Jack and Jill's Juice Feast

in-between regular raw food day

2008-02-14T16:02:00.003-05:00

A question was posted from Michelle about the 1-day-per-week "juice feast" that Jack and I are maintaining and whether we need to do any easing back into regular eating afterwards, as you do after a longer fast.

The answer: We do start the following day with a quart of msm-lemon-water (I find that drinking all that water first thing immediately starts the bowel movements happening) and then a cacao-goji-algae-bee pollen-flax oil smoothie (this is an awesomely energizing and satisfying breakfast, which we can post amounts for if anyone would like to make it for themselves post-fast), which we drink every day anyway. The other thing is that we are trying to eat almost all raw so things moving through the digestive tract after a one-day fast don't seem to be an issue, but I would suspect that if you are maintaining a diet of more cooked foods, that you might try to keep it light on the next day with salad and some things like flax seeds (I make flax crackers with the juice pulp) and/or fruit along with whatever else you consume. We haven't experience any sluggishness on the next day, though, and I don't think that one day is enough time for a functioning digestive system to get super sensitive and need soaked prunes, etc.

Speaking of bowel movements: after all the clearing out of the feast, it is amazing how fast and furiously everything passes through, especially with the above-mentioned high-fiber flax & juice pulp crackers in the diet!

I want to add that we have talked for many years about doing a 1-day-per-week fast and how healthy that would be, but could never really get it going before. After the juice feast it seems like the easiest thing in the world. We hope to incorporate some 5-7 days feasts every few months.

Lots of Love

Day 34-ish

2008-02-12T11:56:00.001-05:00

We are back for our Tuesday weekly juice feast and happy to join you all again!

As we were out of town over the weekend we didn't keep up with all the blogs until today and were honored to have received (each) a "juice feaster award" from Kelly Ordway at Raw in Montana (I'm not good with the link thing, so see sidebar for Kelly's blog). Although we have acknowledged here many of the bloggers who have been a huge support in this early 2008 juice feasting community, it is always great to have another excuse. So, passing on the "Juice Feaster Award" to some of our favorites and reiterating some of the reasons that we appreciate them:

Neeta: Of course you are the first choice. You have been such a friend on this path. Your musings range from the practical to the poetic, your story of healing is an inspiration and above all your warmth and generosity of spirit have made you a joy to know. & another great thing about "you" is that "you" know that at the end of the day there is no "you" to begin with!

Carrie: Your writings are such an amazing and thoughtfully detailed record of the juice feasting experience - fantastically informative and full of ideas, intelligence, humor, positivity and truthfulness. Thank you for the tremendous effort (often at the cost of your own sleep and relaxation) that you have put into your blog. And a nod also to r.b.t.m.!

Alison, the Kale Queen: You too have been with us from the beginning and have provided so much intelligence and bright humor, tales of tumbling with mason jars on escalators and rowdy Bushwick school kids. Thanks for the spirit, your exceptional storytelling and way with words.

Poppy: You joined us a bit later, but brought so much openness and thoughtfulness to your writing that we got to know you very quickly. We appreciate the beautiful ideas beautifully expressed and are happy to know you and your thoughts.

Ben: Jack said before that your story is such a special one. The honesty you've brought to the detailing of your experience and the sharing of your personal journey of healing will surely be an inspiration to many future feasters. Thank you for your openness.

All of your blogs will be such a tremendous resource for those feasters who begin on March 1!

We are drinking juice today and enjoying it. I highly recommend this idea of a weekly "re-set" for those who have completed your longer feast . Although we've been doing very well with raw food and have included only some very occasional, sane, cooked items, it is still great to know that once-weekly at least there will be this chance to rest and clean and remind ourselves of the lightness and powerful energy of juice. We have maintained an approximately phase 1.5 diet, even when adding the occasional cooked item (which we did on our mini road trip) and this feels great. We are pretty much keeping away from the sweets other than the occasional blueberries and some bee pollen and gojis in our morning shake. I made a bit of cacao-coconut-agave dessert when a friend came over, but we had just a little and returned to lower glycemic foods without a hitch or any cravings getting activated. This is our main goal, to stay steady even if the occasional cooked or sweet item enters our diet, and just to move back to a place of mostly green veggies. So far so good.

Jack has some interesting job news, but I will leave that for later...

Lots of Love

Day 33 (sort of!)

2008-02-05T19:27:00.001-05:00

From Jack:

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderfully supportive comments that you left after Jill's last post which summed up many of my feelings at this point as well. I guess now it's my turn for some thoughts at this turning point.

First of all, we're juice feasting today as part of our intention to juice once a week (I'm calling it our "fast tuesdays") so I feel a special solidarity once again for all you who are juice feasting long term right now.

I simply can't overstate enough how incredible it has been to share our journey with such a special group of people...that was the hardest part of the decision to end our feast...I didn't want to lose the feeling of family that we have felt with so many of you. So now I want to give some individual shout-outs to some of our friends out there.

Neeta: to me you are like the nurturing and wise mother of our little blog group...always with a kind word. I can't wait to continue hearing about your unfolding journey.

Carrie: you undoubtedly have one of the most intelligent blogs in this little raw universe and I always looked forward to reading it. You are already making an incredible contribution to the world which will only get more significant as time goes on. I also always like the contributions of the Mysterious One so give her a hug for me as well.

Alison: I love your blog. Your humor and honesty are always a joy to read and you are a great friend to have on this journey.

Doug: Your enthusiasm and friendship were appreciated from the very beginning...we both look forward to keeping up with your food adventures.

Joe: Yours was another one of the first blogs we read regularly and continued to read it every day. We admire the way you have weathered the ups and downs of the feasting process and wish you luck as you go forward.

Poppy: We got to know you a bit later than the others, but really enjoyed reading your blog and will continue to do so. You have a wonderful honesty and openness about the way you write and think about things and I wish you best of luck with everything.

Lucy: I appreciated getting to know you as well, and appreciated all the kind things you've said over these last couple weeks. Yours is another friendship we certainly plan on maintaining as time goes on. Best of luck with your post-feast transition.

Ben: Yours is the kind of story that will make many people sit up and notice and has the potential to help lesson the suffering of who knows how many people. We promise not to bring up vegan curry again. Best of luck with the rest of your feast and we'll be keeping up with you.

Terilynn: you were, and continue to be, an inspiration to all feasters out there. you are clearly becoming a leader in this movement and obviously a worthy one. We'll continue keeping up with your journey. thanks for everything.

Thanks also to all the others who have written us (like Neens, Michelle, Suki, etc.) with words of encouragement. And of course David and Katrina...thanks for your leadership and encouragement.

Anyway, this is not meant as any kind of "goodbye"...simply a grateful acknowledgment of meaningful connections made and hopefully just begun. I hope that someday we get to meet all of you in person and that we are at the beginning phases of the development of a community of people that can bring powerful and positive change to the world.

We plan to continue to blog because we are both so excited about what this phase in our lives feels like right now. And we both cherish the opportunity to be able to share it with our new friends. Oh, and by the way, we will put up some pictures soon.

Be well everyone.

Day 32 and BEYOND!!

2008-02-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

Hello wonderful juice feasters,
We have decided to shift back into the world of solid food. I suspect some of you have guessed this and I have some trepidation that you all will be disappointed in us for not taking it further, but read on and I hope you will support us in this choice. I have so much to say about this decision and how the last couple of days have been that I have to post now - can't be bothered to wait for Jack to join me in writing. Hopefully we'll hear from him later.

Though we've always been flexible about the time length, I think we really wanted to complete 30 days. But, the main impetus for the change to solids has to do with our own history of eating. We have done long fasts before as well as other "restrictive" temporary eating plans and we have always been really good at sticking to the rules, white-knuckling if we had to, for the duration. The real challenge for us would come when the experiment, fast, whatever, was "over" and the rules were no longer in place. There would be a massive swinging reaction to the deprivation of the fast and we would eat the worst kind of crappy food. We were both feeling some of this sense of boredom, deprivation, etc, and while I think there's a lot of value to observing the cravings and letting them pass (and clearly a tremendous value to cleaning out the body as thoroughly as possible), we also wanted to honor the excitement we felt about integrating solids. So far, the results have been fantastic!

The other thing to mention is that the hour of morning juice-making was replacing Jack's meditation hour and this was feeling really hard to him as he is still finishing up a final month on the job. While we still want to have a couple quarts apiece of juice every day, this will be a huge time saver. Jack still wants to lose some more weight, but for me, though I lost about 12 or so pounds, my weight has been steady for the past 10 days on the feast. I could technically lose a few pounds more, but am also pretty happy with where I'm at. Also, neither of us has had any physical detox symptoms for almost 3 weeks now, no tongue coating or any of that, so I feel pretty good about the amount of cleaning out (as I've mentioned before we had done a 30-day herbal intestinal cleanse just prior to the feast so this may have sped things up a bit). We didn't go the prune route with feast-breaking, but had what we wanted which was some green salad and some tahini and this has felt amazing. We also have brought back our morning superfood drink of cacao, gojis, bee pollen, algae and Udo's.

I can't put words on how great I feel. My only hesitation about this change has been the reluctance to part ways with all of our wonderful companions. The sweet comment from Poppy, seemingly psychic about our moving away from the feast, Neeta's wonderfully warm and sustaining words this weekend, the camaraderie of Carrie, Raw B, Alison, Joe, Doug, Ben, Neens, Terilynn, Melissa, Lucy, Suki and the rest of you has been so magical and is something I didn't want to lose. But now that I am eating food again I feel so excited, optimistic and thrilled by everything. This is decidedly not normal for me; besides my depressive history I was raised as a cynical, 'cool" New Yorker and have always seemed to have a limited capacity for jubilation. Something now seems to have shifted.

I am going to admit something else as well. We indulged in a bit of cooked, vegan Indian food, something we have craved incessantly during the feast, out of curiosity as to whether it was really all that. & it so strangely was not. I mean, it was fine. Not bad, but no big deal. It activated a slight addictive feeling that made me eat more of it than I really wanted. I woke up feeling mildly hungover, mostly just dehydrated, so that was quickly solved with a quart of msm lemon water and a green juice. But the incredible magic was that it has left both of us with no desire for cooked food and so I am glad for the experiment. I feel more excited than I ever have about eating raw. I thought about this idea that something supposedly gets "re-set" when you do a long fast. It has never happened to me before, quite the opposite as I talked about above and so didn't think it could happen in 32 days, even with the extra-nourishing aspects of the "feasting" protocol. But again: something for me, for both of us, now does seem to have changed.

I feel suddenly joyful and strong and positive in a way that I never quite have during the feast (and certainly not before it). Maybe this is because of a now clean colon absorbing crazy amounts of extra nutrients (this I definitely believe!) or losing some fear that was dogging me about transitioning back and how it might all end up back with poor eating choices, but I have another theory too. The best I have ever felt physically was the 3 months in 2005 when we did Gabriel Cousens' phase 1. Although we made an attempt to be extremely careful about sugar intake during the feast (no honey, minimal apples, pears, carrots etc in the green juices) we did have one citrus juice every day. Again, this was mostly grapefruit and always slightly watered down and was packed with the supposedly mitigating powers of E3Live and green powder, but I still think that these last few days where we added solids, but abruptly switched back to being almost entirely phase 1, have calmed the cravings and left me feeling satisfied and exuberant. Obviously we are not being 100% phase 1, nor did we plan it, but according to GC, if you mix small amounts of 1.5 foods (i.e. goji and bee pollen) with large amounts of phase 1 foods, it is still pretty much phase 1. We put a small amount of apple (phase 2) into the juices we've had the last couple of days, but since we were also packing 2 lbs of greens and a head of celery into only 2 quarts (I really want to keep up with the massive greens intake), there is VERY little apple in there. Maybe its closer to phase 1.5 overall, but at any rate, I feel this calming, bubbling, slow, sustainable energy, power, I don't know what to call it.

I am having these odd flashbacks to times when I was much younger and to times when I felt (uncharacteristically, as I spent my entire life depressed until I discovered flax oil!) excited and optimistic about life, times when I had exciting crushes, or the first few days of spring after a long winter, or amazing travel experiences that were stimulating enough to pull me out of my negativity. I know it's not possible to feel great all the time, but it's also not like a "high" where you know you will crash any moment, but like a feeling of openness, oneness, expansiveness, amazingness that is grounded and slow-burning, but endless. I'll keep you posted on this.

Moving forward I feel so excited about being as close to 100% raw as I can manage, but also want to keep in mind to simply right myself as quickly as possible if that doesn't always happen. Like with any addiction, I think it's easy if you eat one cooked thing and the addictiveness starts up and you begin the self-flagellation, to just say oh hell, I f-cked up already, so I might as well go hog wild. I'd like to remember to be both compassionate with myself on this score and to know that pulling myself back each time I stumble is where the magic is. It's like a meditation; thoughts will arise and that is fine, inevitable, it is simply about observing and coming back to center.

The best things that I want to keep from the juice feast are: first thing in the a.m. quart of msm lemon water. This has been great; prioritizing hydration and including msm, which for some reason we'd never gotten into. I also want to have green juice every day. This is something we were generally doing before, but I want to amp up the quantity even more - this is something I CRAVE now - so funny since I thought I was getting tired of juice. We have decided to include a 1-day-a-week juice feast going forward in order to rest and cleanse. And daily skin brushing and daily rebounding are things I see no reason to discontinue. And I'd like to continue blogging. I definitely will continue reading all the juice feasting blogs as it is fascinating and inspiring. I loved seeing the photo of all you guys meeting up at Bonobo's - makes me miss NYC! This support to healthy eating is something I feel thrilled to have discovered. Did I mention that I feel better than I ever have? I am kind of thinking that this is the best day ever (could be the cacao talking, of course!)...

Lots of love.

Day 31

2008-01-31T23:49:00.000-05:00

Jack:

It's been a week since I last posted...but I've been reading the other blogs...thanks to all of you because every time I read them I feel more energized to keep going with this thing. I've been feeling really good physically and emotionally and have been allowing myself to spend many hours a day at the piano. I'm still working for the next month, but there's less pressure now that I'm leaving, so I've been taking advantage of that.

I've been feeling a little...how shall I put this..."bored" I guess is the right word, with the feast. It feels a bit mundane at this point. It's like I'm used to feeling pretty good and frankly I would like to eat some food. But, alas, I know this is doing good things for my body and, well, I have lost over 25 pounds which I'll admit to liking. And I really don't want to lose the feeling of camaraderie with all the others out there doing this right now so I'm going to keep going for the time being. Neither Jill or I want to stop because of some semi-conscious, addictive habit. We hope to do it when it feels right and makes sense. Anyway, thanks again to all of you writing blogs, commenting and just reading...I'm not sure I'd still be doing this without you, as great as this has been. Oh, the human condition (or at least mine).

Day 30 wow!!!

2008-01-30T13:25:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, yam, red pepper, pear, turmeric, burdock, cilantro, garlic, cayenne
1 qt grapefruit, tangelo, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 2 T Udo's DHA oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lime, ginger
1 T bee pollen
zeolite, additional h2o

Feeling so very very good. This is Jill, posting early in the day since we seem to be doing a lame job of getting our posts in lately and I wanted to share positivity instead of tiredness. I am completely recovered from the double-whammy of paint fumes and brain imbalance. Neeta, thanks for sharing your comment that you switched to the Udo's as well; for some reason I was feeling, foolishly, sort of guilty about swapping oils, as if I wasn't being trusting enough, so it's reassuring that I am not alone. And I feel so gosh darn fantastic as of the last few days, that I can't worry about it too very much. The undercurrent of bubbly joy has returned. Also, the weather has been nice, sunny and not too cold, so I've been driving the old biodiesel benz with the sunroof open.

Speaking of biodiesel, one of the joys of Asheville, I wanted to respond here to Carrie's question about what made us settle on Asheville when leaving New York. The answer is that we didn't think about it too hard. Jack has family here and we visited. It's beautiful, progressive, creative, environmental-minded and really different from New York, so it wasn't like previous attempts at moving (I once tried San Francisco which felt similar enough, being another big city, that it didn't make sense ultimately to live so far from family and friends). Asheville is really small. It has it's down sides too though, such as: there aren't really any jobs here and it's not so cheap for such a small place. The thing that really sold me was going into a natural foods supermarket that looked like whole foods, but didn't have any lines or people banging into each other. And we could afford to live within walking distance... That said, I don't know what the future holds for us, if we'll stay here or continue on, but leaving New York was the key to seeing that we could live anywhere. It also opened up my identity a lot, which I think was very tied to this notion of myself as a native New Yorker.

Back to feasting business. I saw some other bloggers talking about cutting out nightshades today, which coincidentally I have just RE-introduced. The market was down to the last cucumber yesterday, so I got some red bell peppers and had the desire for a small amount of cayenne along with it, for the first time in a while. We've only had tomatoes a few times and once or twice I loved them and then kind of lost the taste again. Strange. I'm not willing to pay for the red peppers on a regular basis, but they were a great treat!!! The smell as we were making the juice at 5 a.m. was already very alluring.

I have to bring up the subject of bowel movements again, which are going strong. My question is this: what is all that stuff????!!!!?? There is no way the juices have that much sediment and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea that it is all waste that is being summarily kicked out of my organs and the dark recesses of my body, but is this possible? I guess it has to be one or the other, right? The subject is so deeply fascinating to me that I wonder if I am stuck in some Freudian "stage" and just never realized it.

Speaking of dead old philosopher-type men, this quote from Emerson popped into my head from all these thoughts about the difficulties of engaging socially while trying to eat raw or juice feast. Brackets [] indicate this editor's [my] modernization: "it is easy, in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great [person] is [she or] he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude". I'm not sure if there's really such a thing as a "great person", but I have always liked the idea that this is the task, to try to stay engaged and continue to express one's unusual opinions without just recoiling, shrinking up, hiding away. In that spirit, thanks once more to all you amazing juice feast bloggers who are expressing yourself so openly, intelligently and personally. It is such a tremendous support. If anyone is blogging about their feast and we haven't yet linked to you, please send us a comment and tell us so - we want to include you too!

Lots of love.

Day 28

2008-01-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

Juices ready for today (though we didn't drink them yet):
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, pear, turmeric, cilantro, garlic
1 qt grapefruit, tangelo, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 2 T Udo's DHA oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, dandelion, lime, ginger
1 T bee pollen
zeolite, additional h2o

Jill: so sorry for the few days absence! We unintentionally ended up taking the weekend off from blogging. It all started on Friday afternoon when, for lack of a better way to put it, I got completely PUNKED at my studio. Maybe a better word would be POISONED. Some woodworkers in the building were on a tight deadline finishing up a furniture order and so, against building rules, busted out the power sprayer and were blowing varnish into the enclosed air of the building. Now, I am chemically sensitive anyway (my own fault as I used to do this kind of spraying and using of nasty chemicals in my previous life), but with the building pretty tightly closed because of winter and all the gaps sealed around the windows, these fumes choked up the air really intensely. I didn't know what was going on, just minding my own business and working in my studio, when I suddenly got walloped by a massive headache, nausea, etc. I went into the hall and could immediately smell the spray. I got them to stop, but the damage was done. Had to get out of there as soon as possible, though I stupidly tried to first finish what I was working on. Anyway, maybe it's the principle of when your body gets cleaner you feel the new toxic stuff more strongly (I can only hope this is the reason!), but this was the worst reaction I've ever had. I was on the couch drinking glass after glass of water, just desperately trying to flush the system, feeling like crap until bed, and then a bit still in the a.m. until after some rebounding and more water. Ugh!

It was a weekend of physical crises for me, as the OTHER thing that happened is that I decided to switch my oils back to Udo's DHA instead of the hemp and coconut recommended by juicefeasting.com. I have no argument with the logic of taking hemp oil over flax for most people as we must all be getting an awful lot of Omega-3s from the 2 lbs per day of greens, and we (Jack and I) are taking 3T apiece of E3Live every day (which we have been doing for a few years), but nonetheless I could feel that my brain was needing something more. I can't explain it, but I was plagued my whole life by bad depression and the thing that cured it was going on high doses of flax oil (which I eventually switched to Udos for the DHA). Jack has done a lot of research on this stuff because of the psychotherapy work and originally helped me figure this out. So, when I started feeling this relapse I chalked it up to "detox" and then as my body continued to feel better and better, but this particular quality of despair and sadness began to feel bizarrely recognizable (it is different from "sadness" that connects with actual life and is one that has been gone for the several years since I started on the Omega-3s) I just decided that I need to modify for myself. Maybe I have extra high needs, maybe the fat that my body is breaking down knocks things out of balance, I don't know...

Anyway, feeling better now! That was such a lot to report that I'll stop for now. Thanks for the comments and will respond to specifics later - I hope all the rest of you juice feasters had a great weekend and are doing well!!! Lots of love from me and Jack.

Just a quick disclaimer: I am not recommending to anyone else that they switch out the oils they are taking as hemp oil is appropriately balanced for the human body between the necessary types of fats. & David Rainoshek has clearly done a tremendous amount of research and created the juicefeasting program with a lot of care. I am sure the recommendations there are the best for most people and my own experiments are just my own.

Day 24

2008-01-24T21:58:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, pear, turmeric, cilantro
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, lime, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, dandelion, lime, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Jack:

Thanks to everyone who wrote comments in support of my decision to leave my job. It definitely feels like the right one but it also feels good that I'm going to be working there for five more weeks. I'm really going to miss my co-workers (who have all been supportive of my decision, including my boss who was really amazing about it) and clients. I have no idea what I'm going to wind up doing, but I have a little time to decide and I plan to really enjoy the decreased day-to-day pressure.

As far as the feast goes...well, I feel like a broken record, but it sure has gotten better and easier. For the last week or so the cravings are way down and things seem to simply be sailing right along. Both Jill and I are more and more accepting the idea of doing this for quite a bit longer, although we still aren't willing to put a definite number on it.

A couple mundane things I thought I'd report. First of all, I have lost around 21 pounds and now look like I'm at about the end of the first trimester instead of ready for labor. Secondly, my sleeping has been as sound and as solid as it has been in years, although I definitely seem to need more than I did before, which feels fine for the time being. I'm hoping when it's over, though, that I won't quite as much.

Jill:
I can't quite believe how awesome it feels to have this community of fellow bloggers and feasters. Especially given how peculiar everyone in normal life thinks our eating (not) choices are. Of course, I don't tell everyone about it, but I don't keep it that quiet either. In Asheville, most people seem to get the general idea of the "juice fast" and I don't say anything about the possible duration. I don't know what the duration will be, anyway...but it is hard to figure out how to live in the world and feel so disconnected. All the more reason why this blog thing has been so great. I've not engaged in web interactions much in the past, other than email from people I already know, or work-related stuff. That's also the reason I haven't passed on the "Inspirational Blogger Award" that Neeta so kindly gifted us with. All the blogs that inspire me are right here and all seem to have received this same award from each other. Not quite sure yet who to share it with...

I am feeling great with the feast. No unpleasant detoxyness for quite awhile now. I still feel the cravings at times, but more often am having this kind of grieving reaction for all the food experiences that seemed so pleasurable to me in the past. I don't know if this means I won't go back to eating cooked food sometimes later, though I aspire to put cookedness behind me I haven't made a clear decision about it, assuming, I guess, that I wouldn't end up able to stick to it permanently. But the grieving thing reminds me of ending old relationships, that feeling of sadness and nostalgia about what was good, even while you are certain that you don't want to be in it anymore. I don't consciously have the certainty that my relationship with cooked food is over, and yet I am having these reconciliation-with-saying-goodbye kind of feelings.

I'm not sure what is going to happen with anything. We have made so many changes recently in our lives and more on the horizon. We only recently moved from New York City (our hometown) to Asheville, mostly to learn to grow and forage food (this has been great and we have amassed a lot of knowledge already) but now not sure if this is the place to stay. Miss the community (friends and art) of New York, but also don't want to go backwards. Sometimes, and juice feasting and raw foods are part of this theme, it feels like it is a choice between doing what you believe is right and being connected to others. The isolation thing again. It seems very difficult to be in the world when so few people seem to be like-minded. I think I'm getting cyclical here. But I don't know where we fit exactly.

Anyway, lots of love to you all! It is great to know you are out there. I love Allison's line (hilarious as always): "by 'fear' I mean 'hope'" - seems like a fitting 'quote for the day'.

Day 23

2008-01-23T22:12:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, tomato, pear, cabbage, radish, garlic, turmeric
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lime, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Jack:

Today was quite a day. Jill and I were hanging around this morning, drinking juice (what else?) and checking out some of our favorite blogs (I think we were actually on Carrie's Radical Living site) when all of a sudden I blurted out "I have to do something different with my life!" I'm a social worker and have been working with low-income, mentally-ill clients, doing psychotherapy. I've only been at my current job for six months and I assumed I would be there a couple years. In many ways, within the context of "the system" as it is here in North Carolina (we're in the mountains in Asheville) the place I work is great...for instance, they've let me make mindfulness practices a central focus of my work. However, the problem is, you guessed it, the system. At times I feel like a low-level drug pusher for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry (all of my clients are ingesting one kind of medication or another and I'm supposed to make sure they're "compliant") and at others like a bureaucratic bean-counter, begging the government to give us more funds.

Anyway, I decided to resign and direct my energies into living my life in the way that really resonates with my beliefs and aspirations. Jill was, as always, totally supportive. And I did it. My last day will be March 1st. I'm not sure what I'm going to wind up doing, but I know I can't work for a system that is so out of whack. Ultimately, as far as doing "therapy" sort of work goes, I would like to do something that incorporates enlightened nutritional thinking, as well as mindfulness/meditation techniques, exercise, etc...basically an integral approach. It seems like such common sense...but in today's world this is considered "outside the box" or "radical".

The reason I'm posting about this is that I'm certain doing this feast has prodded me to take this plunge into the unknown. The sickness of the system is so clear to me now, so viscerally repugnant, that I just can't go on. It feels like I'm condoning it with my very participation. It seems doing something so unequivocally healthy as juice feasting can sharpen these sorts of distinctions. Anyway, there you have it.

One other thing...it really does feel as if this is getting easier by the day at this point. Food cravings have gone way down and neither of us imagines stopping any time soon. This is turning out to be a wonderfully transformative experience.

Jill says "hi" to everyone but she's got our cat on her lap and doesn't want to disturb her royal highness.

Day 22

2008-01-22T22:28:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, tomato, yam, pear, cabbage, radish, garlic, turmeric
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Jill: Big thanks to Neeta for passing on the "inspirational blogger award"! It continues to amaze me how buoyed I feel by my fellow juice feasters. Jack and I discussed today that we might not have made it through the rough patch without this outlet and the sense of connectedness with all of you.

We continue to feel positive. Not that every minute is positive, I felt quite an emotional reaction today to a rude comment from someone in my studio building, but emotions being close to the surface can be positive, even when it is painful. In general, there is a lightness and an ability to really feel what is happening. For example, we were discussing the way that the cravings for cooked food have WAY subsided lately. There are still cravings for all sorts of things, but they are more directed now towards images of healthy, raw foods, and even these don't drive with the same force right now. For me, part of this seems to be that the cravings are showing themselves more fully in all their component parts, so instead of a simple clumsy longing for something that might seem momentarily tasty, I feel several things combined at once which I can distinguish vaguely as "aimless desire", "kneejerk compulsion", followed by "a sense that I DO NOT really want to be having this thing that I imagine having" and that last sense outweighs the addictive desire. So, my brain moves on.

Day 21

2008-01-21T22:40:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, romaine, carrots, yam, sunchoke, pear, cabbage, parsley, radish, garlic, turmeric
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, celery, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Jack:

Today I'm feeling really good...as good as I've felt for this three week journey. Up until now, I must confess, I had been feeling a bit resentful about doing this (not that I had anyone to blame but myself of course). That's because it had seemingly knocked me out of a routine where I was practicing piano a couple hours a day during the week and more on weekends and meditating an hour, at least, every morning. And I felt so good about this because I'm a lazy slob by nature...I can chill and chill hard. But both the piano and meditation ground to a suddeen halt as my life seemed to become consumed by, of all things, juice.

Finally, this weekend, my discipline with the music returned...and I realized something peculiar. Now, maybe I'm imagining this, I don't know, but my finger dexterity seemed to be ever so slightly improved. Also, I've been putting off, seemingly forever, making the jump to performing pubicly, but I seem to have almost overcome that hesitation...I felt the sudden urge to approach a former neighbor who also co-owns a nearby bar/restaurant who had encouraged me to play there and finally take him up on the offer. It's not that big a deal, I've played out before with bands, and solo with guitar and singing, but never playing solo piano, which is really my first love musically. But this has been a big hurdle for me so taking that plunge is sort of a big deal as far as getting over whatever hang up has been keeping me from doing it. And I have to admit, I attribute some of this to doing this feast.

I've been experiencing, since maybe day 12 or so, a slowly building feeling...a non-spacey spaciousness, a calm excitement, a mellow intensity...call it what you will...it's sort of in the background and the foreground at the same time...as above so below or something like that. Anyway, just thought I'd tell a little of my personal stuff here for the sake of throwing it out there.

And, as always, greetings to all the feasters out there. Both of us have really been enjoying the great writing on the other juice feasting blogs and it's so fascinating to share the journey with others in this way.

Day 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

Today:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qts celery, cucumber, romaine, sunchoke, pear, watercress, parsley, garlic, turmeric
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, celery
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Jill: I like the sound of "Day 20", makes me feel that no matter what, this is an accomplishment. I feel great, though, and want to continue to feel better, and to flush out what ever toxic stuff is still in me. The temptations of food seem like something that can wait for the moment. However, I can't lie, making all this juice every day continues to be a huge pain!!!!!!! Yes, it's only an hour of daily prep, but for me it is lacking the tenderness and creativity that usually accompany food preparation. We have a very efficient system, but I am not someone who ever does anything the same way twice, never cook from recipes (though I look at them for inspiration) etc, so I miss that excitement of inventing. I have played around a little with juice combos, but the truth is that simpler is better where juice is concerned. And taking risks with the ingredients has much dire-er consequences than when preparing a raw or cooked dish. Oh well, there is always something to complain about, but it is worth it. Especially because of my conviction that I am cleaning out all the ills of the past... AND we look glowy and younger and all that.

ALSO, I think that taking away the stimulation of eating has given me a new appreciation for other good things. Kind of like on a meditation retreat, where the slowing down of everything and the narrowing of the sensual field makes your attention greater and allows fascination in the very basics of sleeping and walking and breathing, sensations in the body and flickerings of the mind.

Jack: I feel much the same way as Jill. At a deep level, I've been feeling really good....it's the superficial that is getting in the way (i.e. "damn, I don't want to spend an hour making juice" and "geez it sure would be nice to go out to dinner"). But even though I whine like a little baby about it (Jill has had to talk me off the cooked food ledge more than once, I hate to admit), I do know this is the right thing to be doing right now. And to second what Jill said...doing this has it's similarities to meditation in that instead of indulging and pampering every little thought that comes along, you use the object of attention (in this case the juice) to bring the little monkey back again and again, with the hopes that it will chill out a little at the end of the day. My monkey is still active, no doubt, but it is chattering away within the context of a more pronounced peacefulness...and I don't want that to go away. It also does sort of feel like we're getting younger every day, and while aging has its upside, I figure youth might not be so wasted on the middle-aged (I'm 41 and Jill is 39). And greetings to all our comrades out there...I keep coming back to how helpful it has been knowing there are others out there doing this right now.

Day 19 (& 18)

2008-01-19T11:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qt celery, cuke, carrots, bok choy, watercress, cabbage, radish, tomato, parsley, turmeric, garlic, 1 T hemp oil
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm
1 qt apple, kale, romaine,lemon
.5 qt pineapple and h20
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

We ran into a little Friday night trouble after a very positive day yesterday. We had that feeling of dreariness and got on the topic of food fantasies. We actually laughed really hard because Jill said "why don't we make an extra juice" and Jack said "I'm so sick of f-- juice! I can't even hear the word 'juice'" and the disdainful way he pronounced the word "juice" (which, when you think about it, starts to be a pretty funny word) got us hysterical. This felt good, but didn't solve the craving problems. We toughed it out, though, with Jill making an emergency pineapple juice in the crap back-up blender (Vitamix spare part has not yet arrived)and Jack, true to his word, disdaining even the thought of more "juice". Today Jack's all happy though because he dropped a couple more pounds finally. We took some pictures and will hopefully post them later. As it's Saturday, we have only had our msm water so far and will post today's juices later.

I will say this for the blender/bag method of juice-making, which I am often ranking below the juicer. It is preferable to the Green Star if, like last night, you only want to make a single juice where everything goes in the blender at once. I would not bust out the Green Star for that. And it is good to have the option of the blender, so thanks to juicefeasting.com for that idea, which clearly works all the time for some people and at least some of the time for us.

While not making any definite decisions about how long we are going with this has definitely taken the pressure off, it also leaves us free at any point (like last night) to say "wow, 18 days is a solid amount of time for a fast, we could just stop now". Of course, we know our intention is to go further than that, so ultimately we know this is rationalization and addictive habit and whatever else. Basically, we know we don't want to stop because of cravings, but rather because in a clear-headed way we feel we've accomplished what we came for and yet, those numbers, which are really arbitrary, start to seem significant. We discussed briefly, back in the beginning, how long we might want to continue and arrived at several answers:

1. 20 days is a solid length.
2. 30 days is the most Jill has ever fasted before, so anything longer would be LONGEST FAST for Jill (whatever that really means)
3. 54 days is the longest Jack has ever fasted before, so anything longer would be LONGEST FAST EVER for us
4. juicefeasting.com defines a long fast as 60-92 days, so 60 or more seems to be the definition of COMPLETION by that standard
5. 92 days is the arbitrary number that most people seem to be shooting for. Maybe this would be truly ideal health-wise, maybe aspiring to this is just a kind of "macho" desire to "win" - like running a marathon.

It is hard to sort out the distinctions between the weightiness or seeming "level of accomplishment" associated with a given number and just the general physicality of the experience. Especially since it's very hard to mentally access the "true results", which are presumably subtle and cellular. While I'm not consciously into the goal-oriented thing of shooting for a particular number at random, or to feel "victorious" or avoid feeling like a "failure", there's also the way that having goals can encourage one to move beyond gratification and to try for something amazing and difficult. I have also to admit that I probably would have stopped now if it weren't for this blog and the sense that, though we never said "how long" there is an assumption that we will not stop lightly and will try for maximum results and deep cleansing and that our little community of same-schedule bloggers is expecting more of us than 18 days. There is a disconnect, since the rest of the world thinks that fasting for 18 days is insane and way too long already. But we don't subscribe to very much of what the rest of the world thinks, particularly not about food...

ok today's juices are made:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
1 qt celery, carrots, cabbage, watercress, garlic, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, celery
1 qt celery, cuke, pear, bok choy, parsley
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

We are finding the vitamineral green to be a huge challenge!

Day 17

2008-01-17T15:29:00.000-05:00

Today's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
2 qt celery, cuke, dandelion, yam, sunchoke, turmeric, onion, garlic, cayenne, 1 T hemp oil, 1 T grn superfood
1 qt grapefruit, orange, blueberry, raspberry, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, cuke, lemon, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

We didn't drink them all yet, but they are all made and we are feeling great, so I predict they will all get drunk! :)

We are snowed in today, so we have been lazing and just went down to the grocery for 3 days worth of groceries. 3 days is all we can fit in our refrigerator with two of us feasting at once.

Jack feels like he is cruising right along, but that may be because the work week has been light and we haven't had to get up at 5am every morning for an hour of fun, pushing vegetables through a hole. Also have been rebounding and doing yoga every day, which is amazing to do, especially during a fast/feast.

Jill feels great too. I have noticed that my taste for the coconut oil has shriveled right up. Almost as if it went from seeming like a strange treat to just seeming like eating oil. I'm not that into the bee pollen these days either - it just seems dry and not that exciting. Jack LOVES this stuff and would eat all 5 lbs today if that was considered a good idea.

We were talking during our shopping trip about how cravings shift from being painful urges into just flickering thoughts. Images of temptation like any of the millions of things we might think of, but know we won't indulge in. In general, just feeling strong, instead of the quasi-recovering-from-something feeling of the first two weeks. It would be nice if this would last...

Day 16 (& 15)

2008-01-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Today's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, ginger
.5 qt apple and h2o with kidney/gallbladder herbal cleanse (day 4)
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm
2 qt celery, cuke, carrots, dandelion, tomato, yam, sunchoke, cabbage, turmeric, cayenne, 1 T hemp oil
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Yesterday's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
1 qt apple, kale, romaine, lemon, ginger
.5 qt apple and h2o with kidney/gallbladder herbal cleanse (day 3)
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live, 1 T msm
2 qt celery, cuke, carrots, bok choy, chard, tomato, sunchoke, cabbage, turmeric, onion, garlic, 1 T hemp oil
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Very similar juice menus for yesterday and today. We are on the last day of the kidney cleanse today and both have been feeling really good and yesterday we went to sleep early, so didn't get around to posting. As a result I (Jill) am posting on my own today from the studio - maybe Jack will have a chance to add something later. But truthfully, I don't have so much to report. I've been getting a lot of work done and it seems that Jack has been having a slightly mellower than usual work week, which makes us both happier. Yes, I feel happy. That is a nice feeling. I've been a little worried that without my usual high dose of flax oil I would get depressed, which I am prone to do when deprived of good brain oil. I know I should have plenty of Omega-3s from the greens and hemp oil and algae, but the detox bad mood was getting me concerned. Some of it may also have been pms, but anyway it has passed.

Juices are tasting good - long live the Green Star! I don't know if its because there are two of us, but the Green Star (plus manual citrus press) has been a huge improvement for us over the Vitamix/nut mylk thing. If you do it just the once a day the clean-up isn't so bad and it beats having to wipe juice off the walls and cabinets from the Vitamix burping with the hatch open! Also, we just pour the juice through a mesh sieve to get any final bits, but it avoids the backlog of the blender system where Jack would be squeezing the bag and I would have the blender full and be waiting for him to take the contents so I could put in the next juice ingredients, blah blah. And it doesn't require any more chopping of vegetables from what I can tell - either system you have to chop them lengthwise enough to fit the blender opening or the juicer opening, but you can leave them long. That's my two cents.

Happy Wednesday!

Day 14

2008-01-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

Today's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
1 qt apple, kale, dandelion, romaine, lemon, ginger
.5 qt apple and h2o with kidney/gallbladder herbal cleanse (day 2)
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, 3 T E3live
2 qt celery, cuke, pear, romaine, spinach, chard, sunchoke, cabbage, 1 T hemp oil
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Not much to report today. Jill had intense food cravings. Jack felt pretty good all day and thinks the "heavy detox" is over, but that doesn't mean a slice of pizza doesn't sound good. Thanks Kalequeen (Jack will try your suggestion), Doug, Neeta and Joe for the comments. We hope everyone is doing well today!

Day 13

2008-01-13T20:22:00.000-05:00

Jill:

Today's menu:
1 qt h20, lemon, 1T msm
1 qt celery, apple, romaine, spinach, sunchoke
.5 qt apple and h2o with kidney/gallbladder herbal cleanse (day 1)
1.5 qt celery, cuke, pear, romaine, bok choy, tomato, cilantro, cabbage, broccoli, onion, garlic, 1 T hemp oil
1 qt apple, kale, lemon, ginger
1 T each: bee pollen, coconut oil
probiotics, zeolite, additional h2o

Our juices today were heavenly!

The first juice of the day was left over from yesterday. We didn't manage to drink much juice yesterday (only 2 qts apiece) and had an entire quart pre-made and still in the fridge at day's end. The problem yesterday was in part that we slept in and got a late start with juice-drinking and also trouble seemed to arise from trying to use up the beets and somehow we both ended up really disliking the beet juice combo and just not feeling great. So, we are back to leaving out the root vegetables and just using two apples per quart instead. The sunchokes are fine though - they taste lighter, more neutral and refreshing. I don't really understand the thing with the beets and carrots. I've actually never liked either of these or any root veggies much, raw or cooked, but I have been trying to use them as I thought they added some needed minerals and calories for the juices. It doesn't seem like it could be a sugar problem, because we've only had them diluted with greens, and anyway, shouldn't apple be even higher glycemic? Why would I just not like these things, as there are almost no foods I dislike. It seems so strange and especially it's weird that Jack isn't liking them in the juices either. Maybe we have been combining them awkwardly?

But I loved our mixed vegetable juice with the tomato, onion and garlic. I was so glad we ended up with 3 qts of it, so I could really drink my fill. Today I didn't add any cayenne to my juices for the first time - just didn't have any craving for it.

Anyway, the juices tasted great and satisfying, the day was relaxing, we took a walk... very rejuvenating all around. I needed this as yesterday after doing the enema (new enema bag is a huge improvement btw) I was shivering uncontrollably with chattering teeth. I think the water I used was just too cold for me. Today's mellowness re-set everything to positivity again.

I'm having an issue with making future plans. A friend today suggested coming for a visit in early March. Since we are deliberately taking the feast one day at a time I have no idea if we will still be going by then. Realistically, I don't think it would be fun to have visitors if we can't share meals with them. I don't want to set us up to feel like we should stop before we are ready by agreeing to host them, but I don't want to put expectations on us either by saying out loud that we expect to still be on our fast. If I tell my friend not to come - and especially if I tell her why - and clear the schedule until April, I think I will have some kind of sense of having "failed to meet an expectation" if we decide to end the feast on any of the days between now and then. For me, I need to hold this process lightly, keeping a sense that going longer would increase the health benefits, but also maintaining the sense that stopping at any point is fine. I don't do well with rigidity.

Jack:

It seems as though the worst of the detoxing is over. Hopefully anyway. There was one day last week...Day 10 I think it was, that I really wasn't sure I could go on. I felt grumpy and the thought of going without food for much longer felt really dreary. But one thing you do learn from doing this is how quickly things can change. I think I've gotten to the point I remember from our last fast where you settle into it and the ups and downs aren't so dramatic and the downs aren't nearly so difficult to deal with. I'm also feeling how cleansing this process is and know that after just two weeks my body is much healthier than it was when we started. That is great motivation. Also, I know from previous fasts how that feeling slowly gets stronger and stronger so that after 30 or 40 days you really feel that your body has been transformed..I'm looking forward to that, assuming we make it that far. Even if we were to stop, now, though, we've done ourselves a favor.

A couple other bulletins from the TMI desk. My enemas, with the exception of the first one or two, have not resulted in much in the way of solid matter at all...it's just like opening up a faucet basically. I'm not sure if the colon cleanse we were on cleared me out or what, but I remember that on my last long one, I was still amazed what was coming out of me on day 54. Not this time...Also I'm feeling really gaseous today...don't remember every having to...well, you know...so much during a fast before. Finally, I've been getting occasional pains in my lower back, but they feel different from muscle pains. I remember these from last time as well. I think I read somewhere they are a sign of kidneys releasing toxins, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, greetings to everyone out there in juice feast land. Sometimes I wonder how many of us there are doing this right now. There are those of us blogging, but I'm guessing there must be quite a few others as well. What a bunch of freaks we are. Maybe I should speak for myself.

Day 12

2008-01-12T11:13:00.000-05:00

Jill:
We missed a day blogging yesterday, but in fact we finally broke through the difficulty of the last few days and are both feeling a lot better. For myself, I think I was doing some heavy detoxing as I felt extremely low energy and low spirited. At the same time, it made me more committed to the experience, because I was conscious that I was doing some much needed clearing of debris from my body. The enemas have been fruitful, to put it nicely! And this is after a 30-day herbal-clay intestinal cleanse, which we had done before the feast! Also, my new enema bag came today and though I haven't tried it yet I am thrilled to put to rest the old, leaking one from several years ago and make that experience a little easier.

I am really appreciating this community of bloggers who are feasting around the world (or anyway, on two sides of the Atlantic) in tandem with us. Not feeling up to posting the last couple of days I felt almost like I could ride the momentum of the others during that time and be supported by that energy. What a great feeling! Thank you to all of you. And to those not blogging themselves who have left comments.

I'm pretty sure one of the reasons for the low energy was that I was putting very small amounts of fruits and root vegetables in our juices, with an eye to keeping the glycemic index low. I think this resulted in both a quicker detox and maybe too few calories for our needs. Yesterday, I put many more carrots and yams into our juice and this helped a lot with the energy - for example, where I had been putting two carrots in a quart, I almost doubled that. I also put more grapefruits into our fruit juice, where I had been adding a good bit of water. I left out the beets entirely (which I am never a big fan of - though we still have some that I will have to use up), as well as any radish or broccoli, just to make sure the juices tasted as mild and energizing as possible. I also went running, to try to flush out as much as I could from my body. At first my body felt lighter than usual and it seemed easy, but then I could only run a mile before I felt like I might throw up, so I slowed to a walk. Still, I think after that and some yoga I did feel better.

Yesterday's menu:

1 qt lemon, h20, 1T msm
1 qt celery, apple, carrot, kale, romaine, cilantro, ginger, cayenne
1 qt celery, apple, yam, spinach, romaine, cayenne
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, water, 1 T hemp oil, 3 T E3live
1 qt celery, pear, chard, carrot, cayenne
Roibois tea (how do you spell that?)
Garlic tea
1 T each: bee pollen and coconut oil

I found fresh turmeric yesterday, which I am excited about, that will go into our day 12 juices, for sure! And the organic cucumbers were back, which I missed the last couple of days. I also got some good probiotics yesterday, as I was wondering why that was missing from the feast and then after careful re-reading of the juice feasting site realized that others are taking this in their green super foods. I decided to order some of the recommended green powder, which I've forgotten the name of now, but thought some probiotics would be a good thing while we await it's arrival.

Enjoying a relaxed Saturday morning while Jack plays piano, having really appreciated the extra sleep you can get when you don't have to wake up at 5 am to make juice!

Day 10

2008-01-10T06:52:00.000-05:00

Jack:

This feast continues to be an up-and-down ride for me. I think that's a result of my job being stressful and that I had "let myself go" for a few months before doing this. So, it feels like I'm flushing out those few months in this first week or two of the fast. I have moments of clarity and ease, but those moments aren't as continuous as I'd like them to be. One thing this feast may be doing is pointing out to me exactly how stressful my job is. I work consistently 9-11 hours a day with low-income mentally ill adults. Working with them can be energy-draining. And then there's the problem of not having much time to do some of the things I like to do (in particular, playing music and meditating). And some days it seems like all I do, other than work, is prepare juice, drink juice, and read about juice.

An issue that I've thought about a lot over the years is how to integrate this kind of "radical" nutritional thinking into a social work practice. Practically speaking, with the population that I work with, economics play a huge role. My clients cannot afford to buy anywhere near the amount of organic produce that we do on a weekly basis. I try to suggest small changes where they can make them, but often-times it feels like I'm fighting a battle with both hands tied behind my back. The sad truth is that in addition to all their other problems, most of my clients are completely addicted to the worst of what the "modern food machine" has to offer. And all of that is terrible for the brain and soul. When I think of my clients lives in the context of a deteriorating economy, the environment, oil depletion, water shortages, mineral depletion... well, you get the idea. In a way, and this might sound kind of weird, I kind of like to think of eating RAW and doing a feast like this, because of the nature of what you're putting in your body, as being a way to tap into some deeper knowledge about what it is one should be doing at this seemingly bleak time in human history.

On the more mundane side of things, I am down to 214.6 - that's a 13.6 lb loss. I know I'm not supposed to be worried about that, but I'll be honest, if I didn't get as portly as I did, I may not have started this feast in the first place. OK, call me a narcissist!

Day 9

2008-01-09T07:45:00.001-05:00

Jill:
It is early in the morning, so only the very beginning of day 9, but I wanted to post a bit more. Jack has some thoughts too, but he hasn't had the time to write, so we will have to wait a bit to hear from him.

This morning we continued with the Green Star. I think it is quicker for us. It also doesn't make anywhere near the amount of mess of the Vita-Mix, which would send burps of thick, pulpy juice up the walls at the very moment when I would open the hatch to poke something new inside. I miss the Vita-Mix for adding berries to the fruit juices, but it will be back in service before too long I believe. We've been using a manual press for the citrus, which works out well and also means that one person(me)can be doing that while the other (Jack) is feeding veggies into the Green Star. Because of the sudden switching of gears yeesterday, all of our juices tasted pretty foul and murky. I think in the confusion I ended up over-dosing us on turnip greens and radishes. Today's juices taste good.

So far:
1 qt lemon-2 T msm-h2o
1 qt celery, cuke, apple, spinach, kale, parsley, broccoli, sunchoke, ginger
Ready to be consumed later:
1 qt celery, cuke, green pepper, apple, escarole, kale, yam
1 qt grapefruit, orange, lemon, E3 Live
1 qt celery, cuke, pear, dandelion, collard, carrot

We did a shot of hemp oil before this morning's green juice since yesterday, for the first time, it tasted bad to both of us in the fruit juice. Go figure. But I did not like drinking it straight, so will have to do further taste-tests.

I am adding less cayenne today, as my desire for that seems to have eased. It does remind me how everything comes and goes; when I am in the state of craving something I tend to feel like that is how it will always be and I start to analyze and wonder "why". Then it passes and it seems like "why not" might have been a good enough answer and I could have been using my brain for some other stuff.

Last night I couldn't fall a sleep which is a problem I almost NEVER have. I felt a lot of anxiety about pointless things like how I think I ordered the wrong nozzle for my new enema bag and this seemed like a really big deal, like the price of a small piece of plastic was going to break me. Part of this may have been that on the website there were so many nozzles which said things like: "this will give you a bumpy ride" and I was all confused that they were saying it like it was a good thing and then I was like, oh duh, people are ordering these for pleasure. So I had some concern that I might have accidentally ordered the bumpy ride kind myself, which is not at all my goal with the enema.

I ordered a latex enema bag which was very expensive, but I just can't use the drugstore bag at all with its awful chemicallyness. Yesterday evening I swear I burped some of that plastic smell - if that is possible. Part of why it's so important to me (and worth the money) is that my biggest health challenge is a major toxic overload from over-use of glues and paints and other fumes in my previous work. I have a hard time tolerating these smells now, but also have a profound worry about what is lurking in my body. Ready to move on.

Happy Wednesday!

Day 8

2008-01-08T20:06:00.000-05:00

Jill:
We are kind of beat tonight, but wanted to write briefly about this morning's drama. Mid-way through juice-making at 5 in the a.m. the Vita-Mix started making a high-pitched whirring. It did not sound good (kind of reminiscent of nails on a blackboard) and was quickly followed by a burning smell so we shut it down. I was shocked! The Vita-Mix, our trusty 3-year old, unstoppable powerhouse of a blender, died. I thought they were engineered to such heights of perfection that they were beyond failure! For a moment I was flummoxed, but really I am over-dramatizing, because the truth is we have all kinds of RAW kitchen equipment including a Green Star juicer, so it wasn't really the tragedy of the century. I was concerned though, because on some of the blogs it sounded like the Green Star could turn the project into a several hour ordeal. I had been listening to the prevailing wisdom that blender/nut mylk bag is the only way to go. Not so for us this morning, though. We switched over fast and got the juice done only 10 minutes behind schedule. Spirits were high once more. I called Vita-Mix a few hours later when they opened for business, and they are sending a part and some special tool for swapping out the blade housing. Apparently this part goes bad if you put your container in the dishwasher. Ach! I knew this wasn't the recommended cleaning method, but we definitely have done this plenty and now I know why you aren't supposed to. I didn't know there was an actual REASON. So, it's the Green Star for the next 7-10 days...

Day 7

2008-01-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

Jill:
Day 7 feels exciting and gives me the sense of having really accomplished something good for myself. Also, I feel so appreciative of the nice comments from fellow juicers when I was low-spirited. The kindness is really uplifting.

Though we rotate the specific amounts, combinations and type of greens we use, our juices remain pretty similar. This morning when we were making the juice (at 5am) I felt so energized and into the project of being really efficient and zipping from task to task in this perfectly fluid way. It didn't at all have that tedious quality that characterized the first few days for me. I went into the studio and got a lot of work done finally too and took care of some tasks I'd been dreading and blowing off (I'm self-employed so can [kind of] get away with avoidance at times), so that extra energy came in handy. I'm actually very tired now, but I remember that earlier in the day I was so energized and thought "I want to write about that on the blog". So, even though I'm not buzzing at the moment, I am honoring that earlier desire to express my buzzy-ness.

Today one of our green juices had a whole bunch of turnip greens in it and the smell was so intense (kind of radish-y) that I thought it would taste terrible, but the taste was much milder than the smell and it had a gently spicy quality.

Today:
qt lemon water and 1 T msm (this dose is fine now)
qt celery, cuke, apple, collards, cilantro, kale, beet w/ green, ginger w/ cayenne
qt celery, cuke, apple, dandelion, parsley, kale, broccoli, sunchoke w/cayenne
qt grapefruit, raspberry, blackberry, w/ hemp (we forgot the E3 live today in this one - not SO efficient as it turns out!)
qt celery, cuke, pear, turnip greens, romaine, kale, carrot w/ cayenne
1 T coconut oil
1 T bee pollen

All tasted great!

One other thing: I had to get a new enema bag and it is SO out-gassing plastic. It is vile and when the water comes out it just stinks of that new plastic smell. This cannot be healthy! I know that leaving things in the sun for a few days can speed along the out-gas, but I can't bring myself to plunk an enema bag out on the front steps! Not sure what to do...

Jack:
Today was definitely a breakthrough day for me. I think that's probably due to the enema yesterday and again this morning. I've been feeling the light and spacious quality of mind that I hadn't felt in awhile. It makes me realize or remember that to do a long fast there needs to be an upside, not just denial, and it feels good to finally be experiencing that upside. We've been enjoying reading some of the other blogs every morning when we drink juice together. It really keeps us motivated.

Day 6

2008-01-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

Jack:

OK...I confess. I hadn't done an enema until today. It's not that the thought grosses me out or anything. It's more the time it takes and the fact that after doing them during my last long fast I knew that there was something unpleasant about them...I just couldn't remember what. Oh yeah...you feel like you just got food poisoning for a few minutes there.

But anyway, I felt way better after doing it today. Last time I did them every day for almost the entire 54 days. This time, particularly since we had been doing a month long colon cleanse with clay and something else (Jill is better with those specifics), I'd sort of thought "how much of a difference can they really make?" Well, I'm here to tell you, for me it made a huge difference. For the first time tonight I got that great raw buzz with the "I'm turning back the clock" feeling with every passing minute. I feel like I'm "all in" with this thing now. (while of course I know there will be difficult moments ahead, at least I'm going to enjoy this feeling while it lasts)

Anyway, that's what I learned today. They don't tell you to do enemas for nothing. I'm even thinking about going for a colonic at some point soon.

Jill:
Today I felt like I was detoxing some old emotional baggage, childhood feelings of rejection and sadness, which I started overlaying onto the experience of the juice feast. We started this blog to try to lessen the feeling of isolation that doing a fast can create, primarily as a result of not being able to socialize in many of the familiar ways and not always wanting to explain why. Then the blog itself made me feel rejected, like I'm putting all this stuff out there, but nobody relates to it or even reads it. The mood is passing, but I think it's probably healthier for me to acknowledge it, though it makes me feel like a baby.

I do feel like this "juice feast" method is a great one. Keeping the focus on feeding your body all these tremendous nutrients, instead of the deprivation associated with most fasts makes a HUGE difference. I feel utterly confident about continuing, solid that this will last until it is the right time to stop, and I'm sure this is a result of the controlled detox and the great quality nutrients. I'll have to write a thank you about that on the forum.

Good night!

Day 5

2008-01-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

Jack:
Well, doing this is certainly easier when you don't have to work. We basically just sat around and drank juice. I definitely feel settled in for the long haul, although I don't know exacly how long that's going to be. Don't feel like I have a lot more to say right now.

Oh, and I've lost 10 pounds...I'm at 218.2. The big drop in weight is over now. I remember from the last fast that when you lose weight, you tend to trace, in reverse, your weight gain. For me, that means a likely plateau, or very slow loss, for a few days, then the same when I get down to 210, then 200, then 190 (as those were weights that I lingered at a while).

Jill:
Our juices today were pretty much the same as yesterday, though our fruit juice was pineapple. The system with making the juices has become pretty streamlined: for the green juices we just divide our 2 bunches of celery in three and then divide up 4 lbs of greens and then kind of improvise from there, making sure to put some ginger in one, some cucumber in at least a couple, etc.

I have been consuming a lot of cayenne. Jack joined me for small doses today and we put some in all of the green juices. I read up on the juice feasting site about the benefits of cayenne and it all sounds great, though I'm still not clear about my particular attraction to it. There was a piece about a 19th century herbalist that took the country by storm with his brand of medecine - I loved hearing about him. Over and over I discover that people have always struggled with the same issues and to read his quotes expressing cynicism towards the medical establishment of his day in the same way we do now, was another version of this same realization. One thing about large doses of cayenne - you feel it on the way out too!

We did some shopping today and I noticed that all of the "by the bunch" greens were bundled smaller than previously. The price of the grapefruits was up too. I almost wondered if those things change on a small scale in response to consumer demand and if our buying of $150 worth of produce every few days counts as enough demand to raise prices. Who knows...

I felt physically good today, but also strangely on the "blah" side - uninspired or something. It's as if the fast requires so much focus and attention, but at the same time leaves me missing the stimulation of other creative, social or cerebral activites. I think this may just be a version of impatience, feeling like everything is always going to be this way, instead of maintaining awareness that this is a healing PHASE that ideally will leave us more energized and clear and able to accomplish meaningful work. I read this paragraph to Jack and he says he feels the same. I wonder if we are in tandem because we are physically together and maybe affecting each other, or if this is typical stuff at this stage.

Day 4

2008-01-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

From Jack:

I've felt pretty good physically today. I must admit, though, I've been feeling a recurrent longing for food...almost like an underlying angst permeating my day. Nothing unbearable, but there nonetheless. Even though we have not committed ourselves to doing any particular length of time, there's this feeling of "oh my God, this is going to be going on for a while" ...I remember that from my last fast and I can't pretend it's enjoyable. I guess it's basically the addict in me jonesing. But let's face it, unhealthy food is an addiction shared by almost everyone in our society to some degree or another, so sometimes just being in our culture is like strolling through a liquor store 24/7 for an alcoholic. Enough whining though...and one thing I always try to remember...moods shift quickly, particularly doing this.

One last note from the TMI department...I seem to be urinating less frequently which has actually been a god send at work.

Jill:

Today's juices:
32 oz lemon water 1t msm
32 oz celery, apple, cuke, spinach, kale, ginger, lemon
32 oz celery, apple, cuke, romaine, kale, parsley, jerusalem artichoke
32 oz grapefruit, raspberry, blackberry, orange, 1 T hemp oil, 3 Ts E3 Live
32 oz celery, pear, red leaf lettuce, kale, cilantro, cabbage, carrot, 1/4 t kelp*

*I added cayenne and turmeric, but Jack feels like the spices make his throat hurt, so he skipped that.

I made a couple of additional teas today with cayenne too. I can't tell if I like the cayenne so much because it tastes like food to me, or if I am craving some of its healing powers. This whole subject is often confusing - which cravings are addictions and which cravings are healthful needs being communicated by your body. For example: I do know that people can get addicted to the "high" of spicy foods; a craving for salt could be salt addiction or could be a need for minerals; I have been loving adding a bit of root veggies to the green juices (normally I don't like most root veg.s too much, particularly carrots) - is this because of mineral need or is it because they are high in sugar? Many years ago when I first went vegan and didn't know anything about omega-3s I desperately craved fish. But I have also experienced cravings at different times for cigarettes, alcohol, all manner of sugar, dairy, white breads and pastas, all things which I know are simply addictive. It can be hard stuff to sort out as there is usually a root need associated with most cravings, I think. People who eat meat talk often about craving protein and I just figure this for addiction, though I have learned not to say much about it.

Day 3

2008-01-03T20:04:00.000-05:00

Jill: Our juices for today (each of us):

32 oz water, lemon, t msm
16 oz water with colon cleanser
32 oz celery, cucumber, pear, bok choy, romaine, red cabbage
32 oz celery, cucumber, apple, kale, dandelion, parsley, lemon, ½ t kelp, 1/8 t cayenne, ½ t turmeric
32 oz grapefruit, raspberry, blackberry, orange, 3 T E3 Live, 1 T hemp oil
32 oz celery, cucumber, kale, dandelion, yam, ginger
Tablespoon of coconut oil
Tablespoon of bee pollen
I am (as I write) drinking 32 oz of “master cleanser”: h2o, lemon juice, cayenne and a tidbit of raw honey because I cannot get enough of the spicy taste today. Jack doesn’t seem to like the spicy so much – he always wants things sweeter, so we put more apple than previously (3 small granny smiths per 64 oz instead of 2)

Also, we've been continuing with zeolite drops, which we've been doing for a long while anyway.

I really liked the touch of yam in the green juice – made it super energizing.

I am feeling great today, physically. I remember this feeling from previous fasts, where the thought of food is terribly exciting in the abstract, but I am utterly confident that I won’t be tempted to have any. I was ravenous for my juices, though.

We had to get up at 5am to start making the juice as Jack had to leave real early for work today, sipping on the msm-lemon water throughout. It is taking us an hour – a bit more with cleanup to make each of us 4 qts. I know this is going to get old (already is!), but we are into it and determined. It is nice having the extra time in the evening.

Let’s talk about bowel movements: I have had them steadily throughout the fast (3-4 daily), partly because we are finishing up an herbal intestinal cleanse program from the last few weeks, which if we had planned better we might have started simultaneous with the juice feast. To be blunt, they have been small, soft and squishy for quite awhile now. Today I experienced two large-ish, well-packed ones. Is this the “impacted” stuff that’s been hanging around in there? That is fascinating to me. I feel like a two-year-old, but I am really excited to see them getting out.

Jack:
Today felt like I made it past the first major “hump” of the fast. And man, I must have been totally waterlogged, because I am now down to 221.2 – 7lbs dropped in just two days. Even though I know it’s not real weight loss, it does give me incentive to keep going. I’ve also felt mentally clear today. I’ve often wondered if meditation and raw foods don’t have a similar effect on the brain (there’s a book out there called “Left in the Dark” that talks about this). I have always found that they are very complimentary and have clearly noticed during my day that my clarity level goes down after a less than healthy meal. This was one of the reasons I wanted to do this feast. So, even though at this point our morning routine has temporarily halted my meditation practice, in many ways I think this is just a different route. And I’m also really glad to see the other bloggers out there that started on the same day or close to when we did. It will be fun to see how everyone does and having this community is going to be a great help, for me anyway.

First full day back at work had its challenges. Not the least of which was being in a very intense meeting with a client and a colleague in which I felt like my kidneys were going to shoot out of the side of my body and my bladder was going to explode - other than that, no big complaints. I do think, however, and am becoming completely convinced, that this idea of having massive doses of fresh juice is clearly the way to go on a fast of this kind.

That’s it for now.

Day 2 - Part 2 (Evening)

2008-01-02T20:21:00.000-05:00

From Jack:

Well, day 2 is coming to a close and it’s been up and down. I was telling Jill this morning (even as I was feeling great) that I remember from our last juice fast several years ago that the second day was the hardest one for me mood-wise. I actually wasn’t expecting that today…but it happened. I’ve been really up and down. Many times in the past, and this is AFTER I fasted for 54 days, I wanted to go on a fast and couldn’t make it past day 1 or 2. It’s funny how that works, you’d think that after doing 54 days, you wouldn’t get derailed right away like that…but it’s happened to us more than once. So for all of you out there that have started and stopped…take heart!

For us, doing this blog has already been helpful in terms of motivation. After showing my rather ample mid-rift (albeit faceless) to the world, I am really motivated to show another one in a little while that isn’t quite as well endowed. Maybe I’ll even show my face at some point. Also, doing something this “radical” can be a bit isolating, so in a way doing a blog feels like throwing an ongoing party where you’re able to rant to like-minded souls ad-nauseum.

We’ve also been reminding ourselves of exactly how important what we’re doing is. I am facing the fact that I have had sugar issues my whole life and have used eating, recently, to squelch difficult emotions that have been coming up for me doing a very difficult job (just last week a client of mine committed suicide). In many ways doing this, for me, is like being a life-long drug addict going into a detox program (and not for the first time), full of hope that the program is the best one out there, but with full knowledge of what the consequences of not changing course will be.

…that’s it from me tonight…and now…

From Jill:

Today was somewhat up and down for me as well. I realize how lucky we are to have another person to help with the preparation, shopping and motivation that such an undertaking requires.

I think the major difficulty came in the afternoon today as we were drinking juice we had prepared way back at 6am. We were actually snowed in, but had been expecting to go to work, so had made everything ahead and even though it all was in the refrigerator, it’s just not quite the same as freshly made juice. We hit rock bottom after our “spicy” juice, which included kelp, cayenne, turmeric and hemp oil along with greens and broccoli. The first 1/3 tasted great – like eating a raw, green soup – and at some point it was just too intense and I was choking it down. Part of the problem, I think, was that we put too much broccoli. After this we had the idea of making a small (8 oz or so) grapefruit juice and that felt great and clean and simple and re-calibrating.

We also had a tablespoon each of coconut oil, which is not only satisfying because of being vaguely sweet, but also because the weather was cold, so it was like you could take little bites of it before it melted in your mouth – this was fun!

As Jack said, the food addiction thing, using eating to squash dissatisfactions and difficult emotions, is something that is so noticeable when you are not doing it. Doing the blog, and stating our intention in some public way, is definitely a great support. Even if it is totally imaginary, the idea that we have made a commitment to someone outside ourselves to really try this is so helpful. And just reminding ourselves of why we are doing it: not just because we’ve put on weight, but because we know what erratic eating is doing to our bodies, and what sort of illnesses await us if we don’t take better care. And the “glow” is instant. Even when Jack was feeling his worst he had this beautiful, bright quality already suffusing his skin and eyes – and I like to think I had a bit of the same starting to happen!

Day 2

2008-01-02T08:21:00.000-05:00

We won't lie to you...this was the first morning we did the full day preparation and it was no joke. We'll probably get the system more streamlined, but it took a little over an hour to make 8 quarts of juice.

Jack found that he had lost 3 pounds in the first day...and is now at 225.2. He always loses weight quickly...when he did a Cousen's Phase I a couple years back he lost something like 18 pounds in two weeks. Seems like cutting sugars out makes a big difference for the Jackster.

Jill is happy to report that after keeping the msm to a 1/2 teaspoon in lemon water, there have been no sulfur burps so far today. But we will take it slow about raising the dose.

We took some photos last night of Jack (Good Lord!) and we might, if his ego can handle it, post them later today.

BTW, our green juices consist of kale, celery, cucumber, romaine, green apple, parsley and we make one by adding broccoli, garlic, cayenne and hemp oil. Our fruit juice today was grapefruit, cranberry, blackbery and E3Live Algae.

Jack is concerned about going without his usual Cacao-E3Live-Goji Berry-Flax Oil-Hemp Seed shake...which gives him the energy to get up at 5am to meditate for an hour and practice music every morning before work. This routine might require some changes, not the least of which is needing to get up to piss a couple times while sitting. The issue of whether we are going to allow some variation of the shake and/or nut milk with cacao has yet to be resolved. But for the time being we're going to go without to see if it can work.

Day 1 - January 1st 2008

2008-01-01T18:25:00.000-05:00

Today we started on our "juice feast". We are not sure how long we're going to do it for...we're going to see how it goes. We have both done long fasts (1-2 months), but never with this much attention to quantity and greenness. In past fasts we both ended up stuck at work rocking nasty bottled juices in guilty desperation.

We've been into raw foods for around five years, but have also been very on and off with it. Jack has been particularly bad about over-eating cooked foods lately and is tipping the scales at an all time high of 228.2 lbs which is not exactly a narcissist's delight. This has been a motivating force for Jack. Jack plans to post ongoing pictures and weights.

We're planning msm with water every morning (a quart each). We actually started a couple days ago with 1/2 teaspoon msm and some lemon, but today Jill has experienced all-day sulfur burps that are none too pleasant, so she may ease back to a still lower dose for tomorrow. Jack seems fine with it.

Other than that we've each had a couple quarts of juice (mostly greeens, some apple) and are not feeling at all hungry (we'll try to be more detailed recipe-wise on later posts). We know we're supposed to cram in 4-5 quarts apiece for the day, but it's almost 7pm and neither of us seems to want anymore. Could it be that it's just so many nutrients? It's also a lazy New Year's Day...

Enough for now.