Day 57 - Self love

I think the most amazing thing about juice feasting is the sense of inner peace I am feeling lately. Who knew drinking juices could do that to you. I’m watching less TV, not smoking anymore, I *want* to exercise and do yoga… and I’ve turned into my body in a way that I didn’t even know was possible. I’m communicating with my body like it is a very assertive child that I am taking care of…. I’m receptive to its needs.

I don’t think this inner journey is over by any means. One of the things I want to work on is letting go of feelings of guilt. Guilt is not only unhealthy; it also creates an acidic environment in the body. I need to stop feeling guilty for things. The first thing I need to stop feeling guilty for is forgetting to take supplements and exercising. It’s no big deal. No need for guilt; it won’t change the past. Instead, I just need to focus on doing better tomorrow. That’s it.

I don’t know if juice feasting and this community of juice feasters (that I’ve become so close to) has become a substitute for this but… I no longer feel the overwhelming urge to have a boyfriend. This is MAJOR. I’ve been a little obsessed with this (in a very Ally McBeal-kinda way) for some time. I’m actually feeling really content with being single right now; being with myself and taking care of myself isn’t so bad. I am really starting to love myself, truly and deeply and I think this is the major key to this change; I don’t feel like I need someone else’s love to make me feel worthy of being loved. My own self-love is enough.

Today I had:

1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/green chard/parsley+kelp+Himalayan salt+E3live
500ml water+chanca piedra
1.5L pineapple/blood orange/blackberry (yum!)
500ml water+chanca piedra
1.5L green apple/kiwi
750ml apple/spinach/ginger+E3live+Spirulina+Himalayan salt
1Tbsp bee pollen/honey
2Tbsp honey/royal jelly
1tbsp hemp oil+2 Tbsp lemon juice (shot glass style, went down easier)
Enzymes

Today I also did

Acupeds (targeted kidneys)
Zapper (all day)
10 min rebounder
1 hour nap
Slept from 8PM to 5:30PM
Took the day off (felt really REALLY tired and dizzy this morning… said “fuck it!”) Oops… so much for not swearing! :PHousecleaning!

I’m a bit worried that according to David’s instructions (based on some videos and comments of his I read), I should have ended my juice feast about 2 or 3 weeks ago… (based on my current weight and hunger) but then again, I have a major dis-ease that I’m fighting so I think going forward with the full 92 days isn’t a bad idea. My weight has honestly stabilized… I haven’t lost any weight in more than a week. I’m at a stable 142lbs and it won’t budge. I am craving raw foods like crazy though… but I don’t think it’s a real hunger… I think it’s a curiosity… I can’t wait to get back in the kitchen and be creative with foods.

Anyway that’s it for now :)

- Ben

Day 53 - Empty fridge + Empty stomach = Empty wallet!

Bear with me today. It’s going to be one hell of a long entry.

The things I want to cover today are as follows:

• Mega shopping adventures


• Falling in love again with juice feasting


• Acupeds and Parasite zapper updates


• Weird dreams (about my colon?)

Mega grocery shopping

Have you ever heard that saying “don’t do groceries whilst hungry”? Yep! Ridiculously bad idea! I went shopping yesterday for groceries and I should have had some juice before going but seeing as I have to run to the washroom every hour when drinking juice, I try to avoid drinking juice prior to going grocery shopping. The first stop was Loblaws where I managed to spend a whopping 100$! I bought a lot of stuff though. I mean, I woke up this morning to find out I had only enough ingredients to make juice for today. I actually had to make two green juices to bring to work today because… I ran out of fruit!

Needless to say, my body was on a rampage. I also had to buy more agave nectar and I found some honey with royal jelly mixed in. It’s non-pasteurized and I hope it’s raw! It’s very tasty and when I have a teaspoon of it, I’m not craving more of it. It’s very satisfying! I think this will help my recent honey binges! The next stop was the health food store where I bought a whopping 120$ worth of stuff! What the hell? This week has been a really expensive week for juice feasting! 240$ in total (add the coconuts from Chinatown that my dad was kind enough to buy for me).

I was a bit upset about this until I started thinking about how I used to spend my money before juice feasting. I always think “before juice feasting, I used to spend 100-120$ a week on groceries”. Hmmm… Let’s look at my pre-juice feasting lifestyle, shall we?

Groceries 120$
Cigarettes 20$
Coffee 20$ (or more)
Snacking at work 25$
Restaurants and ‘fast food’ 50$ (average per week, over a month)
Health Food store purchases 20$

That’s a total of $225 a week on food/vices. In actual fact, juice feasting is costing me LESS than my pre-juice feasting lifestyle. This really explains why I haven’t gone into debt or anything while juice feasting. It just SEEMS like I’m spending more money because I’m spending it all in one place. Lets not forget, this week’s splurge of 240$ on juice feasting stuff is an exception; last week I only spent 160$ which is a pretty consistent average. Anyway that’s all I wanted to bring up! While juice feasting seems expensive, you save money in a lot of other places.

Falling in love with juice feasting again

I have to admit, breaking the feast earlier has been on my mind lately. As Carrie mentioned, a lot of the fellow feasters I started juicing with in the earlier days have since transitioned back to solid foods. I’m determined to juice feast for 92 days unless my body tells me otherwise. But yesterday, I was passing buy the prunes and I stared at them for a while wondering if this was the time. Nope! It’s not. But I decided I was falling into a slump with juice feasting. I needed to fall in love again. I realized one of the things I miss most about solid food is being creative in the kitchen. I LOVE to cook and invent recipes. Why couldn’t I invent a new juice? Well I did just that… but I warn you… this juice cost me 23$ to make. It yielded 1.5L of juice.

Love juice

2 Pomegranates (5$)
6 Fresh black mission figs (6$)
2 Blood oranges (1$)
1 bunch of organic red globe grapes (roughly 3 to 4 cups worth – 6$)
8ox Organic Strawberries (5$)

First I put the pomegranate seed thingies through the Samson juicer to extract the juice. That juice went into the Vitamix along with all the other ingredients. I pulverized it and strained it through a nut milk bag. If I had to do it again, I would omit the figs, or put less. It made for a very THICK juice. Probably too thick for juice feasting… but I didn’t care. It was SOOOO tasty! Mmmmmm! Just what I needed… a little honeymoon from the green juices! :) Which brings me to….

Today I had:

1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/green chard/cilantro+E3Live+kelp+Himalayan salt+spirulina1.25L grapefruit/apple/carrot
1L celery/spinach/collard greens+spirulina
1.5L Love juice1Tbps bee pollen+agave1Tbsp honey+royal jelly mix
Probiotics
Enzymes

Today I also did:

Skin brushingParasite Zapper (all day)
Manual labor (we moved boxes around for 2 hours straight at work yesterday!)
(Missed yoga! Darn!)

Zapper & Acupeds update

The zapper is really weird. Yesterday I’d wear it at work and everything would be fine… then it would start to burn like a bitch and I’d move it around…. I was moving it around constantly. Interestingly enough, if I put it near my ascending colon (where worms apparently live) I would need to move it after 5 minutes. I can normally keep it near the descending colon for 30 minutes or more. Weird eh?

Ad for the acupeds, I woke up yesterday morning to find out that they were all gross and gunky again… but only in certain spots!! I guess this means maybe I’m not so toxic after all! :)

Weird dream

I had the strangest and most vivid dream last night. To be honest, I’ve been having a lot of weird vivid dreams during juice feasting but this one takes the cake. I dreamt that the airline I used to work for was short flight attendants and they had called me in to do one flight as a favor for them. I showed up with my suitcase only to find out it was practically empty and I didn’t have a uniform (duh… I haven’t been a flight attendant in over a year now). I was a bit worried about going to the UK with only one shirt and one pair of pants. Then we walked over to the bridge to the plane; two bridges were out; one to the forward door and one to the aft (rear door). That basically forms a U shape right? In the dream, I actually interpreted that image as being my colon. When I got into the plane, I realized the whole thing was empty. I guess my body is telling me that I’m not carrying as much junk anymore. My ‘suitcase’ is empty and so it my colon. I guess I don’t have to focus so much on detoxing anymore and I need to focus more on healing. Consequently, I don’t think I’ll be doing regular ionic foot baths after this Saturday’s appointment… I will nonetheless continue to do colonics… but I guess I’ll just focus more on healing activities.

Anyway… I think my little slump might be over. I know I’ll feel a lot better once I hit day 60. I think the 92 day goal will feel a lot more achievable at that point.

That’s all for now… sorry for ranting on so much.

- Ben

Day 46 - Over the hill

This is going to be a long post, so forgive me... I have many items on today's agenda. In the interest of saving you time, I'll index my topics today:

• Advice for those about to begin Juice Feasting
• Today's juice feasting log
• The enema edition
• Special mention - Carrie :)

Advice for those about to begin Juice Feasting

It's day 46 and things are going great. I'm officially 'over the hill' in juice feasting terms; 46 days down, 46 days to go. I'm so happy. Juice feasting has been tumultuous at times and quite enlightening at other times. I’ve learned a lot about my own body and I suggest that, should you be about to start juice feasting, listen to your own body as well.

My new juicy-to-be friend on giveittomeraw who has psoriasis mentioned to me how she would follow my blog while juice feasting and I was quick to mention how I learned a lot from my own body whilst juice feasting and I suggested she do the same. If you do have psoriasis and decide to juice feast, by all means, read my blog in its entirety to get a general feel for what I’ve done… but this isn’t a blueprint for how to rid yourself of psoriasis; juice feasting in general will do that for you (by detoxing the body), along with regular colonics, chiropractic adjustments, supplements to heal leaky-gut syndrome and yoga to calm the body.

I guess the best piece of advice I have for anyone about to start juice feasting on March 1rst is be open to ‘what is’. Don’t have any expectations of how this will unfold and take it one day at a time. I was quite certain around day 15 that the worse was behind me and this was going to get easier as I went forward. That isn’t always the case… I encountered several challenges through juice feasting: intense stomach pains, variation of a torticollis (unable to speak for an entire day), problems with bloating and really intense cravings. Just remember ‘this too shall pass’. Take a deep breath, find your center…. Do yoga; for whatever reason, yoga seems to ‘calm the storm’ for me. Maybe it will do the same for you.

Today’s juice feasting log

Today was great; the hour of yoga I did yesterday really seems to have calmed my cravings and intense desire to stop juice feasting. I’m feeling very Zen. Today was also mega groceries day; I got some really awesome finds. I got TONS of organic grapefruits. I remember reading in the 90’s how they’re supposed to be a fat-burning food but I don’t know if that’s a myth lol! I was unable to find any blood oranges this week; I’ll venture to another supermarket this week to see if I can find some… seriously… I’m addicted to those things. They’re my candy!

Today I had:

1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/green chard/parsley
1.25L grapefruit/orange/carrot
1.25L Spinach/Apple
750ml Peppermint tea
500ml coconut water
750ml plum juice (I was so hyped about this one but it was surprisingly not all that impressive)
1 Tbsp bee pollen+honey
2 Tbsp honey
Probiotics

Today I also did:

Skin brushing
Crap… does mega groceries count?

I also woke up around midnight (after passing out on the couch) and had another ‘normal person’ BM. I have no idea where this stuff is coming from…. It’s like a mystery! If nothing comes from nothing (thank you Parmenides) and no poo comes from no food… then where is this coming from? LOL! Someone call Mulder and Scully!

The enema edition

A special edition explaining the whole enema process was added today; it was so long I added it in a separate post; scroll down to view it.

Special mention

Carrie has moved on to the second phase of her healing journey; from juice feasting to feast breaking and soon to whole foods feasting. She has had an amazing journey and probably has one of the most detailed blogs out there. I have learned a lot from Carrie’s experience and I am proud to have had the chance to juice alongside her. Do visit her blog!! It’s awesome! :) I awarded Carrie the Juice Feaster Award yesterday to congratulate her on her amazing journey. Congrats Carrie!!! You’re amazing!!! :)

That's my super long post for today :)

- Ben

Day 35 - Namaste.

Namaste: a greeting which reminds us that our highest potential lies in the realm of no ego. Let us meet in that place.

- Namaste TV

I have been having so much fun doing yoga today. I don't know why I stopped doing it for so many years. I especially love doing it to Namaste TV show. It's very challenging and calming. The show is also so well done; the sceneries are breathtaking! My forward folds are improving day by day! :)

I basically slept most of the day away today; working overnights on weekends has a way of catching up with me. Total zombie day. I've been spending a lot of time reading raw blogs. I can't wait to get started on my raw cooking adventure! I'm so psyched! I also know that I have a newfound patience and love for myself; one that will be more forgiving if I have a piece of cooked food here and there. I'm going to look at it as an opportunity to slowly evolve into being 100% raw. My mistake in the past was to think about it as an "all or nothing" thing. I caved and had cooked butternut squash (not the most unhealthful cooked food one can have, really!) and then gave up on raw altogether. Not this time :)

I've also been thinking about "feast breaking". I can't think of a very 'zen' place in Ottawa to do this... (any suggestions?). I was thinking the Montreal biodome would be a great spot. The zen garden at the Montreal botanical garden will probably still be closed given mid April will still be really cold. :( I also think spending a week in NYC would be AWESOME... I'd love to go to Sarma's restaurant.... but it would suck to go and only be able to eat prunes LOL! Maybe this is best saved for post-feast breaking. If anyone has good ideas about nice spots to break my juice feast (on day 92), please let me know. :) Ottawa or Montreal options preferred! :)

Today I had:

250ml water+slippery elm
1.25L water+msm+lemon
1.25L celery/kale/watercress+E3live+kelp
750ml blood orange juice
750ml 'summery juice' (see previous post)
250ml American saffron tea
1tbsp bee pollen
1tbsp coconut oil

Today I also did:

Skin brushing
Mini-enema (bulb)
1 hour of yoga
msm lotion

That's all for me! Colonic tomorrow! Can't wait! :) I leave you with this intro to the Namaste episode that I've been doing for the last few days.



Isn't it so beautiful and calming? It's only missing cute yoga boys! :)

- Ben