Day Five… It’s Getting Easier

Yesterday was day number five! I’m actually surprised that I’ve made it this far. I am officially one-third of the way done with my fast! As of today I am down to 148.4! I started out at 156 so I’ve lost about 7.6 pounds in five days!

I woke up this morning with a strange issue- acne! I am suddenly breaking out all over my face! I generally have decent skin and although I go through bouts of acne occasionally, it is really rare for me to break out like this. I guess this is what people are talking about when they say that when you detox a lot of toxins will come out through your pores. I can’t wait til this phase is over.

Other than that I did pretty decent today. I did have one little cheat. I took my two-year old daughter to see Madagascar 3 in 3D and I ended up eating some of her popcorn. It wasn’t the worst cheat ever, but it wasn’t good either. I need to stop eating so that my digestive system shuts down and my hunger pangs start to diminish, but every time I eat something solid I mess this up! I am getting really annoyed with myself. Oh, and I forgot, my daughter popped a Reese’s Piece’s in my mouth before I could object and I ate it. Bad, I know.

The good new is that today I cheated out of lack of self-control and not out of such extreme hunger that I would kill for a crumb. This is a step in the right direction! This means my body is beginning to adjust to the fast. Plus, I took the advice of another blog about juice fasting and decided to take some vitamins to help ensure I am getting all the nutrients I need and help quell cravings since, at their core, cravings are your body trying to tell you that you need something i.e. if your body is craving cheese then you may need calcium, or if you’re craving sushi you may need more omega-3 fatty acid’s.

I’ve also decided to start making my own juices more often instead of following recipes on jointhereboot.com. I don’t know who comes up with the recipes on that site, but most of them taste pretty lousy. I know I need to make sure I am incorporating plenty of veggies into my juices,  but I just don’t know how much I can stand! I think I’m going to try to come up with juices that have a decent amount of green veggies hidden by delicious fruit. That might be more palatable.

Today I had another juice of my own creation- Kiwi Blackberry Strawberry (so good!)- and V28 (interesting… not terrible, just different).

Kiwi Blackberry Strawberry Juice

• 5 small kiwis
• 2 large kiwis
• 2 cups spinach
• 3/4 cup blackberries
• 4 large strawberries
• 1 apple

Day Four- The Top of the Hill

Yesterday was my fourth day on my juice fast. It wasn’t the best day, but it wasn’t the worst. After cheating really badly and having a breakdown on Day 3, I woke up on Day 4 not sure if I was going to continue my fast or just give up. I got out of bed, got a glass of ice water and sat on the sofa for a few minutes pondering the day. Before I even realized what I was doing, I headed back to the kitchen and start to assemble my juicer.

What my husband had said to me the night before about me feeling a sense of accomplishment if I make it to my fifteenth day really stuck in my head. I decided that I didn’t want to give up. I really want to buckle down and give this challenge my all.

I did pretty good most of the day but, of course, when it got to dinnertime my willpower was once again tested. It was a really hot day so I just made sub-sandwiches for my husband and daughter for dinner, but the issue was that I made tater tots on the side. I LOVE POTATOES! I love carbs in general. They are my downfall on any diet, but especially a fast where I am at my weakest and hungriest.

So needless to say, I cheated again. First I tested one to see if it was cooked, then I tried another after they came out from under the broiler. Then another. And another. And another. Once I started I just couldn’t stop!

I think I ate about eight or nine, maybe even a little more. I was popping them into my mouth every time I walked by the stove until my husband came home and I knew he would say something to me if I ate one in front of him. I did sneak one when he went in the backyard to water the grass though.

I felt really guilty about it and not at all satisfied. It tasted delicious, but I felt bloated and gassy and gross. I really regretted eating them after I did and I even thought about inducing vomiting so I wouldn’t digest them any more, but then I realized that was crazy and I just had to deal with the consequences of my actions.

The only other issues that I had yesterday was, first, my sense of smell is crazy strong! I could smell my husbands’ sandwich from across the room! He couldn’t even smell it and it was in front of his face. And second, I was really tired and achy all day. My right leg really hurt from my hip down to my knee. At first it was just an annoying sore feeling, but by the end of the day I was nearly in tears and wishing more than anything that I could pop a couple of ibuprofen and call it a day. Instead I went to bed with an ice pack on my leg and then switched off with a heating pad most of the night.

My juices of the day yesterday were one of my own creation- Apple Orange Strawberry (delicious!)- Green Lemonde (not completely terrible), and Sunset Blend Juice (Ok, but not great).

Apple Orange Strawberry Juice

• 2 apples
• 2 oranges
• 4 large strawberries
• 1 cup spinach
• 1 medium carrot

 

Day Three of My Juice Fast

Yesterday was miserable!

My husband called me to check in at around 6 o’clock in the morning and woke me up. After that I couldn’t go back to sleep even though I was still tired. I tossed and turned for a couple more hours but all I could think about was bacon! I have no idea why. I rarely even eat bacon, but for some reason it was all that I could think about. I was lying there with my stomach rumbling and my mouth-watering, fantasizing about bacon!

By the time I actually did fall back asleep it was time for me to get up, so I turned my alarm off and slept another hour, which in turn made me late for church. I rushed out the door without juicing because I didn’t have time, so I had a ton of water but no juice until about 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. I think that just threw my whole day off.

I kept myself busy, but noticed that I had to keep stopping for breaks because I was getting tired and light-headed and shaky. I felt like I was trying to multi-task but I wasn’t succeeding very well. I was foggy and forgetful. I also noticed that my body was aching in different places like my back, knees, and shins. I have read that when you are detoxing and your body is repairing itself certain problem areas or old injuries may start hurting again, so I am assuming that is what was going on.

My husband was coming home from Vegas last night as well, so I cooked dinner for him- steak, broccoli and pasta. It looked so good and I was so miserably hungry that at first I just tasted one little piece of steak to see if it was cooked all the way so I could turn the barbeque off, then I had one taste of pasta to make sure it was cooked, and then I just remember shoving food into my face until I could feel my stomach filling up!

I was really disappointed in myself and I felt like quitting!

But then, almost without thinking, I warmed up the oven and cooked some french fries and then put some fried ham and jalapenos and cheddar cheese on top and devoured the whole thing before I had time to feel remorse. I sat there for a long time afterwards thinking, “What did I just do?” I felt so guilty that I couldn’t even admit the french fries to my husband when he got home! I told him about the steak and pasta, but left out the rest.

By the time we went to bed I felt grumpy and annoyed at myself. I told him that I thought I should just quit because it was too hard, but he insisted that I keep going. I think what really resounded with me was when he said “But won’t finishing all fifteen days give you such a great sense of accomplishment?”

He’s right. It will.

Day Two

Today was a lot easier than yesterday!

My daughter went to her grandparent’s house to stay with them for a couple of days and my husband is in Las Vegas for the weekend, so it gave me just the break that I needed. I had no reason to be around food other than fresh fruits and vegetables when I was making my juice.

I kept myself busy most of the day by cleaning the house. Surprisingly I had more energy than I would have thought. I was able to get a lot of stuff done. Besides, I didn’t want to sit around because I would just think about food. I also tried to refrain from watching TV because when you haven’t eaten solid food in two days you suddenly realize how much food is on TV. It’s nothing but commercials for pizza, hamburgers, chicken and other fast food. And I have come to realize that people in TV shows and movies do nothing but eat!

I really did have more energy than I thought I was going to. Instead of feeling like I just wanted to sit in front of the computer or TV, I actually felt like getting off of my butt and getting things done. But nevertheless I was still hungry and would get a little shaky at times. I didn’t have too many symptoms today other than just hunger. I did feel a little foggy, but it wasn’t too bad. The other thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that you pee a ton when you first began fasting, not only because you are consuming so much liquid, but also because you are shedding a lot of water weight. It’s truly alarming how often I have to use the bathroom!

Today I had the Purple Power Juice (really delicious!), and Citrus Inspired Green Juice (decent). I couldn’t get my hands on the concorde grapes that the Purple Power Juice called for, but I substitued for red grapes and it worked just as well.

I haven’t weighed myself yet, but I started out yesterday with the following stats:

Weight: 156lbs

Height: 64″

Natural Waist: 30.5″

Tummy: 35″

Hips: 42″

I am hoping to lose at least 15 pounds in the next 15 days and as many inches as possible. I know that once I eat solid food again I will quickly gain back approximately 5 pounds of water, food and waste, so I would love to lose as much as 20 pounds so that once all is said and I start to eat solid food again I would be around 140 pounds (or under!). But there is only so much weight that can be lost in 15 days. I am thinking of adding some light exercise but I think I should wait until I am through the initial phases and am feeling consistently better.

My Juice Fasting Adventure

There seem to be only two schools of thought of the subject of fasting: Those who are adamantly for it, and those who are vehemently against it.

I, however, have somehow managed to land my plane somewhere in the middle.

My brother recently turned me on to the movie “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.” If you haven’t watched it, I highly recommend it. I have done a water fast, a juice fast and The Master Cleanse previously, so I wasn’t completely inexperienced in the area of fasting. I know it’s hard, it really sucks, it supposedly has great health benefits, and it always ends in me giving up before I planned on and gaining back every ounce I lost on the fast.

My biggest holdback has been doubt that maybe advocates of natural medicine are wrong. Maybe fasting isn’t the great cure-all that it’s toted as. Maybe it does more harm than good. Plenty of conventional medicine advocates say that fasting slows your natural metabolic rate, causes cannibalism of your body’s muscle, and always leads to bingeing post-fast and regain off weight lost on the fast either due to said binge or due to your lower metabolism post-fast.

Watching “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” in which the subject of the documentary, Australian businessman Joe Cross, goes on a 60-day juice fast to help him lose weight, detox and cleanse his body, and cure an autoimmune disorder, reassured me that fasting is safe and effective. Cross is required by his physician to have weekly blood tests during the 60 day fast and each time his blood chemistry, including electrolytes, cholesterol, etc. looks better and better. The doctor has no reason to believe Cross is hurting himself by fasting.

Seeing the results of the blood tests and knowing that Cross was doing his body good, not harm, finally helped me get over my fears that fasting is unhealthy. But that doesn’t mean it is any easier.

Today was day one of what I am hoping to be a 15 day juice fast.

I am drinking 64-96 ounces of juice as well as 96 ounces of filtered water per day. As recommended by the website accompanying the movie, jointhereboot.com, I am drinking mostly fruit juice in the morning and easing into vegetable juice only by the end of the day.

Today sucked. I was hungry, light-headed, grumpy, my stomach was growling, I was shaky. I was just all around miserable. On top of that I had to make breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for my daughter so it made saying no to food that much harder because it was in my face all day long! I actually ended up having some of her dinner because I was so famished by the end of the day! Oops…

And did I mention that the vegetable juice is quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted! It’s completely terrible! The fruit juice is great, but veggie juice just isn’t my thing.

Today I made Carrot Apple Ginger (pretty good), Mean Green Juice (decent), and Gazpacho Juice (terrible!!!).

Wish me luck! I think I may need it…

Part Four- Post Pregnancy

I remember walking around Target not long before I had my daughter and looking for comfortable clothes I could wear in the hospital and afterwards and having no idea what my body was going to be like after the birth. I called my mom and was so grumpy and frustrated by that point that I ended up hanging up on her when she couldn’t tell me what I was going to look like after the birth!

The day I had my daughter the anesthesiologist asked me how much I weighed so he could give me the correct dosage of medication for my epidural. He warned me that underestimating my weight could cause me to not get enough medication, so I admitted, out loud in a room full of nurses and family, that I was 180 pounds. I wanted to die!

My first weigh-in after giving birth, I had lost 20 pounds. I remember thinking that if I had stuck to a moderate diet and exercise plan and gained the recommended 20-25 pounds during pregancy I would be back to my pre-pregnancy weight already. I was a really depressing though because I still had another 30 pounds to go to get back to where I was, plus another 5 or 10 pounds on top of that!

I breastfed my daughter until she was 13 months old. Nursing allowed me to eat whatever I wanted and exercise only sporadically and still lose another 10 pounds during that first year with no effort at all. As soon as I stopped breastfeeding my weight went right back up to 160 pounds.

I tried dieting off and on over the next 7 or 8 months, but it never stuck. Finally I joined a gym and committed to losing the weight and within a couple months I was down to 143 pounds. But then once again I fell off the wagon as fall and winter approached and my the time 2012 rolled around I was back up to 160 pounds.

I decided to team up with two of my childhood friends and start the new year off right by starting a diet together. We would email each other what we ate for the day and weight-in weekly. I lost a few pounds and then everyone’s busy lives got in the way and we all quit. We keep trying to start up again, but it never seems to stick.

Over the last couple months I’ve made it down to 147 pounds, but then I seem to hit a plateau, get frustrated and quit. Right now I am 156 pounds. I have been eating a moderate diet and exercising occasionally but I am still gaining weight. It seems to me that ever since I had my daughter my metabolism is all screwed up. I can eat a regular diet and still gain weight. It’s really frustrating!

This month marks two and a half years since I had my daughter and I am still not back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I am only 26 years old and I feel like I am wasting my life being fat. I want to be in shape and toned and healthy. I don’t want my daughter to always have to go swimming with daddy because mommy feels to fat to be in a bathing suit. I want to make a change for good!

Part Three- My Pregnancy

After my boyfriend proposed to me in 2008, I was determined to get down to my previously skinniest weight of 117 pounds by our wedding in June 2009. I slipped up and ended up gaining weight after our engagement and as the year came to an end, but I have a tendency to get depressed and out of shape during the winter. As Spring rolled around I was ready to lose the weight once and for all!

But my weight wouldn’t budge. I’d lose a pound or two and then quickly gain in back. My weight was stuck at 130 pounds! I was so frustrated, and my frustration led to more eating and being sad about my weight. I felt like I was going to be the ugliest bride there ever was if I couldn’t get the weight off in time. I was really starting to panic!

Then, on June 23, 2009, I found out I was pregnant and my world came crashing down.

It suddenly made sense why I couldn’t lose the weight. I was pregnant! And already four months along by that time! I had no symptoms whatsoever until I was weaning off my current antidepressant to start a new medication. Once I began weaning off the meds I got extremely sick. I was suddenly vomiting and having extreme withdrawal symptoms that the doctor hadn’t mentioned I would experience. I finally decided to take a pregnancy test “just in case,” and it was POSITIVE!

I never wanted to be a mother and facing that fact alone was enough to turn my world upside down. I didn’t know what to do. And my wedding was in four days!

Gabe and I decided not to tell anyone until after the wedding. I got married at just about 130 pounds.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant I knew that I had to start eating regularly again instead of trying to lose weight. After the honeymoon I came home determined to consume a moderate diet of nutritious foods, but instead turned to carbs and heavy foods as a way to quell my constant morning sickness. Cheese and crackers became a staple to keep my stomach from turning. I craved In ‘n Out burgers and Baja Fresh burritos. Ss the summer dragged on and I swelled more and more, I began to spend more time lying on the couch with my feet up and less time in the gym.

My husband encouraged me to go on walks with him, but as the months rolled on I was exhausted and did NOT want to do anything. By the time winter rolled around I was working long hours preparing for maternity leave and getting absolutely no exercise. The day I gave birth to my daughter I was 180 pounds- the heaviest I have ever been in my life!

Part Two- The Middle

At first, I hated working out. I truly hated the feeling of being out of breath, sweating and just generally looking ridiculous in front of a room full of strangers. I felt like everyone was watching me, like people were staring in amazement at how uderly out of shape I was and how idiotic I looked on the machines since I had no idea what I was doing. I was so embarrassed to go to the gym that I started avoiding it.

That was until my boyfriend at the time (now my husband), Gabe reassured me that no one was looking and if they were it was just because they were impressed that I was taking the initiative to get in shape and be healthy. But the problem was that it was a gym on campus at SDSU so almost everyone there was between the ages of 17-23 and in great shape. I felt out-of-place and awkward and I never really gave it my all.

My sophomore year of college I got an apartment with Gabe and a couple other friends and started working out at the small gym at the apartment building. It was usually empty, so I didn’t have to worry about being embarrassed in front of others while working out. And since I was finally out on my own and able to buy groceries and cook meals I could better control my diet as well.

For the next couple years my weight would fluctuate. I would start an exercise program and diet and get down to 125-130 pounds and then get busy with school or go back to eating the wonderful food San Diego had to offer. It was hard to turn down Taco Tuesday’s at Fred’s Mexican Cantina in Old Town San Diego or carnitas at Casa de Pico. Late night California burritos from Santana’s and $5 pizza’s from Little Caesars were staples of college life. The weight would come back on and I’d get up to 135-145 pounds before I would start another diet.

Finally, in late 2006 I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and ended up taking a break from school to get treatment and take a break from all of the stress. I also decided that I would get a handle on my weight once and for all. So with no distractions from school and friends I started running and eating a healthful diet and finally got down to 117 pounds by mid-2007. I was so excited!

But I learned that as my depression would set in, I would slack off on my workouts and ease up on my diet and the weight would come back on. Then as my depression eased off again I would be motivated to lose weight all over again and get back to healthy lifestyle. The weight would once again fall off easily. On top of that my anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications caused weight gain, so even when I was feeling better I would gain weight.

In the summer of 2008, my boyfriend proposed to me and I was determined to get my weight back down to my lowest of 117 pounds by our wedding. So started my next obstacle.

Part One- The Beginning

All my life I have struggled with my weight. My father is morbidly obese and my mother, while a measly 90-some-odd pounds before she had me struggled with her weight off and on after having four children over a span of eleven years. My mom is half Mexican and everyone on the Mexican side of my family also seems to struggle with their weight. Blame it on genetics; Blame it on tortillas, beans and rice; Whatever you blame it on- we are heavy.

I knew starting in the later years of elementary school that I was bigger than other kids. I was always one of the tallest in my class and I had to leave the children’s department and start shopping in women’s by the time I was in sixth grade. By middle school my weight would naturally fluctuate and when I was heavier I felt less attractive and more down on myself than when I was thinner.

By freshman year of high school I knew I was really out of shape. Freshman P.E. class was torture! We were expected to run mile upon mile around the track and up and down the bleachers of the football stadium over and over again until I was sure I would pass out. I don’t think I lost any weight however, because a diet of soda, chips and nasty school lunches quickly replenished whatever calories I may have burned during P.E. class. It didn’t help that P.E. was right before lunch. By the time class was out I was ready to eat as much as I possibly could.

I have no idea how much I weighed during this time. The only time weighed myself was at my annual physicals. I’ve found slips from the pediatrician showing my weight in the 130’s and 140’s in middle school and high school. Considering that I am extremely small framed and rather short (I topped out at a measly 5’4″ in seventh grade and haven’t grown at all since then), my weight was not overly excessive, but it was starting me down a dangerous path at a young age.

It wasn’t until I graduated high school and went off to live in the dorms at San Diego State University that I realized that I needed to make a change. Most of my friends were into sports- cross country, volleyball, etc. and I was not athletic at all. While they were going to the beach and lying out by the pool, I was suddenly becoming aware that I was out of shape and overweight- especially after a semester of eating at the dining hall and fast food restaurants on campus.

I am the type of person that has to learn and research before I can take action. So I dove myself into articles and research about weight loss and for the first time in my life learned about calories in versus calories out and empty calories versus nutritionally dense calories. And for the first time in my life, I joined a gym!