End of 40 day fast: thoughts, food, and where do I go from here

English: A Burger King bacon cheeseburger. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First thing I want to say is I am TRULY sorry for being very absent lately.  My life has taken quite the crazy turn, mostly at work where I find the most time to blog.  I no longer have that time, which is a good thing and a bad thing.  I have absorbed another person’s job and am swamped, but the trade-off is that they days fly by, even if I am stressed the whole day.

Monday (yesterday) was the first day off my fast.  I am truly proud of myself for sticking with this for 40 days, there were a few days I didn’t think I could or wanted to.  My cravings sometimes were too much and there were days I wanted to throw in the towel.  I haven’t been much of a finisher, so this was a good thing to prove to myself that I could (with God’s help of course) follow through with something I started.  I am happy to say I have lost 23lbs!  All my clothes fit amazingly, in fact I have found things that I still had tags on in my closet.   I bought some “birthday” clothes for myself last year, my birthday is in June so almost exactly a year ago, I thought I was a certain size bought that and went home without trying them on.  I remember going home trying on the pants that didn’t fit, then the top, throwing them all back in the bag and on to the top shelf of my closet.  I was so mad.  Now I get the joy of trying them on to have them be baggy.  What a joy!

I have seen others start their juicing journey because of my energy and excitement for it.  I have been told by people I know, as well as complete strangers at the grocery store that my skin glows, and I see that in myself too.  I’ve had good and bad days.  Over all, this journey has been really amazing and I am happy that I started on it, and even more happy I finished and can feel the results.

Yesterday Hubby got the good news that he got a job, that and it being the official day I could eat anything I wanted, we went out to celebrate.  However, the joys that we had yesterday were almost robbed from us with some car problems I had on the way home.  Satan didn’t win, he wasn’t allowed to rob us that joy.  We went out to a local restaurant, they serve the best burgers, and I have wanted a cheese burger for 40 days!  It’s funny, looking at the menu it was almost overwhelming.  I hadn’t had so many choices in food in a long time it seemed, there were almost too many choices.  We settled on a bacon cheeseburger and split it, when it came out it looked great, smelled great.   The first bite?  You know, it was just ok.  I know the hamburger was more than just ok, but my taste buds have actually changed.   We finished our meal and went home, soon to discover that burger sat like a brick in our stomachs.  Hubby even said we should have just went and spent that money on produce to juice, in a strange way I felt the same way.  It wasn’t the awesome meal I thought I was about to have.  I feel good about it, honestly, it helps me to know that I don’t need certain things in my life food wise, that I thought I did.  I can be content and full and satisfied with a much more simple diet.

So what’s next?  I see myself having meat every once in a while, maybe once a week, maybe not even that.  I see a mostly vegan diet with yummy vegan cheeses and stir fry and homemade black bean burgers.  I see soaked nuts on my counter every day, with homemade sourdough bread cooling on the rack.  Basically a whole foods diet, I don’t need processed garbage, tons of cheese (if you know me this is a really shocking statement, I used to adore cheese), or meat.  I have to admit, I’m changed.  I never want to go back to feeling the way I used to, to looking the way I used to… I pray that Corri is gone forever.  I promised photos… I have them, but they will have to be posted another day.  I’ve been too busy to load them onto a disc to bring to work and I never have enough time in the evenings, that is my Hubby time.

So the bottom line is, if you are considering a juice fast of any kind, I highly recommend it!  God’s nutritious foods are amazing life givers.  Praise God for his blessings!

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Juice Fast Day 27: So Hard On Myself!

Deep in thought………. Separate from the remainder of the herd but with a wonderful view. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If this fast has been anything it has been eye-opening.  Not only am I blessed to share my experience with others, but God is really using it to change my views on things, particularly myself.  As God’s children we are not supposed to be so down on ourselves all the time, we are supposed to have the joy of the Lord.  Sometimes I feel like when I don’t have that joy I am doing something “wrong” and God isn’t blessing me.  I follow a particular ministry online and they did a video on The Cycles of Christian Growth, I realized as I was listening that I am not alone in my thinking.  Sometimes God uses the lower times to build us up to the higher times.

We ALL struggle with some form of self-worth.  Even people we consider “beautiful” admit to struggling with the thought of their fat thighs or round tummy.  This weekend God opened my eyes to some very interesting things…me and my constant struggle with my body.  See, I’ve pretty much always thought I was “fat.”  Even though I look back at photos of me in high school and I think “What was I thinking!?! I wasn’t fat!!”  But in my head I was.  That same mental block has been around my entire life, I can’t think of one time in my life where I thought I was ‘thin’ or ‘beautiful’ or whatever the world tells us we must be.  I don’t remember a single time!  Ugh there is something seriously wrong with that.

In a computer change over I lost all our photos prior to probably 2010.  This means all the memories from Florida, our drive back to Oregon, friends weddings, OUR wedding, our reception… all gone.  Hubby is a sweet man, he tells me his memories are in his heart and he doesn’t have to have a photo to remember those things.  I finally got over the “loss” and started to move on, we will make more memories I can document.  This weekend God showed me that these memories were not lost, I had a back up disc from 2008 and I had all the memories from our wedding on a Walgreens CD.  I was giddy as I started to load these old memories on the computer!  Hubby and I started to scroll through them and then…horror! (a little dramatic?lol)

There on the screen staring back at me was me, horribly over weight, so fat!  I have to tell you it came as quite a shock.  I didn’t know how big I actually was until looking back now, and in a different place in my own body.  Even the photos of Hubby… wow! We were some chubby folks!  As time got closer to 2009 and our wedding things slimmed down drastically but still not more than right now.  Looking back sometimes can really show you where you came from and how you are getting to where you are going.  God also showed me how we used to be and that life was not glorifying to God in any way shape or form.

After going through those photos I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself now.  I am not the same person, not physically, not spiritually, not anything… honestly I don’t know what kind of conversation that Corri and this Corri would even have.  There have been some times during this fast I have felt that maybe I was “cheating” because I was eating some nuts or beans or rice.  I can say honestly that if something made me feel guilty (corn bread comes to mind) I wouldn’t go near it.  Everything I have put in my mouth for the past 27 days I have felt good about, even if I was really craving a cheese burger.  I am really proud of where I have come from, and what God is transforming me into.  Not only physically but so deeply in my heart God is changing me from the inside out.

I plan on the final post about this fast to pull some of the “fat Corri” photos and post a little timeline from then to now.  My journey of before to after.  If only I could post photos of my heart changing… although I don’t know how much of the “before” I would like to share, now the after?  That is ALL God’s handy work and I am more than blessed to be changed by the hands that formed the world.

<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/CFCi_UAmFS0&#8243; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

Enjoy the Cycles of Christian Growth, I do hope you find the time to give it a listen.

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Amazing “cheese” sauce

19 days to go!  I’m the first one to admit I haven’t been perfect every day.  The juice fast has slowly morphed into a raw/vegan “fast.”  I do not eat every day or every meal, I just have had some things like beans and rice and nuts.  I still feel amazing and don’t feel like I’m “cheating.”  I made Hubby some corn bread and some cookies, I tried really hard to justify eating them but resisted.  Once I started to eat a little food I found myself trying to justify other things, but I didn’t eat them, I actually felt guilty and thus I knew I needed to not eat them.

I am a cheese-a-holic.  I just love that creamy goodness!  I always have, probably always will.  I’m thinking a lot about my food choices lately and dairy is one I need to address.  When I was a baby my Mom told me that I could not tolerate dairy and she had to give me and my brother goats milk.  For some reason, that “changed” but I don’t think it really did.  I think we didn’t have as many signs (diaper rash etc) when we got older and cows milk is readily available in the grocery store.  My Mom was a single Mom just trying to get by with two kids.  It was the 80’s and her child support was really small and she was not allowed food stamps because she owned a home.  Basically the state said they would help if she sold the only house we’d ever known and move us to a small cramped apartment.  My Mom said “I don’t need your help then.”  We just made things work.  I don’t fault my Mom for being poor, but I don’t think we should have had milk.  So I grew up on milk and dairy and loved every minute of it. 😉  A ND I saw for several years did a “food intolerance test” on me, I say it with quotations because I’m not exactly sure how she “tested” me because it wasn’t a send away to a lab type of thing.  In whatever she did she said I should not have dairy and I should not have fruit and sugar together or within 8 hours of each other.  When I tried to follow that in the past I failed miserably, how could one give up dairy and sugar!?

I bought a raw food cookbook a couple of years ago and tried a raw mac & cheese.  It was horrible.  I don’t know what I was expecting but I didn’t get it.  I put the cookbook on a shelf and forgot about it.  Then this whole juicing thing and Fat Sick and Nearly Dead… my taste buds have changed and I have been eating raw food, a lot of raw food.  I’ve tried some raw tacos that are out of this world good and once one thing went well I tried for more.  This weekend I made some raw “cheese” and coming from a cheese-a-holic, trust me this stuff is GOOD!  Even Hubby said he could give up real cheese for this nut cheese.

I searched all over for a recipe.  I’m a simple girl who doesn’t like to buy extra stuff to make things.  That is one of my pet peeves about recipes, seriously who has pimentos or capers just lying around to use one time in a recipe?  Not this girl and I’m certainly not going to buy them just to make something.  So I found a recipe on youtube and modified it.

Using my magic bullet blender (this didn’t do well, you really need a high-speed blender or food processor.  My birthday is next month and I’m asking for a food processor!) I added 1/2 c of soaked cashews, 1/4 c Brewers Yeast (most recipes call for nutritional yeast, we have brewers so I used that) and 1-2 TBSP of olive oil.  I did that, blended and it was pretty plain.  The girl in the video said you could add some Miso to it to give it a sharp “cheesy” flavor.  At the store buying groceries I picked up some Miso, so I added probably 1-2 TBSP, but it was kind of taste as you go type of thing.  Then I added some lemon juice (again to taste but probably 1-2 TBSP) and blended.  It was a brown paste.  It did NOT look like cheese but this stuff tastes like cheese!  Hubby and I couldn’t get enough.  You get the fat that you are craving with cheese, it’s rich in flavor, and we put them on some homemade pulp crackers.

I got a pulp cracker recipe from Hallelujah Acres’ website.  It’s called Pulp Fixin’ Bread and here is the recipe:

• 2 cups pulp from juicing
• ½ cup almond pulp (optional – great use of pulp from homemade almond milk)
• ¼ cup flax seeds
• 1 clove garlic
• ¼ cup nutritional yeast
• ¼ to ½ cup sesame oil or olive oil (use more if mixture is too thick)
• 1½ Tbsp tamari
• 1 cup water or almond milk
• ½ tsp salt

You blend everything until smooth then put on your food dehydrator (or in an oven) they suggest 125 degrees for 8 hours.  I modified the recipe it a bit.  I didn’t use almond pulp, the nutritional yeast was brewers yeast and the tamari we used some Braggs Amino Acids.  My poor magic bullet REALLY got a workout.  I had to do this in sections and they say if you add too much water the crackers will be leathery.  So I would put some pulp in my container blend, put it in a bowl and repeat until I was done with my pulp.  I just added more oil  and water to help blend easier.  We used some parchment paper/freezer paper to line our dehydrator and let it go over night.  The next morning they were crisp and crackery!  Top them with some raw cashew nut cheese and you have some amazing cheese and crackers!!  Hubby like them!  He even asked me to make more. 😀  He’s my “Mikey likes it” test, if Hubby says it’s good then it’s good, he doesn’t lie when it comes to good cooking.  If it’s bad he will tell you so. LOL

Two more Monday’s then I’m done!  I will not be a solely raw vegan, but I will base probably 80% of my diet that way.  I have some shrimp in my freezer calling my name! 😀

 

 

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Juice Fast day 17 of 40: News!

I was taking out the trash at work a few minutes ago and when I went to grab mine out of my office, I noticed it felt so light.  I looked in and all there was in there were lime peels and avocado peels, it was so satisfying.  No wrappers from a burger I might have had for lunch, or cheese and crackers… it was just produce.  It was a nice change.

So I met a goal, ok I’m exactly 0.4 lbs away from being under 200 lbs!  Since I got off the “meds” my old ND had me on, I’ve pretty much stayed steady at 215 to 220 lbs.  Even though I eat much more healthy than anyone else I know, I still stayed there.  HOWEVER, it’s time to celebrate!  Goodbye to those nasty pounds that are now gone!  I’m down 15 lbs and the numbers continue to fall.  Praise GOD!!

I have had some heated food this week, still all plant-based.  Morrell mushrooms were a special treat for me.  This weekend I also plan on having some homemade beans on some homemade non-gmo corn tortillas (which is just corn & water) with tons of fresh produce on top, no cheese.  In fact, I’m pretty sure dairy is going to be out for me after this whole experience.  I’m 99.9% sure my body can’t process dairy correctly.  I also plan on staying away from sugar.  Not in its natural forms, I will still consume honey and maple syrup and DATES especially, but cane sugar is out.  Although I will still need to buy it for my kefir water. Does anyone have a good source of cheap organic dates?  Please share with me if you do!

Last but not least… I noticed for a few nights that I had the WORST trouble falling asleep then didn’t get much sleep.  I chalked it up to Hubby not being there that night, but it happened again when he got back.  So I got this wild idea that maybe I had too much energy and I wasn’t spending enough of it.  Yesterday I went on a long walk at work (my boss believes in health and offers us time to go walk or run or whatever) and went home and slept like a baby.  So even though I get home and FEEL tired I do have to push myself to workout daily to burn off this excess fat and energy.

That’s my news.  I’m pretty happy with the results.  My moods are the biggest change and I feel even and more in “control” and less like a crazy person with crazy emotions trapped in a body I can’t control.  God is good to me!

Me in 2009 with my Gramps 😀

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30 Days to go!

organic Heirloom tomatoes at Slow Food Nation’s garden. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is day 10 of my juice fast.  Why do they call it a FAST?  It most certainly is not going fast. LOL  However, I feel great, my moods are the most noticeable change, that and my waistline.  My belly fat is reducing drastically and today my coworker even noticed how I’m losing weight. Praise God!

Last night I “cheated” only a very small bit.  I follow a sweet lady’s blog I Used to be Fat(ter).  She just posted a blog about some vegetable ‘pasta’ with raw walnut basil pesto Click to view her post.  The recipe is simple and she posts some VERY tempting photos!  So I had to give it a go, it’s raw and the only “cheating” is the walnuts but only a 1/4c in the whole meal and I split it with Hubby.  So I’m not going to be picky with myself

Vegetable ‘pasta’ with raw walnut basil pesto

• 1 zucchini
• 1 summer squash
• 1/4 cup raw walnuts
• 1 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp filtered water (more as needed)
• 1 small heirloom tomato

She has a really cool little tool that turns zucchini into “pasta noodles.”  I don’t have that tool so I used a vegetable peeler and removed the skin, then used that to make thicker “noodles.”

I omitted the nutritional yeast, only because I forgot it at work and our dogs ate our whole container we had at home.  No joke, apparently dogs like nutritional yeast!  They have this very bad habit of getting on the counter when we leave and I never thought to put it up… that was disappointing.  Anyway, blend the walnuts, basil, garlic, nutritional yeast, lemon juice and water.  I added some dehydrated tomatoes we had on had to the mix too, after I soaked them in water.  Then I chopped the fresh tomato up and added all to the “pasta.”  Hubby got salt on his and I went without.  I missed the salt it was certainly “missing” something.  As we were falling asleep Hubby said “dinner was great!” YAY!  I enjoyed the change of pace too.  😀

I am also happy to report that a dear friend of mine from Washington (state) is going to do a 60 day juice fast with her husband, they start today.  I have also been talking to my Mom about the whole process and she wants to pick my brain and get started on a 10 day fast at the end of the month.  People are getting healthy with God’s nutrients!  Enjoying a very green juice this morning of kale, broccoli, celery, cilantro, and apple.  Happy Friday all! 😀

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Day 2 of 40 Juice Fast

So thanks to the suggestion of my blogger friend who writes under the blog A Real Food Lover (Please check her out by the way) I am not doing a 30 day fast but a 40 day fast.  Why 40 days? Well it was brought to my attention that God uses 40 a lot in the Bible, it’s one of his numbers.  Just a quick google search (what did we do without google!?) I found a great site talking about 40 in the bible, read it here but here are some of my favorites.

Significance of 40 in the Bible (all info here is from http://www.40day.com/40_in_the_bible.html):

• It rained for 40 days and 40 nights when God wanted to cleanse the world and start over.
  (Gen 7:12 KJV) And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
• Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days (TWICE)
  (Exo 24:18 KJV) And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
• The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, one year for each day they explored the Promised Land.
  (Exo 16:35 KJV) And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan.
• Jonah warned the City of Nineveh they had 40 days until God would overthrow the city. The people repented in those 40 days and God spared the city.
  (Jonah 3:4 and 10 KJV) And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
  And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
• Jesus fasted for 40 days in the wilderness
  Mat 4:1-2 KJV) Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. {2} And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.
• Jesus was seen in the earth 40 days after His crucifixion
  (Acts 1:3 KJV) To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: .

So obviously 40 is significant to God.  I have some things in my body that need healed, and I believe that God will heal me using his created fruits and vegetables.  I believe that God is faithful and true and he wants to heal his people.

Last time I fasted for a week I ate nuts and seeds.  This time I’m not, just juice and fruit and vegetables.  I do have to confess that I wanted peanut butter SO bad last night, funny thing to crave but I didn’t give in.  I was really tired today, groggy and kind of foggy.  I’m currently working on my second quart of juice for the day and just got back from wonderful walk.  I had so much energy on the walk I was surprised, but near the end I was ready to be done.  Other than that I’m doing well, a bit of hunger pangs but they will go away when I finish the juice.  I still want nuts very badly, but I think it is good to deny our flesh things too.  I pray God works in my life, my body and my spirit in these next 40 days.

 

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It’s all about the greens

I have subscribed to a great magazine for years now, called Herb Companion.  I remember the first issue I got, I was looking through it and was shocked to see that they printed actual recipes for lotions,bath salts, teas, food, drinks…etc.  In fact I wrote a letter to the editor I was so impressed and it was printed in the next issue. 🙂  I was looking through the May issue this morning and noticed something great, it talks about greens, leafy, beautiful, healthy greens.  Since I’ve been juicing greens have become a big deal to me.

I can honestly say I’ve never been much of a vegetable person, the only greens in my house growing up was iceberg lettuce.   Occasionally I will go at lunch to produce shop, saves me time after work.  I had loaded up the fridge at work with all sorts of beautiful food and my coworker asked me what the chard was.  I had never had experience with chard before I met my husband.  His food growing skills would impress some of the worlds best growers.  I learned all about kale, chard, spinach and all the other leafy greens I never had any contact with before him.  So now it’s your turn to get acquainted with some very nutritious food.

A bundle of kale from an organic food co-op. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Kale.  I love Kale.  In the dead of winter some of the most beautiful kale stands erect, unaffected by the harsh cold weather.  While other things can’t survive, kale does and brings you nutrients through the winter.  It is lovely in salads, you can stir fry it, or of course juice it.  Kale is high in vitamins A, B6, C, and K.  High in antioxidants lutein, beta-carotene, glucosinolates (which are anticancer and give bitter tastes…think dandelion), kaempferol and more.

Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris) with variously colored stems on sale at an outdoor farmers' market in Rochester, Minnesota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

God’s little rainbows… Chard.  I never knew greens could be so beautiful! Hubby got some rainbow chard and grew it last year.  I honestly didn’t know enough about it to make much with it.  It went in our salads and to the bunny… It’s sunny disposition is welcome in any of my gardens.  The stocks can vary in colors, from white, to red, yellow and orange.  The stocks remind me of celery, in the way that they are stringy like celery.  For this reason I seem to have to chop it up a bit finer than other produce to juice, because those strings happen to get caught easily.  Chard has vitamins C and E as well as manganese, zinc, and antioxidants beta-carotene, lutein, kaempferol, quercetin and zeaxanthin.

Beet Greens, or simply the tops of the beet.  I didn’t know beet greens were edible until several years ago when our friends offered us some.  Recently we have been buying organic beets at the store for our juicing.  Let me say that some beets are GMO, so please buy organic only.  Not only does the beet itself give your juice a wonderful red color but the greens can be used as well.  When I juice, I cut my beet in half and take half the greens and juice them.  The stocks of the greens are similar to chard but a little less stiff.  These guys are rich in flavonoid antioxidants, they contain vitamin A, potassium, calcium and iron.   They also have beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin.

I’ll save some more green fun for later 🙂  Enjoy your greens!

 

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I can’t get over how great I feel!

I took the dogs out for a last potty before bed last night and discovered my neighbor was outside having a smoke.  She is my first “friend” in our new neighborhood, we’ve had a few conversations and seem to have a bit in common, plus I don’t have many girl friends.  I don’t know what it is but girls tend to be a bit more… drama then men.  I have two very close friends from high school who are female but that’s about it.  Anyway, we got to chatting and all of a sudden I blurt out “we’ve been juicing and I feel great!”  Then I laughed and said “oh I’m such a dork.”  I started telling her about the juicing, how great I feel and that I got the idea from the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  She, to my surprise, had actually heard of it.  I also encouraged her to watch the free viewing of Hungry for Change.  It was strange though, I mean she and I don’t really know each other well.  She has told me a bit about her divorce and some personal stuff, but I’ve only lived next to her since November.  There I was standing in the rain, in my pink slippers, chatting about how great juicing made me feel.  It’s a bit unlike me actually, I’m not a get in your face type of person.  If you see something and ask then I’ll tell you generally, but just blurting stuff out to someone who is pretty much a stranger, is just not my style, but there I was.

Wednesday night Hubby made some organic locally grown hamburger with some brown rice and topped it with some Bragg’s amino acids, and some fresh veggies, including some home-grown sprouts.  I really thought I wanted it, it was the first time I ate meat a while.  It didn’t leave me feeling the way I thought I would.  I didn’t feel bad, but I certainly didn’t feel the way I do normally, well my normal now that is.  I found myself going back to the kitchen to top my bowl off with more fresh sprouts, what is going on with me!?

Yesterday we ran out of produce, so I juiced everything we had in the morning and shared it with Hubby.  It wasn’t enough to keep me full all day, so I munched on nuts and had some chicken feet soup stock with veggies.  Yet my body was craving juice.  Hubby went to the store and I came home to a big glass of juice, it hit my stomach and every cell was dancing.

Several years ago I became a vegetarian, I did it because I felt like a hypocrite.  How could I eat meat if I was too squeamish to kill it myself?  I lasted a year until a steak from a BBQ called me away from that life.  I’m not claiming to be a vegetarian but I can say that my body is reacting very well to this new diet.  I had a huge salad last night that filled me up, which is fairly uncommon, usually only carbs fill me like that.  I’m a sugar addict, and yet I don’t crave sugar anymore!  In fact, I don’t crave anything really.  I would get cravings for hamburgers (fat), carbs and sweets, coffee… now my body seems to only crave juice and healthy produce.  It feels weird, and yet exciting.  I’ve even lost some weight to boot!  Weight loss is not the goal but it is a nice motivator, I sure have some pounds to lose.  My skin is starting to clear up, I have color in my skin, I am more clear in thinking, and I have more energy than I use to, even my hair has more of a luster to it.  My body likes this new juicing thing!  I feel amazing, absolutely amazing and I never use to feel amazing.  Just the other day I was in my office and it was a slow day and I was alone, so I started doing squats and wall push ups and then jogging in place.  I felt all light and good so I started to do jumping jacks and soon remembered that my body weight has not quite caught up to how good I feel, I was reminded how heavy I felt, but that is just temporary.  Juicing is a lifestyle, I don’t believe it’s fleeting for a moment, because once you start and feel good, you can’t stop!  I feel amazing!

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Fat Sick & Nearly Dead

I really feel like I am on God’s path for me.  After watching Hungry for Change I noticed some of the speakers themselves had “starred” in movies, basically they had some kind of health issue and they documented their journey to health.  One guy, Joe, he did a movie called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  I happened to find that movie is offered free (again LOVE free!) on hulu.com!  So this weekend Hubby and I sat down to take a peek.  Let me just say that I am overjoyed that Hubby is on board with all these things I bring up. I am truly blessed to have such a supportive spouse.

The movie starts with Joe, an Australian who is over weight and has an auto immune disorder.  He decides to go on a 30 day juice fast and travels to the USA to do so.  On his journey he meets a truck driver named Phil, who also has the same auto immune disorder that Joe has.  Joe tells Phil that if he ever wants to turn his life around, Phil was morbidly obese (many truck drivers seem to be) and very sick, to call him.  After Joe completes his journey, Phil calls him.  The last half of the movie is about Phil’s journey.  I couldn’t stop watching!  I had to see what was going to happen to these two.

Well Joe lost a ton of weight, his big gut was gone.  Phil eventually got off ALL medications and lost, I believe it was half of his weight.  All they “ate” was juice and water.  It was really life changing stuff.

I was ready to join the juicing “revolution” when Sunday morning I woke up to Hubby making up some Chorizo.   After reading that it contained “spices” which can be a way to hide chemicals like MSG, I decided to opt out of that breakfast option.  Hubby would later wish he chose that as well, but live and learn sometimes I guess.  I had a green smoothie with no milk but water instead, I added my normal spirulina, kelp, dulce, carob and wheat grass powders and it was satisfying and energizing.  We did eat food yesterday, and actually there is a youtube video where Joe says that you get a bit constipated after the third or fourth day of only juicing so he recommends eating actually fruit and veggies as well.  But I think we’re on to something here.  Yesterday we ran down to the grocery store and picked up $60 worth of fruits and mainly green veggies to juice.  The lady at the cash register actually said “we don’t much of this come through,” as she was trying to identify chard and kale, how sad is that!?!  We had juice for dinner and woke up and juiced.  To be honest with you, my energy level is much higher than it was when I drank coffee (which I’m only about two weeks without it).  I can actually FEEL my body craving the juice.  When we make it I get all giddy and excited, it’s almost like my body knows what is about to come.

I don’t think we will be 100% on the whole juicing thing.  I mean, we eat food too, but juicing will be a main part of our diet.  I can just tell a difference already in how I feel.  I wish I could tell everyone who was over weight about it, but just like in the movie, many people are just happy to be where they are.  There were a ton of people who said “Oh I could NEVER do that.”  Which I don’t get, why won’t we do things for ourselves that we would do for others?  Why would we allow ourselves to slowly die rather than get healthy and live life happy? And can’t anyone do anything for 10 days??  I guess it’s too easy to stay in a complacent place…

Start out slowly, add FRESH juice to your diet every day.  Pull our your juicer, or go buy one off craigslist (you can get a cheap one, well…cheap!).  We don’t have anything fancy (Juiceman II that we got at a garage sale), in fact we re-juice our pulp because it doesn’t get super dry the first pull.  Get tons of leafy green veggies, apples, carrots, celery, cucumber… with the sweet items (like carrots and apples) the juice is surprisingly sweet, even though it’s very green.  There is no way to be able to eat that much produce in a day, so get the nutrients into your body by drinking them.  Just start there, at least juice one time a day, if not make enough for your entire day.  I’m not saying you can’t eat food, just try doing one thing for your health.  It will be a chain reaction and sooner than you think you’ll be on your way to a different healthy life.  Want to join me?

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Hungry For Change? Watch the Free Movie!

Do you diet and diet and never really see true results?  Have you, like me, been perpetually on a “diet” since you were a young kid?  I remember going on “diets” with my Mom growing up, I remember the time when she cut our 2% milk to…gulp… fat free, or working out to Richard Simmons, or counting this or that… Are you ready for a change?  Are you ready to get off the crazy diet roller coaster and really get healthy and stay that way?  Enter the new movie Hungry for Change.  Brought to you by the same people who made Food Matters but this one focuses on weight loss and “dieting.”

Hungry for Change is being offered to you FREE until March 31, 2012.  Don’t you like free? I do!  I have had the privilege of watching this amazing movie already this week, however I fully intend on watching it again today and maybe this weekend.  I can not say MORE about this wonderful movie, I mean it puts to shame any “diet” you’ve ever been on.  In fact it inspired Hubby and I to find our juicer, pull it out and allow it to find its permanent home on our counter top.  It also inspired the purchase of almost $50 worth of veggies and fruits to put through that said juicer.  I can’t wait until growing season this year, where we can juice our own home-grown veggies!! We had our first cup of fresh juice last night, you can instantly feel it go to your cells.  I gulped down my first glass and then half of another, it was like my body was screaming…”give me more!”

Here is the first part to Hungry for Change, does it inspire you to want more?  Go to their website, enter your first name and email address to watch the complete movie for free here.

You can’t go wrong with free folks.  Seriously, I think this movie is truly life changing.  I think it will inspire you to want more for yourself, for your body, for your family.  Take advantage of this free movie, I promise you, you will not regret it besides what do you have to lose?

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