Enjoying my wonderful seven-week vacation, of which the last six weeks were very active in terms of sport, I decided that it's time for another experiment.
In the past few weeks I’ve been jogging five miles a day, took Jillian Michaels classes daily and joined a local aqua fitness club exploring water-biking at least two times a week. I realized that when I’ll get back home I won’t be able to continue with sport at the current rate. After reading a book about Juicing and watching the ''Fat Sick & Nearly Dead" documentary, I decided to form my own opinion on Juicing using personal experience, even though I was relatively indifferent on this topic just a few months ago. 'Juicing? No way! What about fiber? One glass of carrot juice requires a lot of carrots - 5 to 20, depending on the size of carrots and the cup size, of course. Show me a person who can eat so many carrots at once?! It is unnatural and I find it illogical as well! Smoothies however are a completely different story!” - these were my typical thoughts in regard to juicing, which I suppressed internally and tried not to express openly. |
A few days before returning home, I finally convinced myself to try juicing. Even though the main character of the film, Joe, was able to juice for 60 days, I decided that without a proper doctor’s supervision and with my current weight and eating habits, 60 days would be too much and probably unnecessary. Nevertheless, three days seemed too little for my experiment. In addition, there were two weeks without sport ahead of me and my husband’s birthday on top of it. Taking it all into consideration I decided to go for 10 days!
I arrived home on Monday night. Next day first thing in the morning I went to a store and bought myself a brand new juicer, along with vegetables, fruits, and other healthy stuff. So began myexperience. My juices were delicious. I usually use vegetables such as kale, celery, cucumber, carrot, cabbage, zucchini, chard, collards, cilantro, tomato - not always all of them at once, but mostly a combination from this assortment. From fruits, I would add only a green apple, a lemon or a grapefruit. Also, I always add fresh ginger and fresh turmeric to all my juices. I was warned that the first three days will be the most difficult. Oddly enough my first four days passed quickly and easily. |
I didn’t feel hungry, even though I only had two juices a day. I think there were only two days when I had three juice but most of the time two were the most I had, in some cases even one glass. I had previous experience with fasting and I ate very little before I started. That’s probably why the first three days were easy on me.
I didn’t feel tired, had neither mood swings nor irritation but I didn’t feel charged with energy either. I didn’t feel a drive to be active. I wanted to read books and stay calm.
I didn’t feel tired, had neither mood swings nor irritation but I didn’t feel charged with energy either. I didn’t feel a drive to be active. I wanted to read books and stay calm.
After five days of juicing I began to think that ten days were too optimistic. I started to think of food. Thinking about food caused my mouth to water. My head was preoccupied with ideas of having something to eat, but I am a stubborn person and these thoughts didn’t deter me from my experiment! Thoughts of a burger started visiting me more often.... I even thought of sausages, which was very strange. I don’t even remember how many years it’s been since the last time I bought sausages or had them in my household. On the 7th night … I dreamed of pancakes, which I’m not a big fan of in “real life”, and butter which I always disliked. On the seventh day, I started to shiver. Hot baths in the evening became a necessity. I only had three days left of my challenge but my goal seemed far away. .. The time was passing so slowly. |
Once again I started doubting myself, thinking I had probably overestimated my abilities and ten days of juicing were too much for me to handle.
I spent the day shivering on the seventh, eighth, and first half of the ninth day. And if someone asked me about the most difficult days, it was those two days - the seventh and the eighth.
It seemed like the goal was reachable, but I wasn’t there yet. Two more days, two long days and I’m shivering - brrrrr. Surprisingly, the shivering stopped in the second half of the ninth day. Everything suddenly became easy. The last day passed flying by with all the enthusiasm and joy I experienced the first couple days. Perhaps it was the excitement of knowing that I had finally reached my goal. The realization that I had done it - I was so proud of myself! Immediately my head was filled with grocery shopping lists. I was scrolling through recipes i wanted to try once it was all over. It all contributed to my enthusiasm and good mood!
Let’s now review my weight measurements. I arrived from my vacation at 134.6 pounds and I was unspeakably happy. My New Year wish was to reach the 135 lbs mark. I recall being at 181 the 1st of January. Today my weight is 123.9 pounds.
Here is a table of my daily weight loss during Juicing:
I spent the day shivering on the seventh, eighth, and first half of the ninth day. And if someone asked me about the most difficult days, it was those two days - the seventh and the eighth.
It seemed like the goal was reachable, but I wasn’t there yet. Two more days, two long days and I’m shivering - brrrrr. Surprisingly, the shivering stopped in the second half of the ninth day. Everything suddenly became easy. The last day passed flying by with all the enthusiasm and joy I experienced the first couple days. Perhaps it was the excitement of knowing that I had finally reached my goal. The realization that I had done it - I was so proud of myself! Immediately my head was filled with grocery shopping lists. I was scrolling through recipes i wanted to try once it was all over. It all contributed to my enthusiasm and good mood!
Let’s now review my weight measurements. I arrived from my vacation at 134.6 pounds and I was unspeakably happy. My New Year wish was to reach the 135 lbs mark. I recall being at 181 the 1st of January. Today my weight is 123.9 pounds.
Here is a table of my daily weight loss during Juicing:
Day |
Weight (Lbs) |
Notes |
1 |
134.6 |
|
2 |
132.2 |
|
3 |
129.8 |
|
4 |
128.9 |
|
5 |
127.8 |
|
6 |
128.5 |
my body probably went into ''starvation mode'' |
7 |
127.5 |
|
8 |
126.6 |
|
9 |
125.9 |
|
10 |
126.5 |
only 4 hours sleep . I had a lot of water before going to bed |
11 |
123.9 |
My conclusions: I am very pleased with myself and very happy with the acquired personal experience! Juicing is possible! For me, personally, ten days were way too much. And I’m not sure I will ever dare to repeat this experiment. I believe that my ideal preference would be a three-day cleansing every season. A weekly juice fasting instead of water-only-day is also an option. I am extremely grateful to everyone who supported me during this experiment! I am also grateful to all the criticism and condemnation of those who didn’t support. They gave me the strength to go forward and not to give up. Thank you very much! I DID IT! |
by Juliya