Traveling in Circles

Day 17 of our Raw Food Challenge

Hard to believe we’ve been doing this for 17 days now.  I’ll get this out of the way first and will admit that we’ve “cheated” twice on this diet.  Both times occurred this week, and both instances were still healthy.  I’m not sure you can even consider all natural peanut butter on a banana “cheating”, but it was the best dang peanut butter I’ve had in eons.  The other instance was some corn chips.  Our corn chips that we buy contain all natural ingredients, but considering they’re fried, they don’t follow the raw food protocol.  So in the sake of staying 100% raw, we haven’t done it, but I also don’t want to be completely over-the-top neurotic either, and the corn chips and peanut butter hit the spot.

Geoff and I have been giving our future diet a lot of thought lately.  Having taken a road trip to Columbus, OH over the weekend to visit old childhood friends of mine, we realized it’s completely possible to stay raw and take a vacation like that, but there was a LOT of work and prep before we left.  We made a huge kale and avocado salad, knowing it stays good for 2-3 days in a cooler.  Along with the salad we brought flax crackers we made in the dehydrator, some lime almondaise dip, dehydrated marinated baby portabella  mushrooms,  a bunch of granola bars (similar to Cliff Bars) that we made, a blackberry mango pie, some dehydrated zucchini chips, and assorted fresh fruit and coconut for fruit salads.  Having enough food while we were gone was not an issue, but I think we’re growing tired of the same types of foods just combined in different ways to achieve new recipes.  When you’re limited to fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, things tend to seem a bit limiting.  The granola bars and pie crusts have almost all the same ingredients, and taste similar, and over the weekend I found myself just wanting some regular salty potato chips instead.  Or a fried egg.  Yeah, a fried egg sounds good. 

So, what to do when this is over?  We both agree we do not want to stay 100% raw for the rest of our lives.  Get-togethers are nice, and trying to accommodate a raw food diet when visiting friends or going out to eat is difficult.  Prior to this diet there were additives and preservatives we simply stayed away from.  Those include: aspartame (sold as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal Measure and now disguised under its new name Aminosweet), TBHQ, high fructose corn syrup, msg, trans fats, refined sugar, and white flour.  Those are ingredients we’ll continue to distance ourselves from.  I figure that I did enough damage to my body during my 20s by going to the bar far too often, and don’t need to be poisoning myself now out of “convenience”.

The changes we’re set on making are changes I think everyone could benefit from.  Eggs purchased from local farmers who raise chemical free, free-range chickens.  We can buy them a mile down the road for $1.50 a dozen.  Not only are they cheaper, but they’re much more nutritious.  Milk, if we opt to buy it, will be raw goat milk from a local farmer.  All chemical free, with no growth hormones, and no pesticides on the grain the goats are fed.  Meat will be hormone and chemical free, preferably purchased from local sources, and vegetables will be grown in our garden, or organic and local whenever possible.

We’re finding lately that it hasn’t always been easy to eat enough to maintain sufficient calories, especially when engaging in rigorous exercise.  While that may sound like a great weight loss plan, and it could be, our goal is to lose fat and gain muscle, and we’ve both been concerned with the possibility of losing lean mass.

We’ve noticed on and off that there have been days where our energy was lagging.  I’m not sure if this is weather related (unfortunately Geoff and I both have the same issues when faced with day after day of gray, chilly, gloomy skies here in Michigan) or if our bodies are lacking something nutritionally.   We’re still able to maintain our exercise routines, but I’ll admit that I haven’t yet seen the long term level of energy I had wanted, although I did read that it may take some time for the body to regulate its metabolism after switching to a diet such as this.  It may just be too soon to determine.

A lot of people have inquired about our food costs.  Yes, our food costs have gone up a bit.  Organic produce is a more costly option, but I believe that once the farmer’s markets are in full swing, we can save quite a bit there.  Meat is an expensive purchase that we haven’t incurred, but we’re buying nuts and seeds instead, which aren’t necessarily cheaper per pound, but you eat less per serving, making up some savings. 

Prior to this challenge, we would grocery shop roughly once every couple of weeks.  We always had meat in the freezer, frozen veggies, and canned items, along with some fresh produce.  Where we were lacking then was more fresh fruit and vegetables.  Being on a raw diet means we’re grocery shopping an average of twice a week or so now.  Shopping is fast, since it’s one department we’re concerning ourselves with, but the running back and forth to town is time consuming.

Our digestion continues to be working much better and far more regularly than it ever has.  If you’ve ever been plagued by sluggish digestion, incorporating some additional raw foods into your diet whenever possible will help a great deal.  We’re really not sure yet if two weeks into this thing is long enough to determine what additional health benefits we’ll see, but I do notice that food tastes different now.  I don’t need nearly as much salt or sweetener as I used to, and some of the simplest things taste the best (like a fresh fruit salad or a fruit pie).

Now that Geoff and I have been so wrapped up in this raw food challenge we’re seeing more and more awareness in diet and harmful preservatives taking place.  Our local news channel aired a story yesterday about people who are so concerned with what is in their food and what they’re eating that there’s a term for a disorder called Orthorexia Nervosa.  This term was actually coined by a Colorado M.D. named Steven Bratman back in 1997.  Ironically, “Orthorexia Nervosa” literally means “correct appetite”.
 
Naturally, I agree that people can become obsessive about food, often times leading to some unhealthy affects, but while considering Dr. Bratman’s two identifying questions:

1. "Do you care more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure you receive from eating it?”
2.  “Does your diet socially isolate you?"

In our opinion, these do not seem specific enough to determine whether a person may have a serious health condition or are just trying to avoid toxins that have been put in our food. 

When I think about today’s standard American diet, I’m not looking forward to seeing what health ramifications decades of eating this way will have on ones body.  When I see children constantly being fed meal after meal of processed food containing the harmful ingredients we’ve banned from our own diets, it saddens and concerns me.  These are ingredients that weren’t even around when I was a child, and have already been proven to cause long term health issues.  As adults, we all have the right to choose what we want to put into our bodies, but children have little say in the matter.  More often than not these ingredients are being consumed out of ignorance and convenience.  I think that rather than getting people worried that they may be too neurotic about their food, we should all try to educate and bring about more awareness.  We only get one body in this life, and we want ours to be as healthy as possible. 

(On a side note- Because so many of you inquired which juicer, dehydrator, and other ingredients we’re using, we’ve added an Online Shopping area to the blog.  It can be found in the side menu under the Facebook Fan Page banner.  We have an area of books, raw food kitchen equipment, and raw food ingredients- many of which are a challenge to find locally here.   If there are some additional items you’d like to see listed, please let us know.  We only ask that if you do decide to purchase one of those items, you do so by clicking from our site so we can get credited as an Amazon Affiliate. We’ll also be adding a recipe section on there within a week, so keep checking for that.   Thanks!)

Day 8 of our Raw Food Challenge

We are currently on day 8 of this Raw Food Challenge.  We've lasted a full week without meat, dairy, processed foods, or cooked foods for that matter.  We're finding that this diet requires a HUGE commitment, both in will power, and in time.  I'm sure that is something that will get easier with time as we figure out how to prepare more foods ahead of time, what we enjoy eating, and learn how to simplify our grocery shopping by buying more key ingredients in bulk.

Geoff has been struggling periodically with the fact that processed junk food and fast food is promoted so heavily on a daily basis.  It's been hard to turn on the tv without commercials for Burger King, Taco Bell, or Subway in our face, and driving through town there's an onslaught of billboards and the smell of charbroiled burgers.  We never made it a habit to eat that junk prior to this raw food challenge, but maybe it's just knowing that Geoff has made a commitment to not stray from this diet for a month that is making him want a Whopper or a Bacon Double Cheeseburger.

I, on the other hand, am not finding that to be so much of a challenge.  I know that after eating this way now for the better part of 3 weeks (including the juice fast), gorging on processed fast food is not going to make my body feel good, and to me it's just not worth it because fast food doesn't even taste that good.  I mean, if I'm going to risk not feeling well due to something I ate, it's going to be something worthwhile and sinful like my mom's cherry cheesecake.

Geoff has found that this entire experiment has him more goal oriented and thinking more strategically.    His weight and fat percentage have both decreased.  He's maintaining an exercise program, and has found that he is now able to run further.  His life-long sinus problems and allergy issues have drastically decreased, and his energy levels have increased.

I'm continuing to ride my bike, do crunches and push ups, but I'll admit that I haven't been out walking as often as I should.  It's difficult, and it tends to depress me at times.  Even just walking on the sloping, gravel driveway up to the road is a frustrating challenge and since I tend to shy away from things that depress me, I'm having difficulty forcing myself to walk more and stay positive about it.  I know, I know- it'll get easier the more I do it, just like my increased ability for all the other exercises I'm doing, but apparently, mentally, I'm just not there yet.  However, it's amazing for me to realize that my body has *never* gotten the vast array of vitamins, minerals, and trace minerals that it's getting now - all in an easy to digest, unprocessed, raw form. 

One thing that has been brought to my awareness is the fact that although I thought prior to this that I ate healthy and knew a lot about health, wellness, and food, I had only scraped the surface.  There appears to be a lot of misconception out there about calories and protein, and you can read up on some new medical studies here.  We've learned a great deal about how much protein a person actually requires, and you can read more about that here. 

I'm now realizing that a 4 tray dehydrator simply isn't large enough, and can see why people recommend the Excalibur 9 Tray Food Dehydrator.  If I'm running the dehydrator, it would be more efficient to have 9 trays and fill it completely full to save on electricity and be able to store more tasty snacks like the zucchini chips or flax crackers we've come to rely on.  The square trays on the Excalibur allow more food space without the hole in the center of the tray like my Nesco American Harvest Dehydrator.

I've also recently learned that raw foodies make a lot of 'pasta' type noodles out of zucchini, carrots, sweet potatoes, or other similar vegetables using a machine like a Saladacco Spiral Slicer or a Spirooli type spiral vegetable slicer.  Cover these 'noodles' with a fresh marinara, heat it up in the dehydrator or the oven at a low temp and enjoy the healthiest 'pasta' available.  

Geoff and I are both excited to see where this raw food journey will take us.  It's already opening our minds to a new way of thinking, and we've bonded like never before.  We're actually getting more enjoyment out of the food we're eating, we're getting more out of it nutritionally, and we're having a great time trying out new recipes.  I look forward to seeing what the next 3 weeks brings. 

New medical study on reduced protein and calorie restriction diets

The theory that people can reduce their caloric intake and live a longer, healthier life has been studied since 1935.  New data is showing that it may not be the reduction in calories that is responsible for the longevity, but rather a decrease in the amount of protein in ones diet.  This raw food diet's potential for health and wellness extends beyond our initial conclusion.

Read the full article here.

Day 5 of our raw food challenge

We've been raw now for 5 days.  The results have been pretty amazing so far.  Geoff no longer feels like he's going to starve and waste away to nothing, his weight and fat percentage has currently stabilized, and my weight has gone up while my fat percentage has gone down.

Both of us are noticing a drastic improvement in digestion, our skin looks healthier and feels smoother, and my fingernails seem to be growing longer and stronger faster than they ever have.  (Keep in mind, we ate 90% vegan, then went on a 6 day juice fast, binged over Memorial Weekend, and have been raw for 5 days now.)  We both have ample energy for maintaining our exercise routine, although that seems to have peaked and waned over the past 5 days, but some of that might be due to the weather.

A couple of days ago we had seriously toyed with adding raw eggs and unpasteurized goat milk to our diet, mainly for calories and protein, but after eating this way for a few more days, and doing a lot of research, we realized it would be unnecessary. This website discussed in detail what proteins and amino acids are, how much we need, and why.  It's a very important read for anyone concerned with whether or not they're getting enough protein.  

The first couple of days were rough for Geoff.  I'm not sure if it was more mental than physical, but going raw ca be a challenge mentally and make you feel deprived and as if you're starving until your body regulates itself.  After consulting some raw food experts they advised us to eat a lot of bananas and dates for calories and lots of green leafy vegetables for protein (just 4 ounces of kale has 6 grams of protein!).  This site has a handy chart of protein in raw fruits and vegetables. 

Another huge benefit so far is that Geoff's cravings for sugar have disappeared.  In the past, when hit with a need for sugar, he'd consume a lot of empty calories on sweetened junk food, and now the raw food desserts made with fresh fruit seem to be satisfying that desire.

One thing I will say is that eating this way requires some planning unless you want to opt for simple salads and cut up fruits and veggies. If you're going to 'uncook' some of the recipes, they require some time, especially if using the dehydrator. 

Right now we've got a batch of fresh corn chips in the dehydrator, we plan to make some flax crackers when these are done, and make another fresh pie today, this time blueberry.  I think once we get the hang of this routine we can make crackers, granola, and dried fruit in bulk to save time.  We'll also start being more frugal with shopping to purchase nuts, seeds, and grains in bulk, buying ripe bananas in large quantities and slicing and freezing them (try rolling a sliced banana in honey and rolling it in crushed nuts or coconut and then freezing it!), and making the most of the farmers markets.

We've got an out-of-town trip planned soon and it's going to be interesting to plan ahead to see what we need to make, versus what handy food we can bring for meals.  I'm thinking a huge kale and avocado salad which stays great for a few days in the fridge, dehydrated crackers and cookies, fresh cut up fruits and veggies, and Geoff's Zesty Guacamole.  And lots of water with freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice.

So far we're thrilled with the raw food challenge.  Neither one of us feels deprived, or that we're limited by dietary choices.  We've been really enjoying the reading and research involved, and have learned so much in the past couple of weeks that it's astounding.  Even feeding our non-raw friends the other day, although it appeared to be challenging at first, turned out to be quite enlightening.  We'll keep you all posted on our progress again in a few days.

Geoff's Raw Zesty Guacamole recipe

This is some amazing raw guacamole!  Geoff's recipe- we're enjoying it right now on some corn chips we made in the dehydrator a few days ago.  It's simple, fresh, fast, and healthy.

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1 tomato- diced
• 1 lime- juiced
• 1 white onion- finely chopped
• small bunch cilantro- finely chopped
• sea salt- to taste
• crushed red pepper- to taste
• cumin- to taste
• cayenne pepper- to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir thoroughly.  Enjoy!

Here's a great website and forum for raw food recipes

A lot of you have asked me where we're finding the majority of our recipes for this raw food challenge.  The majority of them have come from this website and forum.

We've tried, and loved, the kale and avocado salad, and the flax seed Cheez Its from their recipes.

Yesterday Geoff made a strawberry rhubarb pie that was amazing, even our non-raw friend loved it.  Here's the recipe for it:

  STRAWBERRY RHUBARB PIE!
based on a recipe at goneraw.com

The pinch of cayenne in the crust adds nice depth….
INGREDIENTS
CRUST
2 C almonds, soaked
1 C dates, (or less, to taste)
2 T agave syrup
1 t cinnamon
pinch cayenne
dash sea salt, (optional)
handful shredded coconut

FILLING
4 C rhubarb, peeled and chopped to 1″ pieces
1/4 C agave
2 C strawberries, chopped
1/4 C psyllium husk (we used ground flax seed)
whole strawberries for garnish

PREPARATION:

CRUST:

    * In a  food processor, process ingredients to a coarse mixture which sticks together easily when pressed..
    * Sprinkle shredded coconut into pie pan to prevent crust sticking.
    * Press crust into pan.

FILLING:

    * In a food processor, process rhubarb to a slushy consistency.
    * Add agave and continue processing until well mixed..
    * Remove rhubarb mix to a large bowl add chopped strawberries and psyllium husk, and mix by hand.
    * Spoon filling into crust and chill 6 – 8 hours, or overnight,  to allow sweetness to develop. (Pie is tart at first, but, as it sits, the flavors meld, and the sweetness develops.)

Benefits of raw food

Heating food above 105 degrees Fahrenheit destroys the enzymes as well as 50% of the protein and 70-90% of the vitamins and minerals. Eating cooked food overtaxes the body's enzyme reserves. Eating more raw food decreases the amount of digestive enzymes your body has to produce. Raw foods are foods in their natural state with the enzymes left intact.

Enzymes are needed to perform many functions in the body including digestion, assimilation and elimination of food. A drained enzyme supply can result in vitamin and mineral deficiencies, premature aging and low energy. Raw foods high in enzymes include sprouts, papaya and pineapple.

Here are couple of great articles on the benefits of raw food.

We are currently on day 3 of our raw food challenge.  Geoff ran 4 miles this morning, and we've both been maintaining our exercise regimen.  Today we both feel like we have a lot more energy than yesterday.  Geoff's dropped most of the weight he put on after 'bad' eating for five days.

The past three days we've been eating huge fruit salads for breakfast with almonds, ground flax, and wheat germ.  Lunches have been kale and avocado salads, the recipe for which is posted here.  Yesterday we made a strawberry rhubarb smoothie with rhubarb, strawberries, a handful of cashew, a little cinnamon, some raw agave syrup and enough water to cover it.  Later in the day we snacked on raw cauliflower dipped in homemade guacamole, and some fruit here and there, along with some flax crackers I had made last week.

Yesterday we made a batch of corn chips in the dehydrator, along with some quinoa, almond meal, and raisin cookies.  I'd tweak that recipe and opt of the quinoa next time- it just throws off the taste.  I think they'd be a good, quick source of protein though, along the lines of a not-so-great-tasting protein bar.  :)

The thing I'm most anxious to try is the raw strawberry rhubarb pie Geoff made last night.  We have company coming over this afternoon, and I think we'll wait and use them as guinea pigs.  If it passes their inspection, we'll post photos and the recipe soon.

So, so far so good with this entire thing.  It's been a little difficult to try to plan meals ahead of time to make sure Geoff maintains the calorie count that he's looking for, but the more I look, there are thousands of recipes online.  Our tastes are changing, and we've been experimenting with different ingredients, quite like mad scientists.  It's been fun, and doing this together has been something that has brought us closer together.  We'll keep everyone up to date as it goes.  And, as always, if you have any questions, feel free to let us know.  

Our raw food challenge begins today

June 1st, the start of our raw food challenge.  Our goal is to eat only raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains for the month of June and track our progress daily to determine how a raw food diet effects us physically and mentally.  I discussed the journey that has taken us to this point in our lives in a previous post here.

Knowing that we were going to participate in this 'diet' starting today, we really unleashed and went a bit overboard with food over the past four or five days.  The only food I had really craved during the juice fast was a supreme pizza from our favorite local bar/restaurant.  We ordered one on Thursday, and sadly, I have to say that it didn't taste the same at all to me!  The sauce was too sweet, the meat tasted too greasy, and overall, the pizza was too salty.  Two small pieces, and a half hour later I had a horrendous stomach ache.  Completely not worth feeling that way for a couple of pieces of pizza, especially knowing I can make a homemade healthier version that tastes amazing.

Saturday we met friends at a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  After a burrito and two beers Geoff announced we needed to head home around 9pm, and by 9:30 he was sound asleep in bed, exhausted.  It appeared that rather than affect him digestively, the food and beer just knocked him out instead.

We spent the rest of the weekend with friends, where we dined on bbq ribs, chicken, hot dogs, and sweets.  Geoff has, in the past five days gained back a lot of the weight that he lost during the fast, despite still running and exercising moderately during that time frame.  I'd have to say that I gained a couple of pounds back as well, but more importantly, I feel incredibly weak.  I'll attribute some of that to lack of quality sleep, but it feels like a good portion of it is diet related.

Knowing all that, we're both excited about going back to raw foods, but honestly, now I'm looking toward the next 30 days and wondering what the heck we're going to eat!  We're concerned about making sure we get enough calories every day, and need to maintain enough protein. 

Protein seems to be the biggest concern for people with whom we've discussed a raw food diet.  It IS possible to obtain enough protein from vegetables, nuts, and grains/sprouts, without adding meat to a diet.  We're keeping a close eye on protein intake to ensure that neither one of us loses any muscle.  And again, as with the fast, I'll be checking in with myself on a daily basis to see how I feel, and may need to supplement with a whey protein powder if I feel like I just don't have adequate strength to maintain dealing with my neurological condition.

During this month, we'll be utilizing the Breville juicer, a Vitamix, a Hamilton Beach food processor, and a American Harvest Nesco dehydrator. (Until our juice fast when I became obsessed with food, I had never realized that crackers, breads, and cookies could be made in a dehydrator! Tomorrow I'm going to try making homemade corn chips in the dehydrator.)

I'll share a quick recipe with you, one that has become a favorite of ours over the past few weeks.  It's a very tactile recipe, and can be tweaked and personalized, and the leftovers are even better the next day. 

Kale & Avocado Salad

• 1 bunch kale- we've been using red kale
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/2t sea salt (more or less to taste)
• 1 lemon juiced (more or less to taste)
• 1 avocado
• 1 red onion or 1 leek diced
• 1/2 cup sprouted quinoa
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 summer squash or yellow squash diced

Cut the center stalk from the kale and slice kale into thin ribbons.  Put it into a large mixing bowl and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt.  Knead and massage the kale for roughly 10 minutes to break down the cellular wall to make the kale limp like a sauteed green.  This really makes all the difference.  If you've ever eaten kale raw, it's a tough green, but by the time you get done kneading it, it will hardly look the same.

Add the avocado and massage that into the kale.  Add the onion, quinoa, squash, onion or leek and mix those in well.  Add the cherry tomatoes and lemon juice and mix those through. There you have it- a light and fantastic salad for these hot summer months.  It would be great with cucumber, shredded carrots, nuts, or a variety of sprouts.  (We add quinoa for the high protein content and complex amino acids. It also sprouts quickly and easily overnight!)

I made that salad for friends over the weekend, and it was a huge hit.  Tonight when I made it, I sprinkled some nutritional yeast flakes on top for added protein and a slight cheesy taste.  We ate that for dinner along with some flax crackers I made in the dehydrator a few days ago.  This morning we ate a brunch consisting of a huge fruit salad with diced oranges, apples, bananas, dates, pecans, wheatgerm, and ground flax seed on top.  

We're not expecting everyone to go raw, because let's face it, preparing raw foods in a tasty, creative manner is a very time consuming practice.  But, I do think that if people ate 70-80% raw foods, the health benefits would be astronomical. We're not going to get neurotic here, or go overboard with this challenge.  I fully intend to continue to drink hot tea, and if we crave some hummus or something healthy from time to time, I see no problem with that. Our biggest concerns currently remain eliminating white flour, sugar, preservatives (aspartame, TBHQ, and high fructose corn syrup to name a few), and processed foods, (I'll include meat and dairy in this list for this month).  

If you have any favorite raw recipes, we'd love to hear them.  In the mean time, we'll continue to chart our progress, and will be checking back in frequently.

Know your body fat percentage

Do you know your body fat percentage?  Check this site out- it explains why it’s so important to know.
http://www.shapeup.org/bodylab/frmst.html

(If you click on "All About Me" and hit Continue there are some handy body fat calculators.)

Our travel to health and wellness

Many of you have asked us what’s been keeping us so busy lately, and where we’re going next.  Rather unexpectedly and unplanned (for me, those are the most rewarding adventures) our traveling journey has taken us on an inner path to health and wellness.  Two weeks ago Geoff and I made the decision to cut sugar, white flour, preservatives, and meat from our diet for a while to see how we felt.  Our results were so amazing that we decided to speed up the process by undergoing a juice fast six days ago. 

When we started this we didn’t have any set deadline when we wanted to end it, we just knew that many of the foods we were eating were unhealthy.  We were waking up in the morning not feeling rested and rejuvenated.  Because we both work out of the house and rarely have an early morning appointment, we don’t rely on an alarm clock to wake us up, but rather choose to wake up gradually when we feel we’ve gotten enough sleep.  It was when we were sleeping for 8 or 9 hours a night and still feeling tired and sapped that we knew we needed to make some changes. We both felt like we were a bit zombie like, and not getting enough nutrition from our food.

So here it is, the end of May, and we’ve settled back into the summer routine with Geoff’s Timberline Forestry consulting business. Geoff’s been working on his contracts for landowners, stomping through the woods, and walking for miles a day carrying heavy gear.  He’ll be the first to admit that he needs to be in optimal health, and he realized that after eating the way we did on our cross-country journey he added some extra pounds.   

For me, it’s an entirely different set of circumstances.  Having a neuromuscular syndrome called Charcot Marie Tooth Syndrome, my muscles don’t receive the appropriate transmission from my brain and therefore don’t contract and function properly, causing atrophy.  I’ve worn leg braces since I was five, and have had countless “corrective” surgeries since age six including tendon transfers, bone grafts, ankle fusions, and whatever else my neurologists at the time deemed helpful. 

Because I do have muscle atrophy and have mobility difficulties it’s important for me to stay lean and not be carrying around any extra weight or I run the risk of falling.  Having fallen last spring while walking in my house I broke my foot in two places and tore the ligaments that connect the calf muscle to the side of the foot.  Thankfully I don’t need those ligaments due to having my ankles fused, but three months in a wheelchair rather did me in.  I found driving my Jeep or even walking across the room to be far too challenging on some days. 

That injury was one of my biggest motivators in the push for leaving Michigan last winter.  I didn’t want to risk a slip on the ice and another injury while still attempting to recover strength from the last one.  After having some rather frightening issues with difficulties driving the Jeep I decided to sell it and make some major changes. 

A couple of weeks ago Geoff happened to be in our local health food store when he glanced at their bookshelf and saw a book entitled “Are You Confused? ” by Dr. Paavo Airola.  With as tired and run down as we’d been feeling, the title smacked Geoff in the face and he borrowed the book and started reading it that evening.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen Geoff so motivated or enlightened by any book he’s read, but the light bulb in his head went off and the connection between diet and health seemed to click more than it ever had in the past.  We decided that a juice fast as outlined in the book would be good for both of us.  Detoxing the body and nourishing your cells with fresh, organic produce is a fantastic regimen, and to date, we’ve seen nothing that can drop weight and fat faster.

This fast consists of no more than 48 ounces of freshly juiced fruit OR vegetable juice a day.  Organic is important, as is not mixing fruits with vegetables except where lemons are concerned.   We opted for fruit juice in the morning (diluted 50% with water), and vegetable juice for lunch and dinner.  We have been drinking a detox tea every day, as well as rose hip and chamomile tea, and all the water we want.
 
Also included in the regimen is daily dry brushing (exfoliating) your skin with a loofah or natural bristle brush prior to taking a bath or shower.  It’s important to sweat out toxins through your skin.  The dry brushing speeds up cellular regeneration and removes dry, dead skin cells. 

A daily enema is also required.  I know, I know.  Ick, right?  I didn’t want to undergo that either, however, it’s a must.  When you’re not eating a regular diet consisting of fiber, digestion slows down and food sits and ferments inside your colon.  Having done a cleanse in the past and feeling like I was going to die during the detoxification process, I can attest that this is the number one difference to the number two problem. The detox symptoms that I had (headache and chills) immediately went away after flushing the waste out, and it’s amazing how much better we both feel after our morning routine.  (Thankfully we have two bathrooms!)

Geoff has been interested in dietary changes for a while now, and this isn’t the first time we’ve tweaked our diet. Two years ago he did some research on calorie restricted diets and followed those recommendations and went on a diet consisting of mostly vegetables, some fruits, nuts and low fat meats, but a high amount of lean protein. Being a visual person, he documented weight and body fat changes daily for over three months.  

As of this morning, Geoff has lost 11.6 pounds on this juice fast in the past six days.  It took him 6 days to accomplish what it took 53 days to achieve on the previous diet.  His calculations show that of those 11.6 pounds, 5.0 pounds were fat and 6.6 was lean mass.  The lean mass loss is undesired, however the main goal of the fast is a body detoxification process.  Although weight loss can occur rapidly it shouldn’t be a primary goal for undergoing a fast.

In the past six days on this juice fast, Geoff has dropped as much in fat as it took him 25 days on the previous diet to achieve. Dropping fat is Geoff’s number one priority, so for him, this is an astounding result.  Geoff’s physique is much leaner and most of the weight has dropped from his stomach, thighs and butt. 

I’m not a huge chart and graph person, because those numbers don’t mean much to me.  With the way my body works I need to be more concerned with checking in with myself to see how I feel on a regular basis so I know if I’m overdoing something that may prove to have adverse effects to me.  

Prior to the fast I had noticed I was carrying extra weight in my stomach area and my clothes just weren’t fitting as well as they had before.  Throw an extra few pounds on me and I can really tell a huge difference getting around.  A week before the fast we cut out sugar, white flour, and preservatives to reduce the amount of detox symptoms, and I think that made a big difference.  

On this juice fast I have lost more than 2 pounds of fat, and 2 sizes on my belt.  My abs look much like they did 10 years ago- much flatter, stronger, and leaner.  I can’t detect or feel any loss of muscle.  We’ve both had ample energy on this fast to up our exercise routine and have been riding our bikes, Geoff been walking, jogging, and doing pull ups, and we’ve both been doing a number of pushup and crunches daily.  We’re both finding we don’t need nearly as much sleep, and that was one of my big concerns.

One of the more interesting changes for me that was unexpected has been seeing my pms symptoms vanish.  I would frequently get these neurological pains where it felt like the nerves in my thighs were being ripped out with tweezers, and that seems to be gone.  I also noticed that the majority of my fibercystic breast tissue is now gone, and that was something that plagued me for eons.  Currently I’m not sure if the correlation is due to the lack of meat, not eating cooked foods, or having detoxed.  Something tells me it’s the meat, but we’ll see.

Having seen the transformation we’ve undergone, both physically and mentally, we have decided that the best way to put this entire diet thing to the test is to undergo a raw food diet for the month of June and reassess how we’re dong at that point.  Geoff’s primary goal is to build lean mass, and drop more fat.  My goal is to gain strength, energy, and endurance. 

Many of you have asked us what kind of juicer we use.  We both can’t say enough good things about our Breville JE900 juicer.  It’s very economical, has a large nozzle where you put your produce so that finely slicing stuff isn’t required, the pulp comes out very dry, and clean up is a breeze. 

You might think a juice fast would require too much time, but in all actuality, the time savings involved is immense.  We’re able to juice whole apples, 6 or 7 carrots at a time, and huge handfuls of greens without standing there slicing up produce.  Our kitchen clean up now is a snap.  We can rinse the juicer out in less than five minutes. To make it even easier, we line the pulp container with a grocery bag so we can easily dump our produce scraps out back for the critters.  We’ve run the dishwasher once in the past week, rather than daily, and haven’t used the stove at all. Produce doesn’t come with much packaging so the amount of trash we’ve accumulated has drastically been reduced.  And grocery shopping has become the simplest thing ever- one department- in the front of the store- quick, easy, and efficient.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who say they could never fast because they’d get too hungry, or they can’t skip a meal.  Geoff and I both had a few hunger issues here and there on the fast, but nothing like the shaky, ravenous feeling we get when eating regularly and skipping a meal.  Oddly, having decided to break the fast today we both ate an apple an hour or so after our morning fruit juice and we’re both hungrier now than expected.  Heck, a pizza sounds great, but I know that would be a horrible idea.  ;) 

We’ll be posting some juice recipes we’ve been using- some we love and some we’d rather NEVER try again.  We’ll also be posting updates about how we’re doing when we undergo the raw food challenge starting June 1st.  My intention is to continue to eliminate sugar, white flour, and fatty meats until then, while Geoff is going to gradually break the fast over the next three days (extremely critical!) and then eat whatever he wants for a couple of days to see how he feels.  

Despite whether or not a complete juice fast is something you want to undertake, the health and nutrition you can gain by adding freshly juiced drinks to your existing diet will make a big impact.

We welcome your input and comments, and hope you follow along with us on this journey.  It’s one we never intended to take, but these unexpected journeys are sometimes the most enlightening and rewarding.