autumn juicefeast - days 15 & 16

Hurray for us! We're half way through. It's really been easy so far. I wonder if it's a case of being an old hand, or it's just the right time to do this, or, well, no idea. YummyHubby isn't doing bad either, with barely any detox symptoms, so it feels very comfortable.

day 15

We went for a colonic today. YummyHubby's first time, and we were both a bit anxious, but it was fine. The lovely bottom lady recommended he take probiotics for a while - same happened to me first time. But otherwise he got a good report card. She was very impressed that I seemed to be detoxing a lot. There was a shock in there, too, though: I passed what looked like a parasitic worm. Ewwww!!!! How did that happen? I've been vegetarian for 25 years! The bottom lady said it was dead, probably been stuck in my colon or small intestine for a while but the detox had shifted it. So that bit's good. Better out than in. She also said I could have ingested it via veggie food from somewhere with poor hygiene standards. It's unlikely it's been there since the last time I ate meat. I'm still reeling from the shock!

Today I had:

orange-carrot-apple-ginger juice (soooo good!)

savoury broth

savoy cabbage-carrots-apple-celery

I made the savoury broth by adding chopped ginger, chilli pepper, garlic, onion to hot water on the stove and kept it warm while I added a bay leaf, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, nutmeg and a splash of tamari. I let it sit for 15 minutes or so and added a spoonful of coconut oil at the end. It was quite tasty and satisfied my savoury cravings. I think it might be salt I'm missing, so I'll remember to put a tiny bit in my savoury juices from time to time.

I also did a weigh-in today. I've lost another 4 pounds, so that's a total of nine so far. Hurray!

day 16

So I might have spoken too soon about dry skin and not much detox... my face is feeling a little taught, so I've bought a richer face cream and will try to up my oils intake. I also spent most of the afternoon-evening with a headache, which felt like a detox headache. Bleh.

We went shopping for a few bits and pieces today then were going to spend the afternoon on the allotment, weeding and planting the spring bulbs. Didn't happen. YummyHubby went up and harvested a mammoth marrow for a colleague and that's about it. I've done a few chores between lying on the sofa not doing much. I entertained myself by watching a video of David Wolfe being crazy and inspirational, and read a few blogs here and there. 

Today I had:

"Pre-Christmas Spirit" juice: orange-apple-lemon-lime-pear juice with nutmeg and cinnamon

coriander-carrots-celery-pepper-ginger with cardamom (another failed experiment!)

mango-pineapple-golden kiwi-passion fruit

We bought a litre size Sigg bottle for YummyHubby today so we can both take smoothies/juice with me. We also had a chat about how he's going to approach his diet post-juicefeast. Avoiding dairy and gluten in general in order to have the good stuff now and again - so no cheese sandwiches for lunch, but perhaps some extra-special cheese at home with great crackers and homemade chutney. So it's a 'treat' rather than the norm. He's going ethical vegetarian, with a handful of 'get out of jail free' cards for special occasions. We talked about choosing the best option when the range is limited. Despite him working in one of the most affluent areas of London the range is not fabulous when it comes to veggie food. In fact, it's extremely limited; so he needs a bit of leeway there. But it's positive stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing how we both step up the healthy eating habits post juicefeast.

autumn juicefeast - days 1 & 2

day 1

We started off with our two pints of water. No MSM as I was not convinced by it during the Global Juicefeast. I just didn't experience the benefits everyone else talked about.

We made a big green juice, with spinach, chard, celery, apples and pears, which was actually very good, despite the celery. Or maybe my tastebuds adjusted after 65 days of it last time around and that's stayed with me.

Then I showed YummyHubby how to skinbrush and after we both showered we snuggled on the sofa and watched a movie and sipped herbal teas. We're both fighting off colds at present, plus I'm plagued by nasty headaches, so it was a write-off day anyway.

Early afternoon, we had a mint-melon combo which was lovely and fresh, followed by "gazpacho in a glass" for dinner.

More herbal teas with honey and an early night.

day 2

Made a big tropical juice for brekkie, while listening to The Archers. Papaya, pineapple, mango, lime, passion fruit and oranges. Delicious! We had our uber-green-celery  juice for 'lunch'with some hemp oil and a bit of an experiment with spinach-parsley-beet-apple-carrot for dinner, which turned out to be quite nice, with just a touch of earthiness.

YummyHubby is doing surprisingly well. I can't tell if it's detox or the headaches I've had intermittently for the past week, but I'm feeling rough, and rubbing lavender oil into my temples to keep the pain at bay.

We've made some coconut oil treats. The oil's needed to stop your skin drying out, if nothing else. But it also provides some basic calories and nutrients. I melted the coconut butter in the dehydrator, we blended in some maca and a pinch of cacao (which is a bit naughty, I know) and then for others we made honey centres. We left half of the coconut butter to almost set in the chocolate moulds, scooped a small hole out, poured in the honey then poured more liquified coconut oil over the top and stuck the tray in the fridge to set. Yum! 

Tomorrow I'll be calling the natural health centre to book us both in with the lovely Annette.

Before I go, I just want to shout our a huge congratulations to YummyHubby for making it through 2 days of juicefeasting. Hurray!

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 29: c-day

c stands for colonic, candida, cut & colour and climate change

colonic

first thing today i went for a colonic, which was extremely productive. even the therapist was amazed at what came out. again, we had a really nice chat and i felt motivated by her encouragement. she said i looked radiant, which was fabulous :)

candida

i noticed late on thursday that i was cultivating a bout of thrush and have been using natural remedies i know from years ago when i suffered horrendously with it. having talked to the colon hydrotherapist about it, the nagging suspicions i'd been fermenting along with the yeast, settled into some harsh home truths. i've possibly had candida for some time and the juicefeast has uncovered it. the amount of fruit i'm juicing will have to drop considerably. no more straight pineapple juice. it explains the gurgling stomach over the past few days too. so i've got some probiotics and i'm going to use up the fruits i don't like mixed with veg (pineapple & melon mostly) and then replace my fruits with greens as much as i can. *sigh*

cut and colour

went to the hairdresser for a long-awaited spruce up of my horrendous hair. it's been annoying me for a while. it became overprocessed and far too light, thanks to a stylist who just wouldn't listen to me (don't worry, he no longer enjoys my custom) so i'm trying to get it back to something like my natural colour. we're making progress :)

climate change

we observed earth hour here in loulou towers. at ten to eight we gathered candles, turned off all lights, tv, computers etc. and proceeded to enjoy each other's company for an hour. it was amazing how quiet it was in the living room with no hard drives whirring (we have a pvr and two laptops on the go usually) and i really enjoyed having no choice but entertain ourselves. we talked of dreams and hopes for the future. it was very civilised. YummyHubby is now enamoured with the idea of earth hour once a week. i left my computer off  (which is why this post appears on sunday) and at 9pm, earth hour over, we left the lights off but turned on the dvd player and watched a fantastic robert rodriguez movie which kept us both highly amused.

today i had:

0.5l msm-lemon juice

0.5l pineapple juice

1l celery-cucumber-carrot-mint-apple-bell pepper juice

lots of herbal teas with honey

1 tbsp bee pollen

oh yes, and it's weigh-in day. lost another 2.5 pounds, that's a total of 16.5 pounds. not bad going considering the complete lack of exercise over the past two weeks. must remedy that soon.

photo credit: bushy park (our local park) taken mid-run by YummyHubby, on his cameraphone

day 7: colonic

today was the first day i managed to drink 3 litres of juice and plenty of water, too. possibly because i got up so damned early :(

i made 2 litres of green-based juices as soon as i got up and a pineapple juice treat in the afternoon. because i was still hungry (i woke up starving today) i made another juice in the evening, while everyone else was tucking in to thai takeaway. didn't appeal, luckily.

but i'm sure many of you will be itching for gory details of my first foray into the land of colonics. i know i scoured every blog to find out if it was right, appropriate and sufferable for me, so if you're new to the game, here's my first impressions.

the therapist was lovely. very gentle and smiley. i had to fill out a lengthy medical history and diet form so i 'fessed up right there to my raw leanings and current juicefeasting. when she started flicking through the completed form and asking for more detail, she was very impressed with my juicefeasting and supplements, raw diet etc. she was totally cool and i didn't have to convince her. she didn't even bat an eyelid at the 92 day aspect. she knew what i'd be going through at each stage, with a great grasp of detox and i was highly commended for doing enemas at home, too. i felt like teacher's pet ;)

so... if you're of a sensitive disposition you might want to skip this paragraph... the icky bit of putting the pipes in was over in an instant and then for what seemed like a reeeally long time there was nothing but clear water coming out the pipe. i did get the odd spasm and the therapist tried to relax me so i didn't resist 'evacuation' as she called it. for those who don't knkow this bit - like me earlier today - the water flows in and out, it doesn't just constantly fill you up, and she said it was going along my colon one inch at a time. 

so we chatted for a while and she taught me all about the digestive system and she rubbed my belly and it was all fine. then stuff started coming out. morbid fascination got the better of me and i watched every little pellet of years- or even decades-old gunk flow out. then it was time to flush the last of it away and i was ushered to the loo to spend some quality time on my own. you know, considering there was nothing in the last bit (as in nearest to the exit) of my colon because between the juices and the home-administered enemas there was nothing left to shift, it's really quite astonishing how much stuff came out during the colonic and immediately afterward. i'm so glad to have got rid of it all. ewww. who wants that inside their body? no thank you.

afterwards i felt noticeably lighter and like there was space in my torso for things to move around a bit. i'm not sure how to describe it. there were no awful after-effects, i felt a light headache starting but that disappeared almost instantly, but that was the only negative thing. i couldn't get quite as excited as some people - not to name any names... oh ok then, like suki ;) - but it was the right thing to do and i'm glad i've got a shiny colon now :D

are you still with me? blimey. last thing. today i felt a sudden flare up of thrush which lasted about 5 minutes, followed, an hour or so later by a cough. now get this. just over two years ago i had a nasty chest infection, lots of antibiotics to treat it and ended up, as women often do, with thrush because of the antibiotics. now go with the 3 days of juice equals a year back in your body's history and what do you get? i just finally cleared out my chest infection and its after-effects. fantastic :D