Reflecting on my juice feast.

Well I haven't posted in a while, I've been trying to process all that I went through with the juice feast. I had a lot of trouble drinking the recommended 16 cups of juice. I had my ups and downs some days I wanted to quit and others I enjoyed the process. It was difficult to get used to making so many juices all day. I was really getting sick of ALL juices. I stopped my fast after 8 days, my body just could not go to 10 days.

When I broke my fast I had a green smoothies and some Italian prune plums. After that my body just craved fats. I ate nuts and seeds, which I was not supposed to do until at least day 3. I even ate some chicken. I was craving foods that I had given up and stopped thinking about until after my fast. It was because my body wanted fats, it just wanted to feel full.

Perhaps if I drank enough juice on my fast I would not have felt this way. There is no way to tell, it was a new experience for me. I am so glad I did it.The group support was amazing! Enough time has past since the fast that I'm actually thinking of doing another one this spring. I never thought I would feel that way or ever want to juice again. For a few days after the fast I could not go near my juicer. But about 3 days later I did juice again and I have been ever since.

After the juice fast I let myself eat whatever I wanted and feel how ever I wanted without judgement. I knew I would be back on track in no time. Giving myself this permission made that period of feeling off balance last only a few days. I did stick to a mostly raw diet, but I was not eating as clean as I was before the fast.

I am so glad that I am back on track now and feeling good.

Get me out of the kitchen

Cooking dinner for my family on the weeknights is NOT my favorite activity. I never know what to make. I always feel like I recycle the same recipes week after week and nobody likes my food. How did this happen to me? There was a time when I loved making dinner. I was once a big foodie.

Then finally I had a very important breakthrough. I went away with my two awesome sisters for the weekend and I shared my lack of enthusiasm in the kitchen with them. Since they are both really good cooks they gave me so many great recipes and ideas. When I got back home I had a new energy and I was ready to try to love cooking dinner again. Somehow when I tried to implement their ideas I still dreaded cooking. What was I doing wrong?

My breakthrough occurred when I realized I had control over this situation. I was making it much more complicated than it had to be. I decided that I would find some delicious raw food recipes that my family and I would simply love and pair them with their meat dishes. I looked for recipes that were simple and full of flavor. I went old school and got some blank index cards and wrote the recipes on the card. If they were too long to write I skipped over them. It made making dinner a pure pleasure again. Somehow writing the recipes down caused me to get excited about food again.

I also realized my sisters loved cooking because they found a way to make simple and delicious recipes. They recited their recipes with so much enthusiasm,they loved food and they loved to cook and it showed. I needed to create that same feeling for myself, and I finally did.

Instead of trying to make two dinners I started to make one dinner that always included raw vegetables plus a cooked dish. Sometimes I ate the cooked dish and sometimes I only ate the raw one.

I also realized that I like to chop fruits and vegetables and make beautiful salads, but I don't like cooking on the stove. I have always been this way even when I was on a primarily cooked diet. I'm glad that making dinner is no longer the huge stress that it once was. It has made my nights so much more enjoyable.