

— molls

Juice Fast Day 4: Truckin' along (molly)

So I have a very in-depth blog post from Day 2, during which I experienced my low point post-hot yoga, but by the time I'd finished writing it at home, my Internet had gone out. Maybe I should take one of those 3-a-day phone calls from Charter & tell them to improve my service (I ignore them every time; they're acting like a clingy ex-boyfriend). So that's on my laptop; I'll post it whenever I get Internet back. Incidentally, my bill for Charter just came, and it's higher than it ought to be, so I am peeved.

But anyway. Today is Day 4. I'm thinking tomorrow will be the first big milestone; 5 days seems somehow legitimate. Everything until then is build-up.

It's going well so far, I think. Headaches are still gone, I'm feeling more on-the-ball at work, and I've lost several pounds (probably not in the way that will stay off, but it's nice just the same).

The juicing process is still exhausting to me. I need to start chopping up all the vegetables the night before, so I don't feel so panicked and rushed during my lunch hour. Also, I need to bring my sharp knives to Courtney's house. I sliced 3 fingers in one swipe the other night, and they still hurt like hell.

Yesterday's dinner juice had beets in it. Blech. I guess it wasn't that bad — nothing comes close to that glutathione nastiness, with the tomatoes — but it took me a long time to finish. Very strong taste. But it was pretty, I guess? Somehow our lunch and dinner juices on Valentine's Day just happened to be pink. Huh.

The cravings and temptations are still there. I went to hot yoga again last night (but it was just Yin, not Hatha, so it was very slow and relaxing) and got back to Court's house while she was out taking her small group girls home, and I went into the living room and stared at the bowl full of M&Ms. "Just one M&M," I thought. "No one will know!" But it would never be just one, of course; it would be the whole bowl. So I wrenched myself away and went into the kitchen to chop those horrid beets.

And now this morning my coworkers are talking about their V-Day dinners, with steak and salted caramel ice cream and all manner of delicious things. BAH. Evil tempters! At least this morning's juice was awesome — a repeat of Sunday's, with lots of strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. (Why aren't there any called redberries? Shouldn't strawberries just be redberries?) Delicioso.

I think I'm going to start deviating from the menu that Court's prepared; I refuse to drink any more with tomato. I love anything with carrots+apples+spinach, also cucumber, so I'll just try to focus on those. And I guess I'll have to use up the rest of my beets. Maybe 1 beet per meal; no more of this beet-heavy juice.

I want to know what our giant bags of broccoli are going to be for. We only had broccoli in those glutathione ones ... I'd like to use mine before it goes bad.

For any who are worried/have these questions, I asked Court about what kind of nutrients we're taking in. We're probably getting 900-1200 calories a day; juicing does take out most of the fiber, but not all of it (also, great story from NPR about this current obsession with adding fiber to food), and we're getting superdoses of all our vitamins. Spinach, particularly, has a ton of vitamins, plus iron, calcium, etc. Popeye was right!

I hate that I think like this, and I know I'm doing this for me & my body & not for anyone else, but I really wish more people knew what we were doing and were properly impressed. This is hard! Do you know how difficult it was to walk by a box of Valentine's Day cookies in the newsroom yesterday? Peeps better reco'nize.

Anyway. Off to reporting duties.

— molls

Day 3, over the hump? (court)

I'm draggin-today's probably the toughest yet, and it's only day 3! I'm thankful that Molly and I can hash out all the positives of this experience so I don't get sucked in too far to the hard parts. I always feel hungry and I seem to have less energy, which is surprising to me. I expected to be boosted! Ha maybe after the hump, which we read was about after day 3.

Now for the awesome parts. We went to hot yoga last night, we thought pairing some mind-body-spirit practice with our juice fast would be complimentary to the whole process. It was a blast and they had delicious coconut water, $3/bottle though-yikes! I'm learning so much about how powerful our minds are, I believe where the mind goes the body follows so it's definitely an exciting thing to be getting a grip on my thoughts. I feel extra aware of my thoughts these days...

I know it's only lunch time, but I have already learned a great lesson today:

• We miss out on A LOT when all we do is think about ourselves
• Two really cool things fell into place at work this morning, and just before/during the occurrence I was thinking about my tummy, my personal needs, my comfort. Thanks God for waking me up and showing me that when we take our focus off ourselves and look around us to just observe what You are doing in this world to restore it, we will be overcome with amazement. You're everywhere!

also, here are some pics from our journey thus far...

Juice Fast Day 2: Mid-day happy (molly)

I'm waiting for sources to call me back at work & bored, so here we are. Work isn't bad at all today; not sure if it's just a new week, or the juice, but I feel better about what I'm doing.

Breakfast was DELICIOUS this morning. Holy cow. Holy WOW. I want to drink it every day. About 2 C blackberries, 2 kiwi, half a pineapple, half a pear, and some mint leaves. Drank it on the way out the door at about 8:45 this morning, then was nicely hungry by the time I needed a snack at 11:15. Was definitely ready for lunch at 2, even after drinking a big filling peppermint tea.

Lunch was great too! While "bile booster" sounds gross & like it would be thick and nasty, twas grand. 2 C spinach, 1 green apple, 2 carrots (I think that was the balance.) Apples make everything better. Gotta snack one, too, all ready for a mid-afternoon break at about 4:30.

Not looking forward to dinner; we've gotta do that pukey glutathione tomatoey one again. But that's the last time, Court says. Whew.

The juicing process is kind of exhausting to me, partially because I like things to be very neat and tidy and there's no way to keep raw broccoli from getting little baby broccolis all over the place. And the juicer gets all pulpy and gross, and you have to rinse it out every two juices or sooner. But there aren't any burnt pans to scrub or silverware or anything, so I guess it's still easier.

When I'm drinking these juices, I ask myself a lot, "Am I really getting full from this? Shouldn't I still be hungry?" But then I remember what all I'm actually consuming — a giant cutting-board full of vegetables and fruit — and I realize that yeah, that's filling enough.

Found I'm craving savory foods, not sweets like I thought I would be. Verde nachos, man. If any of you come to Yakima, get verde nachos at Sports Center. Dang, my mouth is watering right now. But overall, temptation's not too bad. Heyyyy I really do have some willpower! That's a fun discovery ... though I suspect it's mostly because I haven't been exposed to food a lot. (Which also speaks to temptation ... why put yourself in a position where you're more likely to succumb? Yep, I'll be bloggin that soon.)

Anyway. Still waiting for phone calls, but that's it for now. Court & I are doing yoga tonight; part of a $20-2-week-unlimited deal that she found. I am not flexible at all, so this'll be interesting.

Peace out!

— molls

Day 1, post 2 (court)

Yippee! I loved today, in hindsight of course things always seem better and we tend to forget the bad parts. I definitely had challenging moments, such as buying oranges, grapes, donuts, and muffins for our mission trip students...but not eating any....also the cookies at church...successful denial #2...oh and the delicious (smelling) cheesy basily lemony tortellini pasta my mom made when i went out to dump the compost...and we can't forget the homemade granola she made today filling the house with a heavenly cinnamon and honey aroma, lastly not to mention the new pistachio butter recipe she tried out! --luckily that one looked like baby poo so it wasn't too inviting :) despite the temptations, i found myself surprisingly content with my jar of glutathione booster juice. wahoo!

I'm tired so I'll jot down some things I learned today, then TFB!

• food is a gift: all the times i thought about what i wanted to eat today led me to realize that on any other given day...typically...i can have whatever sounds good, i can just go to a store, or my pantry, or a restaurant. in other peoples' lives around the world, that is not the case. i am learning to be more thankful for the food we are privileged to have 
• food is on my mind too much: sad isn't it? i find myself thinking too much about food centered things, like cooking, eating, nutrition...it's showing me that if i were more self controlled in this area, i could spend much more time and head space thinking about other people and what's happening in their lives. i feel sheepish...(aladdin anyone?) this is good to learn though--i'm thankful that these things are coming to the surface so i can deal with them!

until tomorrow, over and out!

Juice Fast Day 1: We're OK! (molly)

Day 1 is over! And I don't think it ended all days, though I guess we'll have to wait for tomorrow to come to know for sure.

Overall, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I haven't gagged on any of the juices yet, not even the one with asparagus and tomatoes that we had for dinner. The juices leave you feeling full, though it doesn't take too long to get hungry again. I had my lunch one at about 1:30, and by 4 I was hungry enough that I needed to stop & grab my snack one before I went to the Y. But it's not a bad feeling; it's not shaky hungry. I'd actually gotten into such a habit of snacking out of boredom, even when I was full, that I kind of relish feeling that hunger.

Had a bit of a headache this afternoon when I was at the Y, but nothing major. I went and got a giant (delicious) peppermint tea afterward to ward off any dehydration. I am blown away by how just a few days without sugar has erased my headaches. I don't think I even realized how constant that pressure was ... My whole head feels lighter, clearer, like there's more space behind my eyes. And I'm extremely thankful that the first-day detox headache hasn't come.

Hokay - so. Today for breakfast, we had this delicious berry blend:
1 C strawberries, 1 C blueberries, 1 C blackberries, plus another cup of all three mixed together. It was beauuutiful, and kicked off the detox with a heavy dose of antioxidants.

Lunch was a bit tougher at first, but I ended up really liking it: 1 cucumber, 3 carrots, 1 orange, and a cup of spinach. When I grabbed my snack one in the afternoon, I actually found myself saying "Yum" out loud. Weeeeird.

Dinner was the toughest. It was our glutathione boost, and it had 1 C broccoli, 3 stalks asparagus, 1 C spinach and 2 tomatoes. And it was a very nasty brown-green.
I added an extra tomato because it wasn't a lot of juice, and I regret that. I think tomatoes are going to be hardest for me; I'm fine eating them, but the liquid texture just throws me right back to La Tomatina (crazy 40,000-person tomato fight in Spain where total strangers are shoving tomato pulp in your face. Sounds gross, and is, but everyone should do it.)

I seesawed a ton today. I was fine this morning, before I left my house, fine drinking the lunch juice, mostly fine this afternoon at the Y and directly after, but man, every time I had to drive somewhere, I fantasized about running into a gas station and buying candy. "It would be so easy, and Courtney would never know!!" Sheesh, get a grip, Molls, it's only day 1! I'm worried about how it'll be at work tomorrow, but I need to get a lot done, so hopefully my schedule will keep my mind off food.

Debriefed with Court over the phone just a bit ago, which was good. I sure am thankful to know that girl. And thankful to get to see all the lessons beyond food that this crazy endeavor has in store for us.

Man, I cannot get over this lack-of-pain in mah head! It's like I can open my eyes wider, or something. My headaches always seem to be in my eyebrow bone, low down in my forehead. I hope they stay gone.

Pumped for tomorrow's breakfast! Kiwi, blackberry, pear, pineapple, & mint. WHAT.UP.

— molls

Pre-Juice Fast: The night before... (Courtney)

Court's first post! Woop woop!

Molly and I are snuggled up enjoying a cup of herbal tea and watching "Fat Sick & Nearly Dead" to get jazzed up about our 2 week adventure ahead! I can't even explain how pumped I am...it's going to be such a great experience. We celebrated our last night of solid food with a delicious strawberry, spinach, red onion salad and a banana, peanut butter, coconut soft serve for dessert, thanks mom and dad for that new food processor! :)

We went shopping today and no joke-cleared out the entire section of swiss chard and we took half of the kale while we were at it, not to mention the GIANT bag of spinach from costco paired with mounds of carrots and celery (ick)...then came the beets, oh the beets. Maybe on the tail end of the next two weeks I'll grow a tolerance for beets, but currently, yucko! At least we always have the trusty potent flavors of lemon and ginger to toss in to the unpleasant juices.

Next came the challenge to fit everything in the fridge, phew! It's a good thing one of my roommates is house sitting this week so I could 'leaf out' on her fridge space a bit (baha get it? :D)

Well I'm distracted by the documentary, thanks to Peter by the way for the great suggestion, it has served as the catalyst to this whole juicy journey! But before I bid farewell, I want to write some things I'm looking forward to...

• Power of the mind: I have been learning a lot about how important this is and I am excited to see how this experience will help me to build some mental muscle, and really exercise 'mind over matter'. So important...
• Cut the cravings: My sweet tooth is so persuasive! I'm excited to crave what I actually want to eat, and/or be more mentally tough to make wiser choices "If you want to eat what you want, then change what you want to eat"
• Spiritually: God asks us to be self controlled, and the more I dwell on that the more I realize how that helps us to live intentionally, to really soak up life! I see the next two weeks as an opportunity to grow in that area, and just like Molls mentioned, it will be encouraging to see how self-control in the food realm spills into other areas of life
• Educationally: This experience will equip me to share what a detox/reboot looks and feels like. I am excited to tell other people how powerful good nutrition is :D

That's all for now, see you on day 1, or in Molly's terms 'the day to end all days' haha

Pre-Juice Fast: 12 hours away (Molly)

Two things, briefly, as I blog from my phone while waiting at the bank:

1) Another good Pinterest quote: "Losing weight makes you look good in clothes. Exercise makes you look good naked." Here's hoping!

2) A bit disappointed at the gym today; although I feel fitter than I have in past weeks, I struggled more on the elliptical. Maybe it's because I only had an orange for breakfast, but my heart rate was way higher than it has been. I was getting proud of how my heart rate stayed steadier & took less time to come back down after the high resistance minutes during the "cross-country" workout, but today it didn't happen. Today, for the first time, I succumbed & lowered the resistance a bit mid-workout. Sigh.

It's almost grocery shopping time! Woo!

— molls

Pre-Juice Fast: Only one day away (Molly)

Whew, is it really almost Saturday already? Then it'll be Sunday only 24 hours after that. Shee-it. Juice Day. J-Day. The day to end all days.

OK, not really.

Today and yesterday made me worried about how preoccupied I'll be with food over the next two weeks. I know Courtney is excited about this cleanse as a way to free herself from having to think about food, but it feels like just the opposite for me ... I'm not even in the juice phase yet, and at work, I found myself anxiously awaiting noon and 6 p.m. not because it meant a break/the end of the workday, but because I got to eat. I guess I snack more than I realized, because it shouldn't be that hard to go 6 hours without food. That's not that long.

Anyway. Today, my coworker brought me her juicer to borrow (then told me I could keep it, because her husband never used it) so I tried it out to make sure it worked. It does! Here is my first juice:


And here's what I learned so far:

1) Juice during the day. It makes a horrible noise that my neighbors probably hate.
2.) Cut produce up small. Maybe this is just my juicer's "feed tube," but it did not like having slightly large apple slices pushed down it.
3.) Add lemon to EVERYTHING. I made a cucumber-apple-ginger juice tonight, and it felt very medicinal or something until I squeezed some lemon into it.
4.) Juice is a dish best served cold. I think I would gag if it were room temp.
5.) Wear blinders to the store. Seriously. I had to walk past all the candy to get to the produce section and then up to the register when I went to buy the apples and cucumber. DAMN YOU, VALENTINE'S DAY! (Though my friend pointed out tonight that once our juice fast is done, all that V-Day candy will be on sale.) (No! I will resist!) (We'll see.)

Also: I found a great quote on Pinterest that I shall try to live by: "If you're not willing to eat vegetables, then you're not really hungry — just craving."

OK, 24 hours of solid food left ...

— molls

Pre-Juice Fast: Goals & thoughts (Molly)

Hopefully I'll work it so Court can post on here too, so it's not just my mind running around unchecked.

Goals as we look ahead to this crazy endeavor:

1) Change my appetite: I wasn't kidding when I said I was daydreaming about chocolate chip cookies. I'd like to fix that. There was a quote in one of the blogs I read — "If you want to eat what you want, change what you want to eat," or something like that. I don't think I'll ever turn up my nose in disgust at Reese's peanut butter cups, but I'd like to allow an understanding of what's truly good for my body (and an understanding of what junk food does to me) to shift my cravings toward healthier options.

2) Learn self-control: I'll write more about this later, because it's really been on my heart & mind the past few days, but I want this juice fast to prove to me that self-control is possible. Maybe it'll spread into other aspects of my life.

3) Fill my time better: Especially now that it's cold (and I only turn the heat on in my bedroom), I've spent a lot of time when I come home from work just watching Sons of Anarchy & chowing down on Oreos or chips & salsa or some other unhealthy thing. Instead, I'd like to regularly stretch so I'll be flexible when climbing season comes around, continue practicing the guitar so I can actually play, go to the Y more days out of the week, and go to sleep earlier.

And a couple random thoughts:

a) I really hope this doesn't bring about prolonged diarrhea. I've been reading a lot about juice fasts, and it could definitely happen. Hmm.

b) I'm interested to see what my metabolism does when it's freed up from having to process all the crap I eat. I suspect I must have a pretty good metabolism, because for all the Oreos & chocolate croissants & verde nachos I consume, I should probably weigh like 200 pounds.

Woo! Juice. Yeah.

— molls

Pre-Juice Fast: Overview & current mindset (Molly)

Hey all. So a bit of explanation: Courtney and I are undertaking a two-week juice fast (similar to what the guy does in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, but not as long because we are not totally insane) as a way to reboot the ol’ system. As Courtney (who is already a nutrition nut) explains, Think of all the years you’ve spent putting toxins in your body; this juice fast is a way to flush them out.

Well, by that definition, I’m approaching 22 years of being addicted to Oreos and Reese’s, so the point hits home. (In all fairness, I did not develop an Oreo addiction until I studied in Spain in 2008 and they were one of the only American snacks I could find.) (I also rationalize by saying that I don’t smoke, don’t drink soda or coffee, and only get seriously schwasty about once a year; compared to those, Oreos seem benign.) (But I digress.)

Two weeks of nothing but fresh fruit and vegetable juice is supposed to stop those toxins, cleanse your system and then start to heal the damage. The advertised benefits are much higher energy levels and the disappearance (or vast reduction) of daily aches and pains, as well as some chronic conditions. We’ve lined up juicers to borrow from friends/coworkers, and are planning on grocery shopping Saturday night to get started on all the produce we’ll need. Court’s got a good list of recipes, and a plan for what specific parts of the body we should target first. We’ll be buying some big Mason jars, so we each can store at least three 16-oz juices a day.

I’ve read that the first day or two brings on the mother of all headaches, which I am not looking forward to. One of my motivations in this is getting rid of my almost-constant headaches, so it seems a bit unfair that I’ll be depriving myself of chocolate croissants and still get that head-in-a-vice feeling. But at least it’s temporary.

Also just realized a couple of days ago that Court and I, in our infinite wisdom, planned this fast to start just two days before Valentine’s Day. Mental forehead smack. Have you tried walking into a grocery store these days?
Candy and chocolates galore! And they’re all on sale! And I swear that Reese’s hearts taste way better than normal Reese’s. It’s bouts to get painful.

This week, we’re slowly weaning ourselves off the bad things: No meat, no sugar, no caffeine or alcohol, no dairy, only whole grains, etc. This is supposed to keep Juice Fast Sunday from being a total shock to the system, but so far it just feels like adding another five days of deprivation to our two-week endeavor. We haven’t even started juicing, and I’m already daydreaming about chocolate chip cookies! Not a good sign.

Anyway. Those are the basics; this blog will be used primarily so we can track our mental and physical progress and keep from going crazy.

And off we go!

— molls