The Fast Is Over
Stew’s comments:
Health is an important issue. Although we're all human, health is a relative and subjective issue. A person that I, Stew, might consider unhealthy, other people may consider very healthy. Or vice versa. So, when I said we were going on a juice fast, some reactions were, "Why bother?" and others were "That's awesome!"
We trepidatiously started the juice fast Sunday night, wondering what affects a week long extreme diet alteration would have on our bodies. The goals of the fast were this:
-detox the body rapidly
-alter the state of mind to ease change of diet towards a whole food system to eliminate most processed foods.
-learn more about our systems, specifically:
1. How does a juicing fast feel?
2. How does adding dairy to our diet affect our system?
3. How does adding gluten to our diet affect our system?
The juicing fast would last 5 days, followed by a recovery veggie soup filled weekend, followed by a whole foods week with dairy and no gluten, and then another week with gluten and no dairy, and then adjusting our diet to whatever we wanted it to be.
Monday morning, psychological effects kicked in a surprisingly quick manner. We were hungry, but we sipped our juice. We had cravings, but we sipped our juice. Monday evening, we both felt slightly ill, but we still sipped our juice. I was extremely weak and unbelievably slow and stupid in thought. Monday night we went to bed three hours earlier than we usually do.
Tuesday morning we felt horrible. My stomach was cramping and I felt like I had a fever. Vee felt the same, only started developing a terrible headache. We took care of the grand-kids for a bit that afternoon. This consisted of staring at them.
Tuesday evening, Vee's headache got worse, and I felt my fever was rising. I had the shakes, and was either waaaay too hot or waaay too cold. I was still really stupid. Vee felt the stupidity also, but called it sluggishness and “brain hiccups”.
After the juice fast had lasted 48 hours, Vee and I talked for a bit, and decided that continuing the fast was not worth the suffering. We figured we would reintroduce solids, limiting our food intake to the fruit and vegetables we had been juicing to see if that would help. This way, we would still be detoxing our systems, but not as fast. Vee dove for the Aleve as I dove for the refrigerator, consuming 14 tons of salad and fruit.
Weds., we made soup with the vegetables we had been eating raw. We ate the soup. Still feeling like crap we went to bed.
When we got up this morning(Thursday), Vee still had a headache, and I was still weak and sometimes feverish. It was time for another discussion. We agreed that we did not care for fasting, and we were not in a good spot for discussions of "How you feel about " because everything sucked, so we made the decision to scrap the whole thing. We went out for an omelet, waffle, and then a movie.
We feel much better now, thank you.
Although we didn't follow through with "The plan", there are still things that we learned, and will still experiment with in the future. We will still move closer to a whole foods diet, and still look into how dairy and gluten play with our systems, ... but we will not be fasting any time soon. We feel fasting was too abrupt a change to our systems, and also why, we think, "popular" diets fail so often.
Many people think fasting is a good choice for them. They are probably right. It certainly is not for us.
Vee’s comments:
Ok, we didn’t last the full time we wanted to fast. It reached the point that I couldn’t drink any more juice without upchucking. And when I considered the next stage of our food experiment…..adding dairy to our diet to see if it made us feel worse? I thought, “I don’t think there is anything that could make me feel worse than I feel right now.”
The food cravings that Stewart and I experienced during our juice fast were crazy. We logged what we were craving and the foods were all extremely unhealthy for us…..Stewart kept wanting sweets….anything with tons of sugar and butter (which we rarely eat or crave anymore) and I wanted steak (which we never eat or crave anymore) We didn’t crave our normal ‘half-healthy’ diet while we were fasting. We totally wanted junk and felt that as soon as we broke our fast…..we would have to go nuts in the food aisle of the nearest Fred Myers. If this is what people go through when they diet, it is no wonder that they so often go right back to unhealthy eating when they ‘stop’ the diet.
For all of those people?......I passionately say…..Don’t diet ever again! If you want a healthier diet, don’t cut out everything ‘unhealthy’ all at once. Try working your way toward a healthy diet one step at a time. A couple of years ago, when we decided to eat healthier, we ate pretty much what we wanted, never went hungry, and still ate healthier. Don’t get me wrong, we did have to make changes, but they were baby steps for the most part. We removed high fructose syrup to start with. Then we moved on to removing processed foods with ingredients that we didn’t know or couldn’t pronounce. Lots of chemicals went away at that point. When we wanted foods that we didn’t feel were healthy for us, we either found similar recipes with healthier ingredient substitutions or we limited how often we ate the unhealthy foods. After that, we researched foods that have health benefits and started to eat more of them. Next we put up a list of foods that were nutrient dense and began increasing our intake of those foods. Etcetera….etcetera….etcetera….
And, while I’m on a role, another thing I have to say about cutting foods out of your diet or becoming “healthier”? Let’s stop using how much a person weighs as an indicator of how healthy they are, ok? If some doctor tells you that you have to lose weight to be healthy….or if you use your weight as an indicator of your health, you both are focusing on the wrong area. If someone is starving themselves to lose weight, it isn’t a solution to ill health. Focus on eating foods that make your body work at its optimum level. And while you’re at it, move around a little more each day. If you do these things and your body needs to lose weight, most likely it will.
Stewart and I do feel better since we went through the fast. We feel lighter. (we should…..we each dropped 5 lbs in 48 hours) We feel stronger in our desire to be healthier. So, I guess the fast wasn’t a total failure. We will continue our quest for a healthier diet…..most likely less dairy, gluten, and stimulants. However, we will do it the way that works for us….which is a little movement on a regular basis. We, apparently, are not cold turkey folks.
Health is an important issue. Although we're all human, health is a relative and subjective issue. A person that I, Stew, might consider unhealthy, other people may consider very healthy. Or vice versa. So, when I said we were going on a juice fast, some reactions were, "Why bother?" and others were "That's awesome!"
We trepidatiously started the juice fast Sunday night, wondering what affects a week long extreme diet alteration would have on our bodies. The goals of the fast were this:
-detox the body rapidly
-alter the state of mind to ease change of diet towards a whole food system to eliminate most processed foods.
-learn more about our systems, specifically:
1. How does a juicing fast feel?
2. How does adding dairy to our diet affect our system?
3. How does adding gluten to our diet affect our system?
The juicing fast would last 5 days, followed by a recovery veggie soup filled weekend, followed by a whole foods week with dairy and no gluten, and then another week with gluten and no dairy, and then adjusting our diet to whatever we wanted it to be.
Monday morning, psychological effects kicked in a surprisingly quick manner. We were hungry, but we sipped our juice. We had cravings, but we sipped our juice. Monday evening, we both felt slightly ill, but we still sipped our juice. I was extremely weak and unbelievably slow and stupid in thought. Monday night we went to bed three hours earlier than we usually do.
Tuesday morning we felt horrible. My stomach was cramping and I felt like I had a fever. Vee felt the same, only started developing a terrible headache. We took care of the grand-kids for a bit that afternoon. This consisted of staring at them.
Tuesday evening, Vee's headache got worse, and I felt my fever was rising. I had the shakes, and was either waaaay too hot or waaay too cold. I was still really stupid. Vee felt the stupidity also, but called it sluggishness and “brain hiccups”.
After the juice fast had lasted 48 hours, Vee and I talked for a bit, and decided that continuing the fast was not worth the suffering. We figured we would reintroduce solids, limiting our food intake to the fruit and vegetables we had been juicing to see if that would help. This way, we would still be detoxing our systems, but not as fast. Vee dove for the Aleve as I dove for the refrigerator, consuming 14 tons of salad and fruit.
Weds., we made soup with the vegetables we had been eating raw. We ate the soup. Still feeling like crap we went to bed.
When we got up this morning(Thursday), Vee still had a headache, and I was still weak and sometimes feverish. It was time for another discussion. We agreed that we did not care for fasting, and we were not in a good spot for discussions of "How you feel about " because everything sucked, so we made the decision to scrap the whole thing. We went out for an omelet, waffle, and then a movie.
We feel much better now, thank you.
Although we didn't follow through with "The plan", there are still things that we learned, and will still experiment with in the future. We will still move closer to a whole foods diet, and still look into how dairy and gluten play with our systems, ... but we will not be fasting any time soon. We feel fasting was too abrupt a change to our systems, and also why, we think, "popular" diets fail so often.
Many people think fasting is a good choice for them. They are probably right. It certainly is not for us.
Vee’s comments:
Ok, we didn’t last the full time we wanted to fast. It reached the point that I couldn’t drink any more juice without upchucking. And when I considered the next stage of our food experiment…..adding dairy to our diet to see if it made us feel worse? I thought, “I don’t think there is anything that could make me feel worse than I feel right now.”
The food cravings that Stewart and I experienced during our juice fast were crazy. We logged what we were craving and the foods were all extremely unhealthy for us…..Stewart kept wanting sweets….anything with tons of sugar and butter (which we rarely eat or crave anymore) and I wanted steak (which we never eat or crave anymore) We didn’t crave our normal ‘half-healthy’ diet while we were fasting. We totally wanted junk and felt that as soon as we broke our fast…..we would have to go nuts in the food aisle of the nearest Fred Myers. If this is what people go through when they diet, it is no wonder that they so often go right back to unhealthy eating when they ‘stop’ the diet.
For all of those people?......I passionately say…..Don’t diet ever again! If you want a healthier diet, don’t cut out everything ‘unhealthy’ all at once. Try working your way toward a healthy diet one step at a time. A couple of years ago, when we decided to eat healthier, we ate pretty much what we wanted, never went hungry, and still ate healthier. Don’t get me wrong, we did have to make changes, but they were baby steps for the most part. We removed high fructose syrup to start with. Then we moved on to removing processed foods with ingredients that we didn’t know or couldn’t pronounce. Lots of chemicals went away at that point. When we wanted foods that we didn’t feel were healthy for us, we either found similar recipes with healthier ingredient substitutions or we limited how often we ate the unhealthy foods. After that, we researched foods that have health benefits and started to eat more of them. Next we put up a list of foods that were nutrient dense and began increasing our intake of those foods. Etcetera….etcetera….etcetera….
And, while I’m on a role, another thing I have to say about cutting foods out of your diet or becoming “healthier”? Let’s stop using how much a person weighs as an indicator of how healthy they are, ok? If some doctor tells you that you have to lose weight to be healthy….or if you use your weight as an indicator of your health, you both are focusing on the wrong area. If someone is starving themselves to lose weight, it isn’t a solution to ill health. Focus on eating foods that make your body work at its optimum level. And while you’re at it, move around a little more each day. If you do these things and your body needs to lose weight, most likely it will.
Stewart and I do feel better since we went through the fast. We feel lighter. (we should…..we each dropped 5 lbs in 48 hours) We feel stronger in our desire to be healthier. So, I guess the fast wasn’t a total failure. We will continue our quest for a healthier diet…..most likely less dairy, gluten, and stimulants. However, we will do it the way that works for us….which is a little movement on a regular basis. We, apparently, are not cold turkey folks.