Days 52-57 (Saturday through Thursday): A bit of a Detour!

I'm still on track, it's just that the road "detoured" for a few days -- I'm now back on the original road and picking up where I was before I started the 92-day thingy.

Here's what I learned from my hydrotherapist (Joyce) at the end of Day 2 of the 92-day juice fast I'd begun Monday. First of all, she was appalled that I'd even undertaken a 92-day juice fast. She said that if I were 100% raw, and wanted to do further detoxing, it would have been fine - my body could have handled it; but since I've just begun eating a mainly raw diet, there is no way my system is "clean" enough to handle the incredible detox dumping that would occur on a total cellular level in a body that has not been eating healthily for over 25 years! If I were to only drink highly nutritious juices for the next 92 days, she said my system would practically revolt!

She pointed out that it is not just the colon that has years of debris within, but that every CELL has toxins within -- in other words, every bit of tissue within our bodies! She said as the inner organs' cells release those toxins, as well as bone cells, etc., all doing the same SIMULTANEOUSLY, the entire system would be flooded with poison seeking ways to "get out" and thus causing some very unpleasant reactions: severely achey joints (especially the knees), strong headaches, skin outbreaks, nasea, etc. She commended me for my zeal, but helped me see that it ultimately would backfire and overload my body with enormous amounts of cellular detritus (dead stuff) it couldn't dispose of quickly enough, given where my body is at.

What I failed to take into account when I followed the lead of Angela Stokes and embarked on the 92-day fast ("feast" as she called it!) is that Angela has been a 100% raw foodist for the last two years, and was 80-85% raw for three years prior to that! It makes a huge difference in what one's body can tolerate.

So, I'll count on the wisdom of my hydrotherapist -- who has been for the last 20 years first vegetarian, then vegan, and for the last 5 years a 90% raw foodist. She actually got a bit peeved with me, thinking that an earlier discussion about all this might not have been heeded by moi. To some degree she was correct; I let my zeal get way out ahead of me.

So ... after all that hype about the fast, I'll now be modifying things somewhat. I'll be juice fasting on Mondays and Tuesdays (heading to my hydroT's on Tuesday evenings), and the rest of the days I'll be eating mainly raw food -- being sure to have cooked veggies in the evenings (as Joyce recommends).

Here's a link to Angela's blog -- I'm mentioned in it. Not by name, but as someone in her audiance who just started the Juice Feast ... funny! Scroll down to Monday, May 14's entry where she mentions her lecture at Bonobo's Restaurant in NYC.

RawReform Blog

My fast/feast lasted all of two days -- and it was a lot of work. I juiced the most visually beautiful veggie I've ever seen, bok choy -- red kale, green kale, whole heads of romaine lettuce, bunches of radishes, lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, swiss chard, cucumbers, whole heads of celery, carrots and green apples! And that was just two days' worth of juice (8 quarts). I had to get up two hours early each morning just to do it, and clean the juicer to boot (no fun -- takes a toothbrush to clean the wire mesh basin inside!); then had to pack it all on ice in a mini-cooler to carry to work. My forearms got a workout. :-) I could do it for two days a week though -- which is now my plan. Beats the heck out of doing it 92 days in a row! (Thank you, Joyce -- tee, hee).

Today I had a terrific veggie juice in the morning (spinach, kale, celery, cucumber and half of a green apple); a salad with salmon from the caff for lunch (roasted artichoke, cucumber, celery, mixed greens, a small amount of poached salmon, and a few croutons). Tonight I'll do my old standby -- summer squash "pasta" w/ raw home-made maranara sauce.

Am I having fun yet? Nope! But I knew this cleaning out of my body was NOT going to be a walk in the park. You don't clean out overnight a "house" filled with debris 25 years in the making. The trick for me is to just keep on keeping on. And so I will.

(New addition today - Check out Phil Spector, Raw Foodist , second image at the top right of this page; pretty funny stuff. The first image is a mini-interview with David Wolfe, guru to many a raw foodist).

Day 51 (Friday): Let the Housecleaning Begin!

In these next two days, as I prepare for 'housecleaning' on a cellular level, I'm about to do some literal housecleaning too. "One's house is an outward manifestation of what is going on inside of you," I heard in an interview this morning. Oh, my. Does that have a ring of truth to me, or what! I've had a stack of boxes in my bedroom filled with stuff I've been "meaning" to sort through for years. This week will see the end of them!

Let's hope my housecleaning is successful on both fronts. The "house" of my body and the sorting out of those boxes!

Day 50 (Thursday): Oh Happy Day ... New Crossroads

I'm feeling very happy today. One reason is sorta personal. Another reason is that I find myself at an exciting crossroads. Little did I realize when I began down this road 50 days ago that it would lead me here -- on the threshold of starting a 92-day fast (feast!) on fresh vegetable and fruit juices. I can only conclude that by eating mainly raw foods these last 50 days -- virtually eliminating 95% of the cooked foods, dairy, refined flour, refined sugar, and chicken and beef I was used to eating -- I was paving the way for this next step. If someone had told me 7 weeks ago that I'd be embarking on this, I'd have said they were nuts!

Many years ago (1979) I did an 8-day vegetable broth "fast" after reading Paavo Airola's "How To Get Well". I was living in Southern California at the time and I was a "nomad for Jesus" ... a long story! I remember after day three that my clarity and energy levels rose considerably; by Day 8 I felt almost high. Then I began on solid foods again. I never really got to experience the full benefits of detoxing because solid food was reintroduced (I've since realized) prematurely, before the cell-dumping process could fully kick in.

So the next four days will be spent in preparation for this new terrain on my 'road' to health. In my first post here, I said I was aiming at regaining the health of that 23 year old of 30 years ago. It's interesting (and I don't think mere coincidence) but last night as I was reading Angela Stokes' Juice Feasting Handbook, I read that one of the claims of this 92-day program is that for each day of juicing one sheds 120 days of toxicity! Just for the heck of it, I multiplied 92 days by 120 days and guess what? It came out to a little over 30 years! It's designed to release the body of over 30 YEARS of toxicity. How's that for being exactly what I set out to do! To lop 30 years off of my 53! I love it. See, we don't EVER have to figure out all the "hows" of getting where we want to go ... we just have to intend, decide, and set sail (take action) in the direction we want to go.

Now, I'm realistic and I know I will not get back in every respect the body I had when I was 23. But I'm going to get as near to it -- inside and out -- as I possibly can! It'll take time and effort -- and more months than just the next three -- but I'm heading there. (Wherever "there" is! Oh, that's right ... "here" is actually WITHIN "there.") I'm reminded of Norman Walker, who lived to be 109 -- some say even older -- who wrote the book, "Become Younger," when he was a very middle-aged man!

Here are some interesting links for anyone wanting to know more about this cleansing/detoxing method:

Juice Feasting Facts (by Angela Stokes)

Interview with Angela After 92-day Juice Feast

Juice Feasting Website

A Silly Song About the Periodic Table: The Elements by Tom Lehrer

Relevance? Mineral density is key in juicing. :-)

Today I had only water in the morning and in the afternoon, a large salad of romaine lettuce, croutons and two baked vegetable burgers (that actually tasted great -- not like bland shoe leather). Tonight I'll have my raw pasta dish made from summer squash and zuccini.

There are loads of things I need to gather together for the juice feast, so I'll prepare my list tonight. Hopefully, my new juicer will arrive by Monday.

Outta here.

Day 49 (Wednesday): Losing some momentum :-(

I'm really starting to miss breads/butter and certain cooked foods. Time to psyche myself once again. Today I had a buttered onion roll for b'fast ... just didn't want fruit! Lunch was light, a little spinach salad with a small portion of pesto pasta. This afternoon I had two raw bars. My pattern is all off these last couple of days, so tomorrow I'm going back to the fruit in the morning, salad for lunch and zuccini pasta for dinner ... all raw. No cooked food at all tomorrow.

Friday, I'll have some steamed veggies in the evening again and from then on have just cooked veggies for my cooked food. (I'd been having some grains and pasta in there -- not to mention bread and butter a few times, but that's finished for now.) It'll certainly be "finished" as of Monday when for the next 92 days I'll be drinking 4 quarts of vegetable and fruit juices per day. People who've done it say they aren't hungry in the least, but they detox like crazy ... and ultimately have stamina and energy and a clarity emotionally and spiritually that they've not ever experienced before. It is largely for the latter reason that I'm embarking on this. I have some important things coming up in my life and I want to be in the best possible place to make choices and decisions with wisdom and prudence.

Tonight, I feel like eating a pizza!! Honest. But I won't. I think I'll have a chopped salad instead. Got a new gizmo that tosses and chops at the same time. :-)

Off to the train.

Day 48 (Tuesday): That Gandhi quote . . .

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader; 1869 - 1948)

“To heal the environment, you must first heal the environmentalist.” (Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh)

Confucius, in The Great Digest wrote, “. . . wanting good government in their states, they first established order in their own families; wanting order in the home, they first disciplined themselves.”

"Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world." (Ramana Maharshi)

"Through this (92-day Juice Feast), I offer to you a door; a place to begin greater healing through the transformation of your own self." (David Rain, nutrientdensenutrition.com.)

"Transformation of your own self" -- one of the things that makes life an adventure; always becoming, yet loving ourselves exactly as we are now.

I quoted all of the above to psych myself as I prepare (through research and assembling all the "stuff" I'll need) to embark on my 92-day juice fast/feast, which will begin on Monday, May 14. I ordered a new juicer (a Green Star) at a discount shop and it should arrive by then.

Now to the food: had a green juice in the morning and a salad w/ some pasta in the afternoon; had two raw bars as snacks during the day (think they may be high-calorie so need to cut those out for a bit, I think); had a mostly cooked meal at a commemoration dinner in my (and some others') honor tonight on the Upper East Side. Had to be polite and all so had to eat something; still I managed to have a great side salad with it. I skipped dessert AND coffee, but did have a glass and a half of vino.

Days 45, 46 and 47 (Saturday, Sunday & Monday): The "Joy of the Climb"

Thought I'd start this entry with a great quote from Sir Winston Churchill:

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

For over a year now, I've been following the life of Angela Stokes (via her newsletters, live lectures, personal emails, website, blog, etc.) and learned about her 92-day "juice feast" which she recently completed in Costa Rica. I am seriously considering embarking on the very same fast (or should I say "feast").

I did good over the weekend food-wise, not great, just good. I experimented with some recipes (both veggie and fruit) that came out absolutely awful (raw chocolate and apples do not mix well, yuck!) and so resorted to a meal from Il Fornio, Italian take out (I got the eggplant but it was smothered in gook-y cheeses so I ate a smidgen of it and gave the rest to my housemate; I did, however, have a bit too much bread and butter -- which was the only thing I wasn't happy I ate all weekend).

Oh ... said I was going to rate myself weekly on those areas I wanted to strengthen: daily exercise; meditation and prayer; better preparation of food (planning ahead); drinking more water; and taking active detoxing steps (i.e., weekly colonics/dry brush massage each evening, and perhaps even a professional massage).

I'll touch on that tomorrow. Right now I gotta catch a train.

Day 44 (Friday): Six weeks and counting.

Just a quick post today -- have a date with a new raw friend downtown (the friend is Pure Food & Wine's takeout store!) Started out early this morning with two small bananas on the train; lunch was a small salad and some broiled seafood on the side with a couple of pieces of cooked yams. For a snack mid afternoon I had a raw bar w/ all kinds of good things in it. I'm heading for "take out" to bring home tonight and so must run.

The one thing I'm feeling I need to do differently is to DRINK MORE WATER! I forget and then get really thirsty, and by that time they say you're already dehydrated.

Onwards and (down)wards, as the case may be.