60 days of juicing

I don't even know how to start. I just realized I took two months off from blogging, and I didn't even know I was going to do it. Sometimes life happens when you have other plans, right? This picture is what was going on at the time, and now just a little bit later everything's different and it's all about Christmas! I've missed this place, and I'm glad to be back! Just don't have any expectations of me being at all consistent with my posting schedule. :) It's always hard for me to squeeze blogging in my day anyway, but then I guess it just became too much. From the time I get up to the time I lay down to sleep I'm doing, doing, doing, trying to get ahead and check things off my list, and it just hasn't been working. So I took a different approach and have tried to slow down lately and let myself slack a bit. And it's felt gooood.

A lot has happened in the past two months, but the biggest thing, as many of you Instagram followers know, is I've been on a juice fast since October 20th. I'm on day 47 and I have only 13 more to go to reach my goal of 60 days!! I've been itching to try it since sometime during my pregnancy when I watched all these health nut documentaries on Netflix, but I knew I had to wait until I was done nursing Naomi to start. Well, I had been slowly running out of breastmilk, and then all of a sudden my supply took a sharp nosedive when Naomi was teething and really unhappy, and I made the decision to stop altogether at the 4-month mark. I bought my first 5-day supply of fruit and veggies and the next day I was juicing. I can't believe it's been 2 months since I stopped breastfeeding, and it makes me sad to think about it, but at least Naomi got 4 good months of milk out of it.

My reasons for the juice fast--1) I wanted to lose weight and 2) I wanted to see if it would heal my arthritis. Joe Cross from the Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead documentary set out on a 60-day juice fast to lose weight and heal an autoimmune disease he had, and he succeeded! Watching his journey was so inspiring for me, and I vowed I would give it a try. Rheumatoid arthritis is also an autoimmune disease, so I was really hopeful that my body would heal itself through the juicing process just like his did. I'm so happy to report that I feel a million times better! I wouldn't say it's gone, but the pain doesn't bug me throughout my day at all! The best way to really test my joints out is to start working out or running daily and see what happens then.

The most amazing thing to me, however, has been how my knee has improved so drastically in such a short time! It just floors me. My RA doctor told me that once damage occurs to joints, it can't be reversed, so when I realized my knee was hurting more and more over a period of weeks when I stood on it, and then I couldn't put pressure on it at all because of the pain, I became so discouraged. I figured this was the beginning of the end for me. I knew I hadn't hurt my knee and that it was most likely an arthritic nodule that was causing the pain. It felt like a pebble was imbedded under my skin. I am still in awe at the way God, in his infinite wisdom, designed the human body, and I'm so thankful he opened my eyes and gave me the wisdom and knowledge to help my body heal.

We are meant to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and to eat whole foods instead of the processed, packaged foods we consume today. And we are not meant to have access to all the sugar we eat today either. It's so simple--if we give our body what it needs, it will heal itself and prevent diseases from developing in the future. It will be a well-oiled machine that functions at its highest level, without energy drinks or coffee or steroids to improve our performance. I wish we were all taught that in school. We don't need fancy drugs with a list of side effects a mile long. We don't need elaborate surgeries, or chemo, or radiation. Those things all have a place, but if we all knew to take care of our bodies naturally before resorting to other methods, I think we would all be better for it. And God knows our insurance premiums would be lower.

When I started juicing, I didn't feel horrible before I felt better. It may be because I ate my fair share of vegetables already, and I have never bought much packaged food that contains all the addictive MSG, preservatives, and flavor enhancers in it. I felt totally fine and really excited about the future. My juices gave me plenty of energy for my day, and I never felt hungry. My stomach was never as full as it would be from a big meal, but I was never hungry where all I could think about was food. I started having some days where I had amazing energy and other days I felt blah and didn't have the motivation to accomplish much that day. About 3 days in I noticed that when I opened my eyes in the morning, I was fully alert and awake, like a light switch had been flipped in my brain. No coffee needed! It's amazing to experience what our bodies are meant to feel like. The only downer is that I expected to lose weight as quickly as Bogdan and his brother did when they did a 15-day juice fast, but I've really been struggling at different points and have not even touched their numbers though I started out with 44 pounds of extra weight. I've lost 27 pounds to date, which is still a good number, and definitely better than nothing, so I'll take it.

I'll save the rest for another post, because there are still some things I haven't mentioned. I'll finish up with a me 'before' and me after 15 days of juicing. I lost 6 pounds in the first 7 days and 5 more in the next 8 to make a total of 11 pounds lost. Like I said, it wasn't the number I was hoping for, but moving in the right direction is always a good thing. I quickly realized, however, that I would not be losing amazing numbers and it also confirmed what I always suspected--my body just doesn't want to let go of those pounds no matter what I do!