day 58: backbreaking

backbreaking in that i've broken the back of this juicefeast. 7 weeks down, 5 to go. slightly disappointed that i don't seem to have the same verve and commitment that i can see in my juicebuddies. i'm looking forward to the end - i want to eat already. and not just prunes! so many people get past the first month and are on such a wonderful  trip that they just don't want to get off. not me. i'm still aching for yummy kale salad, drooling over lemon cookies and oh boy do i want lunch from rainforest cuisine asap pls thx.

also backbreaking is the work on 'the lotty' - our wonderful allotment. it's hard work clearing the weeds, building the shed, hauling mammoth bags of compost around. but we are both loving it! it's so exciting. 

yesterday we planted early potatoes - they'll be ready to eat in two months, and, yes, i will be cooking them and eating them! there are a few things we'll be growing which need cooking, but the vast majority will be raw-edible. the point is to feed ourselves, so we've chosen carefully. some stuff i'll make into chutney as christmas stocking-fillers for friends and family and i will give surplus away as it grows. i like sharing. we've got some small red onions to go in next week, and we're germinating tomatoes, herbs, and flowers around the house ready to plant out in a few weeks. we get the main bulk of the veg seeds arriving next week, so we'll be busy sowing, germinating and planting for the whole of may! we're going to have such a wonderful garden of eden. it's got to be the best hobby in the world ever. despite being covered in dirt, sweating, breaking my nails, getting scratched and bruised... it's still my favourite way to spend the weekend.

recovery mode

back to the juicefeast situation. so, i've somewhat recovered from my horrid midweek crisis. i've decided not to be so hard on myself, not to give up when i'm past halfway and since i've recovered - it seems - from the candida, thanks to all those lovely probiotics i'm taking, i'm choosing the easy option when i can and having my favourite fruit juice for breakfast and moving on to green for late morning-afternoon juices. much more palatable that way.

stats and stuff

i got weighed on saturday morning. i've lost a total of 25 pounds, which i'm happy about. i was a bit disheartened when the weight loss stagnated but it seems to have picked up again. i would like to lose another 15 pounds and i think it's possible to shift some, if not all, of that over the next five weeks. a fairly low fat raw diet and plenty of exercise will deal with the remaining few pounds.

i do find that my weight moves first and my body settles into the new shape in the following weeks. so even when i don't lose any/much weight on the scales, my clothes say i've lost mass somehow. i've dropped two dress sizes and my 'spare tyre' has gone. i'm liking what i see in the mirror :) i'm no longer fat. i'm still on the curvaceous side of slim, but this time last year even that seemed out of reach, so i've made great progress!

i had a colonic yesterday. the therapist congratulated me on my progress and encouraged me. she also said i'm getting a very clean colon - she was impressed with how it clean it was. hurray!

photo credit: before & after pics by YummyHubby

day 55: fallout

today was a vast improvement on yesterday. i received a timely subscription email which reminded me to transform the negative to positive, to stop fighting things i can't control and to let go of thoughts and feelings which don't serve me and to move on. that really helped me loosen up a bit when the woman's oversized bag was bashing into me as she practically pole-danced on the tube and when the old woman pushed her way onto the train without letting people get off first etc. ok, so i haven't nailed it yet, but i've started on the road to resolution for the daily commute stress bundle.

i didn't mention in amongst everything else yesterday, but i've got permanent neck and shoulder strain from lugging bottles of juice to work and fruit and veg from the supermarket. i did go shopping on the way home tonight but deliberately bought less than i thought i could cope with so i didn't add to the shoulder ache. plus i got a real bargain in the health food store which cheered me up :)

at work i forced myself to delegate. i spent about half an hour pulling a bunch of info together and passed it on to my admin assistant who dealt with two fairly mammoth tasks successfully, so that saved me about 5 hours work. i know i should be doing this anyway, but i often feel like it would be quicker if i did it, rather than go through the process of explaining, tidying up my notes to pass on, then having to check his work later and make the final tweaks etc. but hey, i'm learning to let go...

i had a mashed avocado for dinner tonight, with lemon juice, flax seed oil, salt and pepper and some sunflower sprouts. i just crave fats. what's a girl to do? my skin's still dry. on my face my wrinkles are really showing round my eyes, despite the two sets of moisturiser i'm using morning and night, and on the rest of my body my skin is kind of, um, not sure how to describe it. 'old' springs to mind! i'm skin brushing and taking msm and i did find my skin was much softer after a few weeks, but now it seems thin and papery and screaming out for internal moisture.

YummyHubby and I made some plans to get me some rest and he seems to have taken on the task of getting me to get ready for bed earlier. every bit helps.

i've got a sore throat. that started yesterday and definitely contributed to my meltdown when i thought i was going to get ill. but it hasn't got any worse today, so i might yet overcome it without it turning into anything major.

and i'm still tired. but then i've got a lot of catching up to do after the extreme sleep deficit of the past month. but i do feel a lot better today and i'm no longer on the verge of a breakdown. hopefully each day that passes will help me walk a step away from the precipice.

day 54: meltdown

note: written on day 55, the day after, with - i hope - a clearer perspective on things.

ok, so yesterday afternoon i hit rock bottom. well, i hope that was rock bottom. don't want to find out if there's further down to go...

it felt my world came tumbling down around me, i just Could Not Cope any longer.

for the past few days i've noticed i'm bright and breezy in the morning but by early afternoon i'm tired and by the time i get home i'm frankly exhausted and getting crabby. i hate being crabby (can you see the start of a vicious circle there?) then, because i'm tired, i sit down and don't move. by the time i haul my backside off the sofa to prep for the next day it's late. i know, totally counterproductive. if i prepped my veg and got clothes out, planned my moves etc, i'd have an easier morning. but i haven't been doing that. i've been going to bed late, getting up shockingly early and still managing to miss my train to work.

then there's the commute to and from work. it's not bad, as far as london commutes go, but there are a lot of mean, pushy people and i get bad tempered. then the trains have an odd schedule, where there are 3 i can catch all packed into the space of 15 minutes, then there's a half hour gap. so if i juuuust miss the last of the three then i have to stand on a cold, windy platform, surrounded by the smell of food, and watch a dozen trains that don't serve my route go past me. oh, and get pushed around by mean commuters.

then there's work. i'll start by saying i love my new job. i'm working with a bunch of people who i get on really well with, there's true affinity there. there's one guy who can be really unhelpful, but he doesn't mean to be, it's just a flaw in his approach to the chain of command, and i try to be forgiving and coax him along. but he rubbed me up the wrong way yesterday. but it's a mammoth task that i've been hired to do, with a zillion itty bitty things to pull together into a cohesive plan. now that's a loulou kind of challenge. but over the past couple of days i've felt like i've dropped a couple of balls and despite my project planning the whole thing is such a house of cards that it felt it was about to collapse into chaos yesterday... i forgot my old-time mantra of 'no one is going to die' and just felt panic, discomfort, disappointment etc welling up inside me.

then... i had to go via the supermarket to pick up more greens on the way home and by then i was past myself. i was ready to give up. call it a day. give up the juicefeast, that is. claw back some time to myself. regain my sanity. i got home and - i don't think i even said hello when i walked through the door -  just crumpled in a heap and poured it all out in one huge splurge to YummyHubby. he was fantastically helpful and thoughtful and we worked through lots of it. it's not over, but he said he's not letting me give in so easily.

i know this crisis is not over yet, but i feel like if i can get to the weekend and then give myself some space, some thinking time, do some yoga, refocus... then that might get me through a little while longer. 

and we're promised some "unseasonably warm" weather. sunshine is my number one mood-lifter, so, c'mon mini-heatwave. bring it on!

day 51: remiss

oh boy, i've been terribly remiss. life's kind of been busy lately and i've chosen to read all your blogs rather than write my own. just haven't had the wherewithal to keep up recently.

so, quick catch up before i head for a soothing bath before bedtime.

day 50 came and went. how amazing is that. way over the half way mark, now. i got weighed last week and had gained 3 pounds (monthly water retention, i'm guessing) but yesterday that had all gone along with another pound. so in total i've lost 22 pounds. i'm disappointed that my weight loss has plateaued as i had my mind set on losing 40 pounds. it's not like that's not doable - so many people have achieved that and more, so why shouldn't i. however, i haven't been doing any exercise, due to lack of time, so i guess that's why. this weekend's marathon digging session may have made up for missing my thrice-weekly run.

ben talked about cheating during his feastbreaking, and i guess i have 'cheated' too, though i prefer not to think in terms of cheating. so here's the thing. i felt i needed to eat something, i've also got dry skin, despite taking hemp oil/coconut oil (i know i'm not taking them often enough, but i find them hard to ingest, i have to say, they make me feel quite sick) i've also been picking at things i've been preparing. a nibble of cheese (i know!) while prepping YummyHubby's dinner, or a strawberry/slice of mango etc. so i decided to do it and get over it, to see if i could stop the incessant nagging in my head to have some 'real ' food. so, i mashed half an avocado with some garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper. oh boy! it was divine. i ate very slowly, mindfully, relishing each tiny forkful.  it didn't upset my stomach or have any adverse effects at all, so i think i 'got away with it' as it were. i don't feel guilty about it. sort of disappointed that i know it is doable to not pick at food throughout the feast, but i also understand that what i'm doing is tough, and though i know it would be better for me to avoid eating anything at all, it's not such a big deal to eat two cherry tomatoes or a strawberry here and there. i mean, it's not like i'm going out for a curry. though tonight, after a day's gardening, i could see curry and beer as being the perfect end to the day. didn't happen, of course. i have parsley-romaine-apple-carrot-lemon juice instead. should have added some garam masala. heh.

this past week i went out with some ex-colleagues who haven't seen me for 7 weeks - i finished working there the day before i started the juicefeast. it was wonderful to see them all. plus they all, without fail, said i looked fabulous. three people said i was 'radiant' and 'glowing' - so, if you were ever in any doubt as to the amazing benefits of juicing, i am living, breathing proof :D oh that and my jeans so do not fit. luckily i have found two pairs of jeans i bought a year ago. they were too tight at the time. it was a kind of incentive to keep the weight down. and now they're comfy, a little on the loose side, but don't make me look like a total scruffbag which my usual jeans do. hurray!

i'll be posting about our allotment adventures on my other blog, so once i've put something together i shall let you all know.

keep it juicy!

day 43: achieving the impossible - being present

if you read this blog regularly you'll already know this, but just in case...

when a person embraces a raw lifestyle or embarks upon a 3-month juicefeast, there are bound to be changes. yes, they'll lose weight. yes, they'll get healthier. yes, they'll cure some old ailments and improve the general state of their physical wellbeing. but they'll also see non-physical changes.

now, i've been where you are - at least in relation to raw foods/juicefeasting - in that i've been a standard, albeit vegetarian, eater for most of my life, so i know this causes eyebrows to raise. it's raised mine on multiple occasions. and even eating raw consistently for months at a time wasn't enough to shake off the disbelief when i read blogs or listened to podcasts of long-term raw foodists who claim an interconnectedness with the world, a spiritual awakening, a fundamental shift in their relationships with their environment and community. sounds far-fetched. but i'm starting to catch a glimpse of that on the juicefeast. i am also trying various other approaches to being more grounded, 'in the present' and i am open to feeling the glow others talk of. so, it's not just the food. or lack of it, right now.

so what's my current status? i have managed to get and stay, briefly, in a great place. but it needs more work to make it permanent. i felt kind of untethered. sort of like i could just float through everything - not like a ghost, but i didn't feel anchored to my past or pinning all my hopes on the future. i was just there, with what was going on around me. how crazy's that? it's very calming, i can tell you that. stress doesn't get to take over once you get rid of everything other than what's right in front of you. it was very cool. i enjoyed it. and chuffed i got there, even if briefly :)

day 40: gobsmacked

i made it to day 40. can you say momentous?

so many times on this epic journey have i thought i wouldn't make it, i'd give in before day 92. i have tried, very hard, to remove the temptation wherever possible - like not having prunes in the house, allowing myself the tiniest nibble of something as a 'treat' so i got the taste but didn't feel compelled to stuff the lot down my throat in one go. so i'm claiming a victory here. my methods have worked. for me, that is. you may need different motivators.

i'm looking forward to getting over the hill. midway on the fast is less than a week away, and a week from now i'll officially be on the home straight. i read ben's post with interest. he's got to the stage now where he's nervous about finishing the feast and starting to eat solid food again. bizarre how these things affect you.

today i've had lots of greens. i've gone off cabbagey greens, especially in juice that i'm not drinking right away. but i do have a soft spot for chard. yum. so i'm doing lots and lots of spinach and lettuces of various types. i've also gone off pears, they oxidise too quickly. i find i return again and again to cucumber, mint, apple and oranges to pad out my greens, with the odd pure pineapple juice as a real treat.

i can feel how much weight i've lost. it's not actually a vast amount in pounds (20 of them have been given their marching orders) but i can see my waist clearly, my tummy's flatter, my bras are a tad too big, my face is slimmer, cheekbones more prominent and firm. all great stuff.

i'm still on a relative high, with positive energy and optimism, and right now i feel like i'll make it to day 92. i'm not saying i won't have some more tough days in the next 50 days, i'm sure i will, but right now it feels achievable, so i'm hanging onto that state of mind.

to all my raw/ juice buddies out there: you are all amazing. thank you so much for your loving support.

juice on!

photo credit: YummyHubby

inspiral lounge

on saturday night we went to the inspiral lounge for dinner. my first impressions were that it was smaller and less groovy than i'd anticipated. having read suki's raving reports of it, i'd expected somewhere much more, hmm, not sure, maybe slick? they said they'd had a really busy evening, so perhaps they didn't get round to turning the lights down, setting out the candles and creating an evening ambience. we'd reserved a table as so many of us were going, but they didn't have that ready and i was soooo disappointed, until who i presume is the manageress appeared and sorted it out. so we got the booth downstairs, with low lighting and some music, and she was lovely. the staff seemed a little frazzled at the influx of people, and i think there's just not enough space to fit in more staff, yet the traffic in there and the labour-intense juicing, definitely requires more staff.

also, i have to say that they really tried to fob me off with a smoothie instead of juice, as the smoothies were pre-made in jugs, while the juices had to be made to order. when someone else in our group went to the bar for drinks he came back with a smoothie even though he asked for a juice. i get that they're busy, but come on. don't give people smoothies in place of juice!

personally, i thought the music was too loud for somewhere that doesn't have a dancefloor. it was good music though, and had me shimmying in my seat whilst straining to hear people over the top of it. the food looked great and everyone who ate there really liked what they had. they mostly had cooked food, with just a smidgen of raw, so i said they were all wimps ;) but we bought a plate of chocolate balls (raw, superfood chocolate truffles - i wondered if suki xocolati had a hand in that?) and i persuaded YummyHubby to let me have a nibble of his - it was lovely!

i will go back, probably during the day, for raw lunch, but at night - a saturday night, at that - i found it a little overpowering. i was really looking forward to it and desperately hoping that everyone else would like it - after a half hour tube ride - that it did have a lot of expectations to fulfill! once i'm off my juicefeast i might also consider suki & joel's tuesday night cacao bliss events, as i just know the vibe will be totally different :D

facts and figures:

nearest tube: camden

website: www.inspiralled.net

AGM & kale salad

AGM

on saturday i spent the entire day at our AGM. i'm a founding member of a small start-up, and this past year we've had real clients so we have to have an AGM and sign papers and take minutes and stuff. but it's great to hang out with a bunch of cool people i hardly ever see (the rest of them are US-based) so even though there was a serious, business side of things, we also tried to fit in some QT, which included hanging out in borough market and going to the inspiral lounge for dinner and drinks with a client and various friends. i made a huge batch of greens&veg juice before i left in the morning, and made juice for everyone as a mid-afternoon snack and quaffed a good deal myself. i also had bits of juice other people had made for me throughout the day, and it rocked! i had a veg juice at borough market, which was really tasty, and at the inspiral lounge i had two juices - mostly veg but not sure what was in them, i just asked for juice, whatever they had. anyway, it's certainly been my most varied juice day ever!

kale salad rocks da house

on sunday i made lunch for everyone at the second part of our AGM, and besides some shop-bought tarts, i made a regular "wimp" salad of baby salad leaves, cucumber, tomato etc., and a kale salad. i have to confess, i did eat a forkful of the kale salad. just couldn't help it! everyone loved it, asked for the recipe, and polished it all off. what a success! YummyHubby says it's his expert kale massaging technique that really makes the salad, and that may well be true. he is getting good at it :)

if you have never made kale salad before, it's easy peasy. this is my take on karen knowler's salad (bragging rights: she taught me it in person!)

300g or so curly kale

handful small tomatoes

handful black olives

2 avocadoes

2-3 spring onions or half red onion

red/orange/yellow bell pepper

juice of 2 lemons

olive oil

coarse salt

wash the kale and trim off all tough ribs. shred finely (i do this with my hands, it's easier than with a knife) then put in serving bowl with a glug of olive oil and pinch of salt (if you're in the UK, use Maldon salt, it crumbles fabulously) and massage the kale. get your hands in there and gaze out of the window or meditate for 5 minutes until the kale is really supple and dark, shiny green. now add the lemon juice and stir. 

cut the avocadoes in half, score the flesh and then squeeze them out into the bowl. remove the stones and you're left with softened lumps of avocado. get your hands back in there and massage again until most of the kale is coated and there are only a few chunks of avocado left.

halve and pit the olives, chop the tomatoes, pepper and onion and throw in the bowl. stir well to distribute. serve. be showered with compliments :)

this salad lasts well. the lemon juice keeps the avocadoes from browning, so do make lots and it'll stand you in good stead for lunchboxes at work. fabulous.

image credit: kale salad by hnau. please respect the creative commons licence: attribution, non-commercial.

days 34-39

long time, no see, juicebuddies!

it's been busy. i've tried to keep up with everyone's blogs, but that has to be squeezed in along with everything else these days. this week i was drooling over heathy's pot pie, terilynn's fritters, and shannon marie's muffins. i was so encouraged by the article terilynn linked to in a local newspaper about three journos going raw for 30 days, and have been following the blog since. and ben made me laugh - thanks to all of you. you make my day :)

so, how've i been doing? first, a humble moment, i'm so grateful to know that what i write here is read by people out there in the big, wide world. people actually want to know how i'm doing. that is such an awesome feeling. you guys, my 'juice buddies' care about my progress enough to stop by - taking a chunk out of your busy schedules - to spend time caring about me. awesome! thank you so much.

so, back to our regularly scheduled programming. i've been physically much better. i've still had some embarrassingly loud gurgles but i've had no headaches over the past few days and i've had enough physical and mental energy to get through the day. i had a couple of unpleasant emotional moments, though, at the end of last week and i can only assume that i hit some kind of deep emotional detox. i woke up on thursday and friday with a mammoth black cloud hanging over my head. talked it through with YummyHubby, thanked him for, as ever, being there to help me along, and he said he can cope with my moods, he just wants whatever's best for me. but i acknowledge it must be tough to have me on this emotional rollercoaster. brief moments of elation and long hours of misery. i don't know where the misery came from, and i was gearing myself for sitting down and having a poke around in my head and heart to sort things out. it seems, though, that despite a heavy-going weekend, i've released whatever was, as i'm now back to being fairly consistently upbeat. which is fab!

i admit there have been a couple of times when i've seriously considered quitting. i've thought long and hard - not just because i can smell coffee and toast (which, actually, no longer tempts me! so bad example, but anyway, a craving) but because i was getting so many headaches, and then they cleared up and i started getting these black clouds in their place. neither of those situations make daily life exactly easy. ok, so headaches suck, but if they get too bad i relent, i take some strong painkillers and get to bed as soon as i can. but a depressed mood, short temper and loss of interest in everything takes its toll on those around me and i don't want YummyHubby to suffer that. and so i asked myself: is it time? have i come as far as i can on this journey? so, since i don't have any prunes, i'm always ready to keep going until tomorrow to see what that brings. luckily, tomorrow generally brings some relief.

ugh. you read this far? you deserve a medal!

so, i've increased my daily juice intake. i'm managing between 3 and 4 litres (roughly same as quarts) and trying hard to keep that mostly veggies, with plenty of greens and i have been feeling so much better these last few days. coincidence? who knows.

i still want this to get easier. no kidding. the buying produce, storing it all, preparing it, scrubbing celery and peeling oranges, making juice, cleaning up, carrying it around with me... it's a never-ending cycle. but at least i've achieved the ultimatum i set myself of feeling physically and emotionally positive for three days in a row. hurray :)

i've got another two posts half-ready, which i'll put up tomorrow or thursday. in the meantime, keep it juicy xxx

image credit: YummyHubby created this south park avatar for me. aren't i cute?

day 32: spring

today was an improvement on yesterday. i had a headache, but much lighter than i've been getting, and coped it with it reasonably well. spent the morning quite focussed and got through lots of work. i started flagging in the afternoon, though, and am looking forward to an early night.

YummyHubby and i had a chat last night about me either giving up on the juicefeast or getting my act together so i can continue it. he thinks i should keep going and offered to not eat dinner at all so i don't suffer the tempting smells etc. they haven't been bothering me as much as at the start though today's special temptation was sweet chilli noodles from the noodle bar i pass on my way home from work.

thank you to all you lovely people who left a comment on yesterday's post; besides encouraging me to keep at it you've also made me think - again - about how i can get more juices in. it's possible that i'm feeling so rough, consistently, because i'm not drinking enough and i've gone into fasting mode. but i have juicefasted before and i don't remember having such a bad time of it this far in. realistically, i don't know how i can drink more. i'm not hungry, and when i do occasionally get hungry, i don't enjoy the juice. i'm trying to drink mostly green juice but i just don't like it. i drink it slowly because it's not enjoyable. it's a chore. now if i could drink pineapple juice all day, well that wouldn't be a problem. i could drink a gallon of the stuff. or orange-apple-carrot-ginger juice. but celery and greens don't do it for me. i've tried adding stuff; salt, cayenne, lemon, but it still doesn't work for me. perhaps next on the list is to try adding my greens to juices i like, so they're partly masked by the fruit, but i do need to cut down on the fruit because of the dreaded candida. oh, what to do, what to do...

today i had:

0.5l melon juice

1.25l cucumber-celery-spinach-parsley-lime-pear juice

0.5l tomato-basil-parsley-garlic-lemon juice with pinch salt

herbal teas with honey

on a much more upbeat note, it's definitely spring now. the trees are blossoming like nobody's business and it's wonderful walking home in the last rays of the sun, plus it's not quite so cold now. roll on summer! with the nights being lighter i should be able to go for a run after work soon, so i don't have to try to fit that in before work (along with the extra hour and a half a day for making juice/enemas) and i'm looking forward to shrugging off a couple of layers and getting some vitamin d.

photo credit: "spring signs" by cuellar. please respect the creative commons licence: attribution, non-commercial.