Juice Fasting: The Good, The Bad, and All the Juicy Details (pun absolutely intended)

Those of you who know me (which will probably be the only people who are reading this) know that I am in Nutrition school right now to become a Certified Health Counselor.  I have been learning A LOT in school about how different every body can be and how one person's ideal food can be another person's poison.  I will be posting about health information that I think other's might like to know.  However, for the next month, I'll be posting about my current endeavor-- a 30-day juice fast!  I'm actually already on day 7, so for this post, I'll be covering how the past 6 days have been.  

But first I want to talk a little bit about why juice fasting is good for your body and why I've decided to do it for a month.  Some random facts:

*Since "fasting" conjures up visions of starvation, it is important to realize that we are talking about JUICE fasting here. Freshly made vegetable juices, taken in quantity, are not a beverage. They are a raw, highly digestible food.  (http://www.doctoryourself.com/juicefast.html)
*Juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because most of us have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables (you only get about 40-60% of the nutrients). Juicing will help to "pre-digest" them for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet. (http://juicing.mercola.com/sites/juicing/juicing.aspx)*Juice fasting gives your digestive tract some rest from the heavy duty of digesting food 24/7.  When my brother-in-law asked me, "why would your digestive tract need a break?   Isn't that what it's supposed to do?"  I came up with this analogy:
I am a stay-at-home mom.  That's my job 24/7 and I love it!  But if someone offered me a week's paid vacation to Hawaii by myself (or with Ryan) I would take it without a moment's hesitation.  Even though I don't technically need vacation, if I went somewhere without my kids, I would come back refreshed and renewed-- a better mom; more able to take care of my children because I took care of me first.  Our digestive system does not technically need a break, but it's really really nice to get one every once in a while.
*Find more facts and helpful information here: http://jointhereboot.com

DAY 1 -- July 27, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 1 carrot
+ 1 chard leaf
+ 2 stalks celery
+ 2 cucumbers
+ 1 zucchini

Fruits:
+ 3 apples
+ 38 grapes
+ 1 lime
+ 8 strawberries

  I actually was not very hungry today.  You know how there are some fruits and vegetables that can be hit or miss?  Well, cucumbers are one of those vegetables.  The ones that we bought were bitter.  And let me tell you, the only thing worse than a bitter cucumber is bitter cucumber juice.
  I spent the day before today making and freezing a month's worth of plant-based meals for my husband and children so I wouldn't have to make food while juice fasting.  I would highly recommend doing this if you plan on juice fasting.

DAY 2 -- July 28, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 1 carrot
+ 1 large chard leaf
+ 1 cucumber
+ 3 leaves escarole
+ 5 big leaves of mustard greens

Fruits:
+ 2 1/2 apples
+ 65 red grapes
+1/2 lemon
+ 1 lime

Wow!  Let me tell you what-- I don't think I'm ever going to buy mustard greens again... EVER!!  I really wanted to try some of the dark green leafy vegetables that I haven't ever tried before, and that is why I bought mustard greens.  The fact that stores sell mustard greens must mean that there are people out there who actually enjoy them, but I am certainly not one of those people.  I can't even put into words what they tasted like, but words like spicy, bitter, and vomitous come to mind.  Just saying.

DAY 3 -- July 29, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 1 carrot
+ 1 stalk celery
+ 8 leaves escarole
+ 2 leaves turnip greens
+ 4 large leaves of rainbow chard

Fruits:
+ 3 apples
+ 95 grapes
+ 23 strawberries

So... remember yesterday how I talked about mustard greens?  Yeah, it turns out turnip greens are almost as bad.  At least I can say that I've tried these things.  You should find out for yourselves if what I'm saying is true for you.  I don't want to discourage anyone else from trying them.  Who knows, you just might be one of those crazy people that encourages Fry's to carry mustard and turnip greens.  But one thing you must purchase at least once in your life is rainbow chard: I truly believe it is God's most beautiful vegetable.  I smile just looking at it.  One more thing- warning: this last part contains graphic details regarding Jaida's digestive system.. not for the weak in stomach.  Do not read if you don't care to know intimate details about Jaida's bowel movements: I had an interesting experience today.  I've heard that a lot of people experience diarrhea when juice fasting.  I was pretty proud of myself for not having any at all, which I attributed to what a clean diet I had been eating before the fast.  However, today when I went to the bathroom a whole lot of green sludge came out.  Yeah, that's right.  I said GREEN SLUDGE.  I don't know how long that business was sitting up in my colon, or why it hasn't cleaned out before now, but it was one more attestation that this fast is a good thing for me.

DAY 4 -- July 30, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 1 carrot
+ 1 stalk celery
+ 7 leaves escarole
+ 2 zucchini

Fruits:
+ 3 apples
+ 1 banana (not supposed to juice--I'll talk about this in a minute)
+ 35 dark purple grapes
+ 1/2 pineapple
+ 5 strawberries

I really wanted to eat today!  I was hungry quite a bit, but I didn't eat.  The last juice that I made for the day (2 zucchini and 2 apples) was really gross (the zucchini was not a good batch), so I added a banana.  I knew that bananas don't juice, they just turn into puree, but it was totally worth it to get rid of the nast.  
Your probably reading all this and thinking about how negative I'm being, so I thought I'd put in a plug for the fun things about juice fasting too:

• I've been needing (on average) 2 hours less sleep a night then I usually do.
• My energy is still doing well.
• I don't have to poop anymore.
• My meals are super easy to clean up. 

DAY 5 -- July 31, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 1 carrot
+ 8 leaves escarole
+ 8 leaves kale

Fruits:
+ 30 midnight blue grapes
+ 1 pineapple
+ 5 strawberries

Today I was starving.  I didn't juice nearly as much as I should have due to the fact that we had church for 3 hours, and then almost right afterwards we took our 2 1/2 hour journey up north to hang with Ryan's parent's for a few days (and get out of the 115 deg. weather).  When I was feeding Ivy her cream of wheat tonight I ate a tablespoon of it.  I felt so naughty.  Isn't that funny?  And that's all I had-- 1 T. full.  Ha.


DAY 6 -- August 1, 2011
Today I consumed the nutrients from:

Vegetables:
+ 3 leaves escarole
+ 2 c. green leaf lettuce
+ 3 large leaves kale
+ 2 c. baby spinach

Fruits:
+ 2 apples
+ 1/2 c. blueberries
+ 35 midnight blue grapes
+ 2 kiwis
+ 2 peaches
+ 9 strawberries
+ 1 inch slice watermelon

I woke up this morning and realized that I had had several dreams of me eating decadent foods.  One was that I ate this HUGE ice cream Sunday with all the works (which is funny, because even before I started my JF, I ate a plant-based diet w/o ice cream).  In my dream I felt so guilty for eating it, and then woke up and was relieved.  Somethings I've learned today: 

1. Watermelon juice tastes a lot like cucumber juice. 
2.  Sometimes it is better to do a shot of greens and then make a fruit juice so all my juices don't taste the same.
3. It's really amazing when my husband makes a juice for me and I don't have to clean that blasted juicer.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this so far and will continue to read about my juice fasting journey.