He keeps going...

He, K, keeps juicing. He says he wants to shoot for a week at least...to break some not-so-good habits. I can dig it.
A, and I (that would be me) get up in the morning to make juice for K to take to work.
We have this down.
That first morning was a bear. A booger. Wow. It was long and hard.
Now we just churn it out.
That first morning we were still cleaning up four hours later.
Now...we stroll down around 6 and we are cleaned up and sending him out the door by 7.
Amazing.

Are you amazed?

Let me tell you how we do it.

First...we are now only juicing for one person. That first morning we were juicing for all 3 of us.
I think that could be important.

But....it isn't just that. We have a system. It really works. Listen.

Around 4 or 5 pm get out all the produce for the next days juicing.
Wash it, chop it, and store it in the fridge.
If you are doing apples, juice your lemons over the top of the chopped apples so they won't brown.
Celery, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, anything else that we have used....all stay fine until the next morning.
For lettuces and greens, spread out a clean bath towel, place your freshly washed and chopped lettuce on the towel, roll it up like a burrito and put it in the fridge...nice and crisp and ready in the morning.
Now, clean off your counter, (after supper if need be).
Spread out a clean bath towel. (use an old one cuz this stuff can stain)
Put your blender, a large bowl, nut-mylk bags, clean jars, and rubber gloves (really help protect the hands if the enzymes are chapping) on top of the towel.
I also set out a lemon, MSM, and honey so I can make lemon water first thing.
Now, if you start out with a clean sink you can make the juice and be completely cleaned up before you know it!
That vitamix really is easy to clean.
As for the rest...I shake any stray leaves off the bath towels, rinse off the nut-mylk bags and put them with the towels, gather any kitchen towels I used in clean up (we tend to get water and juice drops everywhere) and head to the washer.


So simple.

My daughter called me a weirdo.

Today my daughter called me a weirdo.
If you read the last post you do not need to question her declaration.
It was the last sentence that did her in.

In other news...as of 3:30 pm...day 3...K and A are still in this juicing thing.
K is at work. We shall see if he makes it through the day. Dealing with blood sugar issues must make it so difficult for him. I have the utmost respect for his ability to stick to it. I just do not know if he wants to. Freedom is a beautiful thing.

A is trying to modify the way she is juicing. She felt sooo terrible over the weekend. Somewhere, sometime I had read about people having sensitivity to sulfur. Sulfur is in so many of the foods we eat when we are eating healthy. Greens especially. Also onions, garlic, meats, dairy, eggs, cabbage, broccoli, kale...on and on. We have known for a long time that onions give the girl a raging headache. Maybe now we know why.
So, lettuces are not high in this compound. (Thiols to be more precise) Neither are melons, avocados, carrots, citrus, or ginger. Again the list is long. We are going to try to juice her up with the safe list for a good week and see how she feels. This could really be a turning point in her overall health. I am excited to see.

Stay tuned for some juicing pictures. I know you are excited!!

92 days...

It sure felt like ninety-two days. But it was only two.

Two.

That is how long I made it on this little journey.
By the end of Sunday I was ready to throw my GVJ (green vegetable juice) right up against my pretty yellow kitchen wall. I downed my last quart for the day and stood at the sink praising God that I didn't have to look at another jug of juice for 12 whole hours. I had been feeling pretty good compared to the other feasters in the house. They both had headaches and over all chills and flu-ish feelings. I had none of that. But I was starting to feel a little panicked by the dark circles and general blech of my sweeties. I do not function well when they are sick. (It is all about me, isn't it?) I started feeling a little weepy thinking about detox and more detox. Even tho I was "feeling" pretty ok in my body...my mind and emotions were a mess.

Also, my stomach was burning like a...like a...well, it was burning. A lot.
I am used to the burn since I have an ulcer. I don't do tomatoes or pineapples because they cause my stomach to start to digest itself. Ewww....Anyway...I am used to the burn. I know how to handle it. I was not ok with the burn after every jug of juice. Not. o.k.
Then, mix in my hangups about loved ones and their health, eating habits of the general population, terrorist scare tactics of the health food community and the pressure of downing 4 quarts of liquid that looks suspiciously like stomach acid and you have one sure fire cocktail o' trouble.
(not that the Juice Feasting people are perpetrators of terrorist scare tactics...it is just really easy to read tons of scary stuff when you are researching the finer points of enemas.)

So what is a girl to do?
I chose to bail. And cry. It is my prerogative, right? (is that how you spell that? spell check says it is...hmmmm)
Anyway, crying. big sigh. I promised my girl that I would not make a final decision at 10pm. I would wait until morning. Things always look brighter in the morning.

6am. time to make the donuts. (if only) Actually, time to make the juice for my honey to take to work. Rejoicing ensued.
(Not from my honey...unfortunately. He grinned and took it like a man but I can't say that he was excited by that sweet little cooler of GVJ.)
No, the rejoicing was coming from me. I did a little snoopy dance at every single thought of not drinking any more of the green stuff. Every....single....thought....dance, dance, dance....ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Now? Now I am sipping Master Cleanse lemonaide. It is nice. I may actually do this for a bit. We shall see how the tummy takes it. I may return quickly to a raw food diet. I am going to see how long I can do the Master Cleanse. I got past the two first killer days so I may as well ride this wave a bit longer. Might be just what my body needs.
Besides...I kinda like the enemas.
Refreshing.

Some things you need to know...

Day one...a list.

1. You know when you drink a ton of water and you laugh and you can hear the water slurgling around in your insides? Well that same exact thing happens when you do an enema.

2. Note to self...don't laugh too hard when you do an enema. No matter how silly you feel.

3. Hot water bottles/enema bags look like whoopie cushions to a 10 year old.

4. Making 3 gallons of juice takes a lot longer to make than you would think. Figure on 1 hr per gallon.

5. Old bath towels spread out all over the counters saves a ton of clean up later.

6. Popeye forearms are in. Aren't they?

7. It takes a lot of strength to milk a spinach.

8. Spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, ginger juice is not so bad.

9. Ninety-one more days of spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, apple, lemon, ginger juice is really not a pleasant prospect...no matter how Pollyanna you try to be.

10. Prep work done the night before could save your life.

11. Prep includes all washing and chopping that can possibly be done ahead of time.

12. Prep is ninety percent of the work.

13. Green Vegetable juice really stains around the edges of your fingernails.

14. If you drop some kale, or apple, or cucumber on the floor and you pick it up and put it in your blender...no one will ever know the difference.

15. If you have a 9 yr. old in the kitchen, chances are he will rat you out if you pick something up off the floor and stick it in the blender.

Remember, this is for your good, for your benefit, for your health. You are worth it. This won't last forever and there is joy to be found in the journey. Remind me of this later.

Disclaimer

A Disclaimer:

I am not a doctor...I do not play one on TV.
Got that?
Anything you read here is about me and my journey. Not you. Not your journey. Seriously. Sounds selfish, I know.
Mostly I just want you to know that I have done TONS of research into this. I am doing this because it is what seems best for me at this time. I don't want anyone to look at what I do and ever ever think that I am recommending that you do the same. You have to make that decision for yourself. I read a beautiful paragraph and disclaimer over on Angela Stokes-Monarch's site...rawreform.blogspot.com. I post it here now as a ditto to what she said. (I hope I have not breached any blog protocol in copying this section. If I have please let me know and I will come up with my own disclaimer. It just won't be as good as this one. )

So...what she said...

"...I am sharing my own experiences in this blog, not giving guidelines for others." Angela Stokes-Monarch

Disclaimer:
This blog is not designed to, and does not, provide medical advice. All content, including text, graphics, images and information available on or through this blog are for general informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. You take full legal responsibility for whatever decisions you make regarding your own health care. This material is offered solely for educational purposes. The suggestion is that you think clearly for yourself and make your own decisions, with the input of a licensed health professional should you choose to consult one.

A New Beginning...

Wow! It has been a looooong time. How have you been? Anyone? Anyone? *crickets*

Ah well. So think of this as a new beginning.

If you stumble across this blog and look backwards you will find an archive of house renovation and a few tidbits of family life. If you look forward you will find our journey into the world of juicing. Juice Feasting to be exact.







http://juicefeasting.com (go here to see more)





Three of us...from this point on known as K, A, and B... will be entering a 92 day Juice Feast.






This is different from a fast. This is fruits and vegetable (greens) juices to the tune of a gallon or more a day. Just typing that makes me burp.


This "feast" is designed to cleanse and rebuild your body, not shut it down into fasting mode. Cleansing and re-building. I need that.

If you are here looking for Juice Feasting it could be that you are wanting some support, some camaraderie, or maybe some laughs as you chew your tasty morsels and laugh at the crazies and their straws.

Eh...whatever.

I am here, typing, as a way to journal. If you want to follow along you are welcome.
I am going to be point blank in a lot of posts as we journey. No holds barred. I am writing for myself first. (that alone will be a challenge) Again, you are welcome to come along for the ride!

You might find measurements, raw emotional spillage, poop reports, and/or everything in between.

Might be embarrassing.

Could be fun.

Certainly, it will be an adventure!

Hang on!!

So what happened?...

This is an attempt to fill in the blogging holes I left on this food journey. I am not a very good diary maker. Still...I want a record. So I am going to try and remember and write. Here goes....
......................................................................................................

That raw food thing. Yeah. I didn't do very well with that.
Let's just say I got surly.


Surly is a good word.
Raw food can be icky. It can be tasteless. It can make your jaw cramp from chewing so much roughage. It can make your poop green...constantly. It can make you think bad thoughts about the food ..... the lovely lovely cooked food, and the people, the despicable carnivores that love to rub their warm lovely cooked sustenance into your face....eating the food at your lovely dinner table. Evil thoughts. (yeah I know that didn't make sense...deal with it)

I couldn't hack it ok? Hush.

I tried it. It was hard. Also...ulcer. I got one.

I think I have had an ulcer for years. A gnawing little pain up under my left ribcage. It hasn't bothered me much. Just a little pinch now and then.

Then...I started eating lots and lots and lots of enzymes. Raw tomato sauce, raw pineapple, raw everything. One pineapple too many and I woke with lots of burning in my stomach. Then it progressed to pain. Agony. Childbirth type agony.

I went to the doctor. I praised God for that acid suppressing pill. Praised God I tell ya.
Ok dear reader...if you do not know me well you will not think much of that last statement. You do not have the benefit of knowing that, for the most part, I think medical doctors are a waste of time and money. Personally I know some very fine doctors. I believe that they do their very best to do no harm. But doctors in general...nope. Not for me.

Then I met my ulcer. He doesn't play nice.

Ok, so I took the evil pharmaceuticals. And I felt sooo much better. And I started researching about how taking these kinds of meds can lead to severe malnutrition (because you are suppressing your stomach acid...thus not digesting your food properly) and how your skin gets brittle and your hair starts falling out. EEEEK!!
Also...the dr. wanted me to take two different kinds of antibiotics to heal this little bug that had caused the ulcer. no. no. NO.

So I did even more research into how to heal an ulcer naturally.
I found out that there are two different schools of thought on ulcers. Either you make too much acid...or you don't make enough. If you make too much you start to digest yourself. If you dont make enough you set yourself up for invaders like H. pilori...the little bug that causes ulcers. See your stomach acid kills these little buggers. But if you don't make enough acid...they can bury into your stomach lining and cause a sore place. (think canker sore) and then when you do have acid in your stomach it eats away at the sore place making it bigger and meaner. Then if you blast yourself...like I did...(eating all so healthy and all I was consuming enormous amounts of live digestive enzymes. My stomach was not used to it. My ulcer was ill prepared. It said HEY! cut that out!!)
So what do I do now?? Well...it seemed logical to protect the wound, heal it, and continue to find a healthier way to eat so that I could digest properly.

I began by finding out how to protect and heal.
Here is what I found.
Licorice and cabbage.
More specifically...LDG licorice. Where they take out the part that raises your blood pressure. What is left is stuff that increases your stomach mucus so that you don't continue to digest yourself.
Cabbage...high in glutamine. Glutamine is something that helps in wound healing. An ulcer is a wound. Athletes take glutamine to help their muscles regenerate after a work out.
Glutamine tablets are concentrated. They also don't taste bad like cabbage does. (Later I would get back to cabbage juice but for now I did the tablets)

Cutting out pineapples and tomatoes. High in acid. High in digestive enzymes. I will try them again someday but not soon. I miss salsa. Sigh.

I amended my raw ways by adding in brown rice and turkey. Oh my goodness. Cooked food. Warm food. Lovely.
I still ate lots of raw but tried to stay away from acidic foods.
Bland.
I like bland.

I did this for awhile. I let my stomach rest. I did good. Smile.

This is April. This is where I am. Eating bland. Lots of fresh food. No tomato sauces. No salsa. Makes me sad to remember it.
Rice, turkey, chicken, salad....fruits and veges. It is a good diet.

Next we are going to jump to middle of summer and a mad mad attempt at yet another...deeper...level of health.

Stay tuned.

Day two...eating Raw

Here is a rant I posted over on the RAW blog. It aint pretty.

Well, since this is a RAW blog I'm gonna be raw.
I hated day one. (We did day one yesterday.)
I think it will get better. I hope. It will get better...right?
Actually, eating raw for breakfast is no big deal. Even raw for lunch. But by dinner I would give my left arm...or your left arm...for a piece of meat. If not meat then just some corn chips. ahhhhh.....
To be faced with a salad...well...after a few hundred bites of enzymes I look at my near future with disdain. I can "see" the benefits before me but the enemy is vicious. "it's not worth it"...whisper whisper whisper.
This morning things do look brighter, but the evening seems like a not so good ending to my day. big sigh.
I am going on faith...from what you have blogged...from what my daughter is telling me (she is a food nazi by the way) ...that my tastes will change and I will get with the program.
I told her that I am big enough and sneaky enough that I could find a way to score me a big nacho salad if I really wanted to. I am choosing this journey of raw...choosing it. But I gotta at least be able to vent some verbal angst. I think you call it "dealing with your stuff". Yeah...that's what I am doing. It is all a part of the deeper cleanse. Right? right! :-)
Ok enough about me. Here we go with day 2.

test

Just seeing if I can post something in arrears. (giggle. )

Day one...the RAW food challenge.

Following the lead of the awesomeness over at RAW...
http://www.greenhousearts.com/raw/2010/03/day-59-recipe-blast-whos-with-me.html#comments

We have a raw food challenge folks. Eating raw for 30 days...can she do it?

Here is a comment I posted over at RAW...check the sidebar for the link.
..................................................................................................................................

Ok, I am saying that I might possibly go for this. Don;t you feel encouraged?
A little about me...gluten free, dairy free, caffeine free, chocolate free, mostly sugar free, (absolutely chemical sweetener free!). Seems like raw would not be that much of a stretch. Well...I do love my fajitas. big sigh. And beans...can you eat those raw?
Seriously, my goal is to try to finish strong on the Raw- 30 day- challenge. I look forward to my body getting to a state of clean purity. (my gut anyway ;-)
Then I hope to have a lifestyle that is very very high in raw foods with some lean grilled chicken or at least cooked legumes thrown in at regular intervals.
I also hope to get my hubby to join me (and my daughter) in on this.
So Christie, you have 3 here lining up and waiting for the gun. (that would be the starting gun...even tho it does feel like I just smoked my last cigarette.)

Bring in the clowns!

Groucho Josh.
Max the musician.
Ethan the eating machine.

The Princess is ONE!

The Princess is now one year old. Cute, isn't she?!!

Andi is 14!

Mercy's Birth Slideshow

holy cow, i'm five months old!

ain't i the sweetest?

Merry Christmas, Again

 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 

i'm free monfs ode!

And ain't i just the cutest little thing ever.













Ah......look at me, just look at me.












i am the princess

Sleeping

Sometimes, this is how I sleep.

 

Thank you for the quilt Grandma Grace!

Thank you for the quilt Grandma Grace! It's nice and comfy.
















It makes me smile.