Today I felt great, until after my second juice. Then I began having some intestinal discomfort that was not like what I experienced eariler in the fast; in fact, it felt icky enough to make me worry that perhaps I should stop with the juice-only business. That, coupled with some other things (you don't want to hear about) has led me to believe my body doesn't want just juice anymore, and that it is time for me to incorporate a meal into my day. This is going to sound really weird, but this isn't my choice, it's my body's choice. I feel like I could easily keep going on juice from a mental standpoint and part of me misses it already; the simplicity, the lack of thinking about 'what's for dinner', how clean and perfect things feel. My body, however, feels otherwise and has made that abundantly clear, and so I am going to start slowly adding some whole, plant-based foods into my diet and see how things go.
This morning I had a mixed juice with my daughter that was so much sweeter than I could have expected. For lunch I had cucumber-celery-apple, which I drank too fast and did not especially like as it was...too cucumbery. I plan to keep up at least two juices per day and see if the added meal makes it easier for my body to tolerate in the longer term. My daughter and I will still be doing our morning juice; I wouldn't give that up for anything.
One thing I will not be doing is re-incorporating any meat, dairy, eggs, or processed foods into my diet. I don't have any desire for them and I don't feel they agree with me very well. What I am desiring very much is beans, which have always been a favorite food of mine. I am looking forward to healthy bean dishes and soups, and have already started accumulating recipes.
One important thing I am focusing on is something Joe Cross says in his documentary, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." And that is, "If you can't do as long as you planned and you manage to do three, seven, ten days, good on you. That's a success." I feel that as long as I build on the groundwork of health I have built up inside me, I'll be able to continue feeling as fantastic as I have. I think we as a society have a hard time believe that if we aren't perfect, or things don't go as perfectly as we'd planned, then the entire business was for naught, useless. I have never felt further from that; I feel so successful in what I have achieved, in the way I have reset my food preferences, and how I cleaned out so much junk from my body.
I plan to keep posting about the juicing and the other foods I am making and eating with my family, because I think having a written history will allow me to pinpoint successes and remember what worked and what did not work as well. I also think my family is a good example of how these kinds of foods can be incorporated into a lifestyle, even by people who ate a lot of SAD (Standard American Diet) foods for a very long time. If I can make these things, and have my husband and child not only eat them but enjoy them, anyone can. And that is the direction Alphabet Juice is going to go. I hope you will come with me!
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