Day 40 - Confessions of a juice feasting shopaholic

I've been doing way too much online shopping lately. So far today I've purchased:

• Healthforce Parasite formula (day 60 is coming soon!)
• Healthforce intestinal movement formula
• Healthforce intestinal drawing formula
• "Total leaky gut" formula
• Terminator Zapper (Thanks Suki for letting me know where to buy it!)

• Tomorrow... I may possibly buy a needak rebounder...

The office of healing is one hell of an expensive office! LOL. I'm worth it though right? Plus all this shopping is cheering me up.... I've decided no more yoga classes for a while. I think I do better at home and it will be less expensive AND cut down on travel time which means I'll have more time to do other stuff. So that's it; I've compromised by swapping regular yoga classes for a rebounder.

I can't believe it's day 40 and my chanca piedra isn't here yet. I'm kind of annoyed at this. I ordered it a while ago... uuurrrgh! I should have just gone with the capsules I had found in the health food stores here. I really wanted to get the tincture though.

I hope all this other stuff gets here soon. I feel like a druggy at work lately; popping pills left right and centre (probiotics and enzymes mostly)... I can't imagine when it will come the time to take all the healthforce products and the parasite formula... I'm going to wait until AFTER the parasite formula to start taking the total leaky gut formula though. Detox first, repair after...right? :)

I was drinking my coconut water at work today and my senior director asked "how long has this been going on now??" and I said "40 days" to which he replied "so... it's almost over?". I said; "yea... in 52 days".

"You're nuts!"

LOL. Well maybe it seems that way to 'normal people' but I'm quite enjoying touching my legs at night and feeling only smooth skin. From a visual point of view, you can still tell where the lesions were... but it feels very smooth now. There still is a lot more healing that needs to happen on my arms and torso though... so I'm just going to have to keep going with the healing. We apparently get a whole new set of skin every 28 days.... so maybe by the time JFing is over, 2 new sets of skin from now, I'll have beautiful flawless psoriasis-free skin. Keep your fingers crossed! :)

Today I had:

250ml water+slippery elm bark
1.25ml water+msm+lemon
1.25ml celery/collard greens+spirulina+kelp
1.25ml pineapple/blood orange (yum yum!!)
1.25ml pineapple/apple/blood orange/carrot (yum yum yum!!)
1L coconut water
1L apple/black kale
500ml American Saffron tea
1L cat's claw tea (throughout the night shift, I'm hoping)
1Tbsp bee pollen+agave nectar
6 Probiotic caps
6 Full spectrum enzymes caps

Today I also did:

Skin Brushing
No exercise today....but I got a good nap before coming to work at the hotel :)
"Very satisfactory crap"

**Poop report... you've been warned!**
...Yea... to quote Carrie, today I had a most "satisfactory crap". I stood there, baffled as to how this was possible... but I had a 'normal person' bowel movement today... Actually... I had a 'vegan person bowel movement' (which are typically larger than normal people bowel movements and flow out faster). I just had a colonic like... 4 days ago!?!!? Where did this come from??!?!?! I haven't had anything solid to eat in 40 days and I haven't had a BM this size in over a month! Am I sleep-eating? LOL... I could just see myself making artichoke-almond pesto in my sleep and eating it over spelt noodles! Hahahhaa! :)

- Ben

Day 36 - The office of healing

I keep hearing Kris Carr in my head... saying "everyday you're at the office of healing". That's how I feel lately; especially when the whole juice feasting process gets overwhelming. But you know, the office of healing isn't such a bad place to be. I'm going to be purchasing Kris Carr's book today.... Her documentary (DVD) is already on my Amazon.com wishlist; I can't wait for it to come out (sometime in March)! As soon as it does, I'll be buying it from amazon along with a plethora of raw cookbooks.

In a way, I relate to a lot of what Kris has said about cancer. Psoriasis has been *my* guru as well. It's taught me about alkaline diets, cleansing, detoxing, yoga, meditation, juice feasting, edgar cayce..... How different my life would be if I had not been 'blessed' with psoriasis. That's right, I'm finally opening up to the idea that psoriasis is a really f*cked up blessing.

I guess that idea was reinforced yesterday when my colonic practitioner mentioned how I'm lucky to have psoriasis. I was momentarily furious (this disease is nothing pleasant at all, I've enumerated the challenges of living with this disease in previous posts). She then explained how the fact that my body is expelling the toxins through my skin is actually a good thing in a way; for most people, those toxins stay in the body and cause cancer. It was a bit of a different take on it. I guess I'm able to see my psoriasis in a positive light right now because I know it's going away, and I know that, by the time I'm done with this juice feast, I'll never have it again.

Colonics

Now, I'm sure you're all DYING to know how my colonic went! If not, skip this paragraph! I was expecting to go in there and have my practitioner baffled as to why nothing was coming out and the water was coming out clear. Nope! Little did I know, despite doing regular enemas, I was FULL of impacted fecal matter. I told my CP about JF and she thought it was brilliant. I kept elliminating, what she referred to as "fecal stones". These are hard fecal matter that sticks to the walls of the intestines. Unless you fast and get colonics, they pretty much just stay there. I moved out a lot of that stuff along with gas. She could feel impacted waste in my ascending colon so she massaged it; most of that stuff got moved out really quickly. This means my colon is relatively empty! I felt sooo good after that! Very light... I immeditately had some coconut water to rehydrate and replenish my electrolites. Had I known then what I know now, I would have had a colonic 2 or 3 weeks ago. I will be having another one on day 60 and another after I'm done my parasite cleanse and another on the last day of JF.

Today I had:

250ml water+slippery elm bark
1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.5L celery/red chard/parsley+kelp+E3live
1.5L watermelon juice
1L coconut water
750ml grapefruit juice
1tbsp coconut oil

Today I also did:

Skin brushing
1 hour yoga
1 hour colonic

And for those who are wondering; my interview went SMASHINGLY well! :) Honestly, it could not have gone better. I feel so blessed to be so in tune and alert. I know I had some juicy super powers at work during that interview! :)

Today, I leave you with the trailer of Kris Carr's documentary entitled Crazy Sexy Cancer"

- Ben

Day 31 - Torticollis and bullying...

Thank you, everyone, for your concern. I'm doing a lot better. Yesterday was so bizarre. It basically hurt to talk, swallow, yawn and burp (especially burp!). I told my manager I wouldn't be talking if that was okay with her so everything was done by email yesterday... or people coming to my desk and me typing into the computer to answer them lol. It was actually oddly soothing to do a 'silent retreat' at work. I should do that more often.

I went to the chiro in the afternoon and immediately felt better. She also confirmed it was muscular and specifically the sternocleidomastoid. She suggested I go for a massage at that point. Luckily my RMT was available that evening. He gave me an awesome massage; whole back, focusing on the upper neck area and shoulderblades (constant problem for me) and then the front part of the neck along with upper and lower chest regions. When he was about to start massaging the front part of my neck, he warned me it wouldn't be pleasant.... He wasn't kidding! It was really painful. But hey, no pain, no gain? He massaged me with black cumin, chamomile and laurel leaf essential oils! Mmmmm... I can still smell it! :) Black cumin is sooo yum! :) After the massage, I was told what I had is basically a form of torticollis.

My theory is: I either screwed up my neck whilst lifting boxes about 30 min before the pain first shot through my neck.... or, like Michelle and Carrie suggested, it could have been psychosomatic. I'm supposed to be around 15/14 years old right now, through the 'retracing' process.

I had the most aweful teenage years... I basically got bullied everyday from ages 9 through 15. I had insomnia and symptoms of PTS as a kid. I can't verbalize the feeling of dread that would overwhelm me as summer vacation came to an end... not knowing what bullies would be in my class that year or not knowing to what extent I would get beaten up or verbally assaulted. I grew up in a small town and being the only obviously gay kid in a school of 300 people, I became an easy target for that sort of thing.

While that's all a distant memory, I still live with a lot of that still. I sometimes expect for people to backstab me or conspire against me. I never had any friends throughout high school and, now as an adult, the feeling of having friends still feels strangely alien to me. When I hear people laughing on the bus, I immediately assume they're laughing at me. I guess that's what 6 years of chronic abuse will do to a person.

There's a positive side to all this; I'm a much more driven person... I left that small town and went to the city where people are much more open and less conservative and I've been independent ever since. I moved out at 16 and made a life for myself. I've been driven to succeed to prove those people wrong.

Anyway... enough about all that... It's just, I was thinking this morning... I couldn't associate this feeling in my throat to any injury I've ever had. The only exception is, it felt like when kids would pin me against the wall with their hands on my throat and try to strangle me. This feeling was very akin to feeling stifled. It's the only thing I can link it to. Maybe writing this all out, verbalizing it through my blog will help release these repressed feelings.

Today I had:

1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/red chard/cilantro+E3live+kelp
1.25L apple/red cabbage
750L cantaloupe
500ml coconut water+E3live
1Tbsp bee pollen
(forgot to take my fats again! d'oh!)

Today I did:
Skin brushing
1 chiropractic adjustment
1 hour massage with essential oils

I finally managed to get some Chanca Piedra in tincture form shipped to Canada! I'm a bit late on it, but I figured I'd rather get it in tincture and take it a few days later (supposed to start on day 30) than to get it in capsule form.

I'm desperately trying to order Healthforce products (parasite formula for day 60 and intestinal drawing formula) but am also having the same 'shipping to canada' problem. I'm waiting on an email from a seller on bluejay.com... You'd think Americans don't realize we're right next door to them or something? It boggles my mind why they wouldn't ship to Canada!

Anyway! :)

- Ben

PS: Officially hit the "lost 20lbs" mark today! I was at 150.4lbs and I was super pissed because I've been waiting to hit 149 for days now.... so I went to pee, came back and I was at 150.0! LOL!

Day 23 - The ex factor

Isn't this knife holder the neatest thing ever? :)

Is my juice feasting conjuring up some bizarre cosmic effect? I had a kiosk today to host and this guy I dated when I was 17 showed up. I was only 17 and I had high hopes about him at the time... but he broke my heart in a very cowardly way. I was crushed. Such is teenage love!

I think I only recognized him because of his name-tag. It's been 8 years! It was bizarre. It's funny to think that I'm going back 120 days on each day of juice feasting, and that right now I'm almost 18 years old. Coincidence? Regardless, he gave me his card and asked me to call him. I have to say, he is gorgeous. I had a weird feeling about it though... so I went online and found out he's married (to a man, it's legal here)! So ha! I put the card in the trash. Normally I would have felt distraught over running into an ex.... but I think the combination of juice feasting and doing yoga has me feeling very empowered and grounded. I'm focusing on myself right now... and doing what's right for me. I'm single... and I think for the first time in a long while, I can honestly say I'm content with that.

It's like the tree pose in yoga... I'm a well grounded tree... balanced and calm... moving slightly with the winds but cannot be easily toppled over. :)

Speaking of calm; my kiosk was right next to the buffet! A few weeks ago, being subjected to this parade of food would have driven me nuts. Today... I was perplexed and apathetic. I remembered something Angela Stokes once said about reaching a point where you don't quite understand what all these people are doing with all that food. It felt alien to me, watching people eat... If things stay the way they are, I have no doubts I'll reach day 92.

Today I had:

1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/green chard/parsley+bee pollen+kelp powder+spirulina
1.25L Pineapple/Blackberry
1.00L Apple/Red Cabbage
1.00L Young coconut water/a wee bit of P&B juice that was left over
1.00L Granny Smith Apple/Kale/Daikon
1.00L Water
1tbsp coconut oil
1tbsp hemp oil

I also did:

Skin brushing
20 min morning yoga
40 min evening yoga
20 min meditation

Can I just say... I ROCK!? 5.5 litres of juice, 2 litres of water and 1 hour of exercise. On top of that, I managed to get in all my supplements today! :) *Happy Dance*

I finally got my 2L enema bag in the mail today... so I know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning! yay! I know... who gets excited over enemas? LOL! We juice feasters are an odd bunch. :)

Oh in other news, I was reading on the global juice feasting website (which rocks!) about how to be frugal while juice feasting. It was brought up that paint strainers are cheaper versions of nut mylk bags. I immediately called my dad (who's always in a home depot or canadian tire... aka hardware store) and asked him to pick some up. By the time I got to Katrina's reply about paint strainers being a bit more toxic and not as durable... it was too late! My dad did however, pick up "jelly bags". The packaging says "large reusable bags for straining juice for making jelly". They work AMAZINGLY...dare I say... BETTER than nut mylk bags. The juice comes out FASTER! I was worried that maybe it was letting out more pulp... so I restrained my juice through a nut mylk bag and found maybe 1/4 of a teaspoon worth of pulp. I am a pulp-nazi though... on the juice feast anyway. So maybe I'll just do that.... Strain through the jelly bag first, and second strain through a nut mylk bag... it's faster anyway! :) Did I mention they're 2 for 6$? :)

Okay... sleepy time for Ben! :)

...Z z z z z z z z z z

Day 15 - Hic !

Yes! Hiccups! I don't know why... but I've had them for most of the day. Off and on, of course. It started last night and continued throughout the day today. Could this be a detox symptom or is it just a fluke? Oh well! :)

I had MASSIVE amounts of juice today! I also discovered that my mason jars, if filled to the rim, hold 1.25L... not 1L! So this means I've been consuming more juice than I thought, this entire time! I won't amend my previous stats... but I feel good knowing that the days where I only got 3L, I actually was getting at least 3.5L.

I also want to mention how I had a f$#%ing kiosk to do this morning, which meant I had to be at work for 7am. Despite not getting a lot of sleep (I don't know why, I stayed up late watching TV LOL), I got up at 4am and made my juices, skin brushed, contrast showered, got pretty and ran out the door. On my way to work I realized... that in my pre-JF days, I would have been utterly knackered; zombie-like, groggy, bitchy and ready to stab anyone that stood between me and a venti soy latte........ This is how much energy you have while juice feasting! It's unreal! And I just thought I wasn't a morning person!

Today I had:

1L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/red chard/cilantro+kelp+hemp seed oil
1.25L Cantaloupe
500ml Apple/Orange/Strawberry (BoosterJuice)
60ml Wheatgrass (BoosterJuice)
750ml Carrot/Orange (yuuuum!)
750ml Pear

Total! 4.56L!!!! I'm so happy to have finally broken the 4L mark. I think back to Angela Stokes' blog and how she used to drink 5 or 6L in one day and I feel silly that I can't manage to do the same. Though, I guess, I do have to take into account that I am working 60 hours/week while juice feasting...

I wanted to ask other juice feasters about their juice-drinking habits. When it comes time to drink your juices, do you drink a juice in one sitting or do you find that it takes a while to get through 1L of juice? I personally find that I alternate.... the yummy juices will go down easy... but the morning green juice and the coconut juices might take me an hour to drink down. Don't worry; I am chewing all my juices... despite how much my coworkers think that's weird!

PS: I just wanted to say how much I LOVE all the comments I've been getting on my blog. It's fun to know that people are actually reading this :) I appreciate the comments, feedback, suggestions and little hellos from other juice feasters! I feel the love! :)

Can you believe I'm 1/6th of the way there? I sure can't! :)

Day 13 - Transformations

It's day 13 and there is no bad luck in sight! I was born on a Friday the 13th so I've always been fond of the number 13. The only bad luck today was that I fell asleep while watching TV and consequently only got 3L of juice in. Booo!

Today I had:

1L water+msm+lemon
1L celery/watercress/green chard/cilantro
1L Pineapple/blackberry (I can't get enough of this one!)
600ml clementines juice (too much work! lol)
400ml carrot/beet juice

So... still no stomach pains! I'm very happy about this, considering how I had beet juice today. Tomorrow I'm going to have a coffee enema to help the liver's detoxing. I'm excited about this; I know it sounds silly. I've only ever done water enemas. I also bought organic burdock tea for future enemas.

Transformations

The blog has a new look!!! It's only befitting because I am also feeling some pretty neat transformations. I hope you like the new look. It was inspired by my other blog: a decadent conspiracy. That blog used to be my "Vegan cooking" blog. I'm not doing much of that right now though, as you can imagine.

But back to me, I am feeling some transformations lately. I feel like juice feasting is my form of pupation. The following transformations have occurred:

Sense of smell: You wouldn't believe how intense my sense of smell is right now! Has anyone else gone through this? I could actually smell the roast beef from the apartment next door yesterday... from my own apartment! How is this even possible? I also smelled a chemical smell yesterday when I opened a package of paper towels! Insane!
Skin on my face: My face is looking radiant! No more puberty! I can't explain it... it just has a glow. The psoriasis on my forehead is only a faint memory; the skin there has only a wee bit farther to go... but right now, the redness is all gone. It just has tiny specs of skin build up.

Psoriasis: I honestly am gobsmacked. I never imagined I would see improvement this fast. There are spots on my arms that have completely healed; the skin is completely normal except for a deeper coloration that outlines where the psoriasis spots used to be. Inside the outline, the coloration is a bit more pink. It looks a bit 'cheetah-like', but there is no scaling, flaking, cracking or bleeding. My chest is healing differently. It is healing more evenly; the whole area is turning a very light pink; very different from the angry reddish coloration normally associated with psoriasis. There is no more cracking, scaling...and very minimal flaking. Some areas are healing nicely and I can see new skin forming. My legs are healing much in the same way...except for my right leg:

The right leg has been a guinea pig for my own little 'psoriasis formula'. It is healing so nicely; no dark outlines, no flaking, scaling or cracking. It's nice, smooth skin with no dark outlines. The new skin is very light pink... but smooth to the touch. :) What did I do? I applied a mix of coconut oil + msm. I've done done two applications and the change is dramatic! I'm going to keep using this leg as a 'test' for a little longer before I decide to use this formula on the rest of my body. But so far, this is very promising! :)

I think I may take pictures tomorrow to document the healing progression. I originally had not intended to do that. I'm sure you can imagine, if you had a disfiguring dis-ease, you wouldn't want to be taking pictures of it all the time... but I honestly want to help other people if I manage to heal myself of psoriasis. It's a horrible disease that has affected my self esteem and quality of life for a long time... I honestly hope that juice feasting will rid me of this disease and this daily account of my experiences will make it easier for others to do the same.

I honestly hope things keep progressing the way they are. Fingers crossed!

- Ben