Wednesday, November 13, 2013

My 2-day Juice Fast (Or how I learned to love to urinate. A lot.)


When I feel myself getting into a rut, I like to mix it up. If I have too much coffee, I switch to tea. If I watch too much TV, I get outside. If I’m outside too much, well, then life is pretty good … or I’m lost in the woods and someone needs to send out a search party.

For the past two weeks, I’ve had a nasty cough. Just disgusting. Green phlegm. The works. And the result was that I was limited in my workouts and activity level. So instead of jumping right into exercise, I thought I’d lose a few pounds first. One way would be to slowly increase my activity level over time. That’s not the way I went.

I went the “investing in sub-prime mortgages sounds like a great idea” route. I decided to do a two-day juice (and tea) fast. This is what transpired.

Sunday (Day Zero)
To get ready for my juice fast, I needed juice-friendly fruits and vegetables. Luckily, I have a juicer from when I was more ambitious about making prison cider in my basement. And I found an article on a rudimentary juice fast with a recipe I could follow, more or less. So it was off to the grocery store to purchase organic versions of the following:

1 part Kale
2 parts Apples
4 parts Celery
1 nubbin Ginger Root
1 liberal splash Lemon Juice

Immediately, I learned two things: Organic Kale is way overpriced and you really don’t get a lot of blood from a turnip. But I juiced and juiced and set myself up nicely for both breakfast and lunch the following day. Then I ate half a pizza.

Monday (Day One)

7ish AM
I awoke feeling a bit nervous—would I have enough energy to last the day? Would I be okay without a cup of coffee? Was the Hunger Games based on a true-life juice fast?

Putting my fears aside, I realized I didn’t actually feel all that hungry. So I guzzled down my liquid breakfast, grabbed my moss-green liquid lunch and headed to work.

9:30 AM
To combat the coffee routine, I switched it up and drank caffeine-free tea—which I realize sounds insane. But you’ve read this far. Who’s the insane one, really?

11 AM
This was when I first felt doubt about the whole experiment. I still wasn’t ravenously hungry, but I wasn’t sure my lunch would do the trick. I eyed the snack bars in my desk drawer …

NOON
What was I so worried about? That lunch was delicious and I still didn’t feel too hungry. I thought, “I’ll go for a walk”.

1 PM
Hello, sugar crash. I’m not sure if it was the quick bit of exercise or the massive influx of sugar, but I was dragging in my post-lunch meeting for what felt like 10 minutes or so. Made it through—I’m a pro—yet it was still a surprise.

4 PM
Would someone stop beating on my head, please? My head was pounding and my eyes were sensitive to light. If this was a small taste of withdrawal, my sympathies go out to all the heroin addicts out there. No thanks.

6 PM
My headache subsides a bit when I have a few sips of my dinner. I juice up my remaining stores for the next day and even add a banana, which smoothes out the lemons’ bite.

8 PM
Had some chamomile tea to warm up. Felt surprisingly not hungry.

10 PM
Headache passed and I didn’t feel particularly hungry. Day one went better than expected. Also, I can see F-O-R-E-V-E-R ...

Tuesday (Day Two)

7 AM
Woke up feeling great. Seriously. Felt a bit hungry, yet full of energy. Downed my breakfast and noted that the banana was a great addition. Me is genius.

9:30 AM
Tea time was just as effective as the day before. I get it now, Britain.

NOON
Decided to follow the routine from the previous day: Lunch and a walk.

1 PM
Felt sluggish, but not nearly as much as the previous day. Progress!

4 PM
Didn’t have a headache this time. Did have some cravings for food and noticed food on banner ads on websites more often. No I did not lick my computer screen just now!

6 PM
Bought some pre-juiced organic orange and carrot juice at the store. Juicing is best left to the professionals and I fear my skin will soon be tanning salon orange.

8 PM
Why are there so many food plotlines on TV??? And the commercials??? Actually, I felt pretty good and didn’t really feel all that hungry or tempted. However, I noticed that if I was craving something, it was more out of habit than hunger.

11 PM
Day two was even more of a success. Dare I do a day three? No, no I don’t. I want solid food again. I go to bed dreaming of cupcakes.