it was a trip

Golly, it's been a long time since I've written. We've been back from the Bat Mitzvah trip for quite some time, so here's the update: the trip was quite wonderful. The Bat Mitzvah....ehhhh....it was okay, I guess. It really was so much like a wedding, just with different speeches and rituals. A great big gob of crazed thirteen year olds dancing and running around like crazy persons, juxtaposed with people my age and older, sitting there watching the crazy persons. Then sitting around watching everyone eat course after course. It wasn't miserable, but it wasn't fun, really. The exception was the surprise that I had in seeing a half dozen or so people from my former corporate life. A small collection of some of my favorite people, whom I haven't seen in a decade. That was really, really great. The other nice surprise was how wonderfully sweet and well-behaved my little Olivia was. She really was, outside of the guest of honor, the belle of the ball. I did look pretty darned good at the Bat Mitzvah, I would say, but I didn't hold a candle to Livi. I wish some of the pictures of the two of us had turned out better, but they're all quite dark and grainy. This is the best of the two of us, though Livi looks a little sullen.

The rest of the trip was great! We went to a harvest festival with my mom, my sister and her daughter. It was a great time with photo ops galore. I love that kind of festival. It really puts me squarely in fall, and signals the beginning of the series of holidays. Good smells, crisp air, and a bazillion children, all happy. Here I am with Livi and her cousin Helen on the hayride.

We also all met up with my brother and his family, for the first time in a very long time. It was great to see their two boys, and all the children together. At the risk of over-picturing (that's a term, isn't it?), I'm going to slip in a photo of the four crazy cousins. We haven't had a gathering like that in some time...a mini-reunion, of sorts. If only my sister Jen could have made it, the evening would have been complete.

Oh, the food! The food! We met up at an Italian restaurant, and I must confess, the aromas and sights were tickling my senses. But I had to enjoy all things vicariously through my family, and my happiness at seeing them and being with them fed my soul. Yes, it was a lovely trip.

For my juice feasting (yes, yes, the road to health is what this blog is about, but my emotional wellness took precedence in this post), I had an interesting, and not too difficult time. I took some mixes of some freeze-dried juices on the trip, which Michael and I have used on occasion just as a meal replacement sometimes, but never on the juice feast. I drank some juices on the road, none of them ideal, and I ended up having way more fruit juice than I usually do (which is nearly none). I had my green food every day, but I didn't have what Michael and I call our "eye opener", which is the lemon water with the MSM. Could have been psychological, but I missed it, and I missed my green juice. Very much.

Turns out, coincidentally, that I'm going to do something very similar for a few days, since I'm leaving with Olivia in the morning to visit my mom for a few days. There are simply no places within a reasonable radius to get fresh juice, though we may venture into the city (Philadelphia) to check out a couple there. This time I'm taking the lemons and MSM, just so it will seem more like home...

I've been doing really well with the exercise. I typically row pretty hard on the rowing machine for ten minutes, speed walk on an inclined treadmill for ten, and do a fairly slow stint on the stairclimber for ten. Then I do the weight-training circuit, which takes about 20 minutes. I love the fitness center I joined, and I love working out, more than I ever have before. I know it is because I'm so happy with the results of the JF, and the way I'm looking and feeling. I'm so motivated to do well, and it's really showing. I am proud of myself, and I love being able to say that.

sausage-y or bunchy?

It's been a while since my last post (sounds like I'm blogging from a confessional). No reason, just busy. Everything is still going just swimmingly, and I'm happy to say that I'm nearly two thirds of the way through the Juice Feast! Today is Day 59.

Since I FINALLY joined the fitness center a couple of weeks ago, I've been going several times per week. I've lost a pretty profound amount of weight for the short time I've been on the JF, but since I've started going to the gym I'm really noticing the difference that working out makes. I so wish I had gotten my tookus in gear a little earlier. Both my strength and endurance are increasing rapidly. I can even see and feel myself toning up, just in the couple of weeks since I started. Amazing.

I am finally experiencing a detox symptom: I'm cranky! I waited and waited for detox symptoms to come during the feast (I'd heard so many good stories of things like headaches, digestive distress, and other goodies befalling the juicefeaster), and this is what I get? Cranky? I would rather have something that affected only me, like an ache or pain, but being cantankerous hurts the whole family. I'd better get over it.

In my last entry, I mentioned how horribly I was sleeping. No longer. I've switched to oversleeping. As in, for the past couple of days, Michael has already made the juice - - all of it - -as I enjoy my ninth hour of sleep! That's crazy! I rolled out of bed at 8:30 this morning. 8:30! Am I still allowed to be a mother if I wake up at 8:30? This morning, Olivia told me she was "starving" for breakfast. Sniff. That's just sad. It is nice of Michael to let me sleep...

Here is the strangest thing I have noticed that I do during the Juice Feast. It is not new, but I've never mentioned it before: when I read, I read cookbooks, and when I watch TV, I watch cooking shows. How absolutely insane is that? I can not explain that. Especially when I couldn't sleep, I found myself watching Anthony Bourdain No Reservations (my favorite) into the wee hours. I am marking all sorts of recipes, and making meal plans. My sister the chef, and her daughter were here last weekend, and we sat around my dining room table, looking through cookbooks. It is a wee bit crazy for a girl who hasn't eaten for two months, and won't eat for another.

I have also been cooking up a crazy storm. The exchange student from the Dominican Republic that my friend Joan is hosting (remember her? her family only eats rice, beans and chicken?) mentioned that one of her favorite foods was lasagna. It was her birthday, so I volunteered to make a lasagna and take it over. I doubled the recipe, and made one to freeze. I made them completely from scratch, and it took me forever, but I loved it. I've made involved soups and sauces for Olivia, and I really go overboard when my mom comes to visit (frequently), and I have two victims to cook for. I've been spending a lot more time cooking than I do when I'm eating. What is that?

The Bat Mitzvah is this weekend, and I still haven't figured out how I'm going to juice! We have to travel and stay overnight for two nights, and though I know others have done it, I will not be shlepping my Omega juicer to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania so that I can juice in my hotel room! I can just see that spectacle. Instead, I guess I'll juice enough for all of Friday and Saturday (though Saturday's juices will be "dead", sadly...that's just too long for them to remain vital), but I'll have to figure something out for Sunday. Perhaps I'll search for juice bars in the area. Or maybe I'll just take my citrus reamer, and drink lemon and orange juice. Can you imagine the digestive system excitement? Oh, the woes of a traveling juicefeaster...

I got myself a dress for the occasion. The good news is I dropped four sizes in two months. The bad news is the dress is already a little too big, so that when I tie it in front, it bunches all up. Sigh. Still, I expect to look pretty snazzy. Hey, it's better than the alternative, right? Trying to squeeze into a dress like a sausage that's too big for its casing...never a good look. I'll take bunchy.

it was an accident

So, how pitiful is this? I'm well aware of how important it is to exercise, but I am almost halfway through the juice feast (it's day 44) and I have FINALLY fulfilled my own commitment to join the gym. Outside of a couple of walks, I've only now started up. I'm so angry at my lack of motivation, and no matter how tempting it is to "go easy" on myself, I think I'll channel this anger into some killer workouts. Yeah. That's it.

So I go to the fitness center a couple of days ago, and get the initial evaluation of height, weight, measurements, etc., and I tell the evaluator that I do not want to know my weight. I tell her I'm on a juicing program, and I vowed not to know until it was over. Eureka! I have discovered the only other person in the entire county of Cape May who is pro-juice feast! She has a friend who completely cured herself of fibromyalgia through juice feasting. Fine, she says, and writes my weight down without telling me.

Later, as she walks me through the weight machine circuit, she's explaining a certain something I'm not understanding (there's a big surprise), so she makes a little drawing on my evaluation sheet. And there it was, plain as day. My weight. I saw it. It was an accident!

After I got over the initial disappointment of seeing it, I said to myself, "Really? 174? 174?! Alright!". Because, after some quick math, I realized that I had lost 21 pounds in 42 days. Go me! And here I had thought I was still around 180 or so. So, as it turns out I'm not really disappointed having seen it, though I am going to avoid knowing my weight for the rest of the JF. It's actually kind of nice to know around the halfway point, and it spurs me on.

Today was my first workout, and I feel really good. I did about 20 minutes of cardio, 20 minutes of the weight circuit, some stretches, and 50 sit-ups on the ball. I will feel this tomorrow, undoubtedly, but I always like that. My aim is to also take two Pilates classes a week, but we'll see how well a four-year old in the morning and a 7:30 gym class mix. Michael's been doing our juicing lately (!), so those mornings might just work out fine.

I'm sleeping horribly. This is a change from earlier in the feast, when I slept like a log. It's one thing to need less sleep, which was the case for several weeks, but now I'm just not getting enough. I'm having a hard time falling asleep (lots on my mind, some good stuff and some concerns), waking up a lot overnight, and waking up early without the ability to get back to sleep. I might have to use some melatonin. That works for me, but I really like not taking anything on the feast. I must do something, though, or I'm likely to turn into Dragon Lady.

I'm invited to my best friend's daughter's Bat Mitzvah on the 25th of this month, my first ever. I am going to wait until the last minute to get my outfit (Danger, Will Robinson!). After all, who knows what size I'll be? Will I still have to find a strategic way to hide my belly? Will I still have to find a clever cut of skirt of pants to camouflage my thighs? Did any of that ever work? Sigh. It's only three weeks away, and as miraculous as the JF has been (really, really miraculous for me, in so many ways), I still have a long way to go and lots of work to do.

Still, I am so very happy with all that it has brought me, and more importantly, all that it has taken away. Let me take a few days to be content with myself, and to be proud of myself. For this is not always easy.

foot-long

Last night I dreamed that I was running a marathon. In the middle of the marathon, I passed a foot-long hot dog vendor. I decided, as I was running, to break my juice feast then and there, with a foot-long hot dog. I kept on running as I stuffed down the foot-long.

This is disturbing on many levels. First, I have never run a marathon, and, while it may be possible to start training at the age of 44, it's damned unlikely. Secondly, I've never eaten a foot-long hot dog in my life (I wish I could say I'd never eaten a hot dog in my life, but...), and I certainly wouldn't choose a tube of pork parts, of all things, to break a juice feast with. Very unceremonial. Not to mention, it's been drummed into our heads since youth: don't run after eating. Imagine how much worse running while eating must be. And I don't even want to speculate on anything Freudian.

Most importantly, I have no intention of breaking my juice feast in the near future. It hasn't even crossed my mind not to go the full 92 days. So what was that all about? One could reach the obvious conclusion that the marathon represents the juice feast, and the hot dog clearly represents the decision to break the feast. But seriously, a hot dog?

Actually, Michael and I have talked about extending the juice feast. I originally scheduled the JF the way I did to end a few days before Thanksgiving, so, while we wouldn't be chomping on turkey legs (well, I can't speak for Michael), we would be able to sit down and "break bread", as it were, with family. I have thought many times about going a bit longer, though Michael was the first one to bring it up.

Now, "going a bit longer" means something different for him than it does for me. Not once on the JF have I strayed from the program (unless you count the things I'm not doing as frequently as I'm supposed to). Michael has only had about 6 or 7 full days out of the forty in which he hasn't eaten a morsel. We're on different programs, here. He's lost more weight than I have, he's in better health than he's been in a long time, and I'm not criticizing him. Just stating a fact.

The fact is, a person has to finally break the feast. It must be done for physiological reasons as well as emotional. Recently, on the juicefeasting.com website, founder David Rain addressed this. He spoke of the necessity of breaking the feast for those two reasons:

The question that is arising for you is part of a common basket of feelings and contemplations as we approach the end of a Juice Feast:

Can I continue?
What will life be like after the Juice Feast?
I wish I could just keep drinking juice...
Will my health continue to improve?

We have had people Juice Feast as long as 120 Days (and a few folks who have been obese have gone longer). Physiologically, you need to see if it is wise to continue. If you still have weight to lose, or are not 10% or more below your ideal weight range, then you can take things out a few more weeks.

The reason that we cannot go on juices forever is that fiber, long-term, is a necessary nutrient for proper digestive function. Your bowel relies on fiber to form bowel movements. Long-term, fiber acts like a broom to sweep the walls of your intestinal tract and bowel clean. Fiber also delays gastric emptying, which serves to lower the glycemic index of the food you eat by delaying the release of carbohydrate into your system. SO, it is important to transition into eating whole foods.

In terms of The Hero's Journey as described by Joseph Campbell, one of the last stages is generally called "The Return", and a possible stage is known as "Refusal of the Return," in which the hero either can't return home because of outward circumstances, or is reluctant to return home for a variety of reasons, including fear of facing one's peers, or experiencing in the same geographic or cultural context the striking difference of one's new life as opposed to where one was at before the Journey. Among Juice Feasters, we often see a tendency to Refusal of the Return, out of an understandable concern about the return of old symptoms, regaining weight beyond one's healthy weight range, or even a re-experiencing of previous emotional or mental states and stages. We must be as brave, and even more wise, as we were when we began the Journey, and this involves continuing with important Life Practices; seeking support and continued inspiration; and in short living a life that welcomes continued growth and evolution with newer, higher, wider, deeper, more significant experiences and health. All important to keep in mind as you move forward.

So eloquently stated, and so true. It occurred to me after reading it that Michael really does not face either of these concerns, since he's been eating along with JFing. He could go the rest of his life as he is now, and it would be wonderful for him. Truly. On the other hand, I have to make a decision, for my health and well-being.

David's reference to "Refusal of the Return" really resonates with me. I am afraid of going off the Juice Feast, although no one should think for a single moment that that's what keeps me on it. I am truly afraid that, even though I have the personal strength to continue this, I won't have the strength necessary to maintain healthy habits after the JF. Will I go on a binge of horrid eating? Will I eat spoonfuls of coconut oil (only partly kidding)? Does the hot dog in my dream represent my fear of how poorly I'll do post-feast? Will I be braver and wiser than I was when I began the journey? Oh, let's hope.

Thankfully, I don't have to decide right now when to break the feast. But you can bet on this: it won't be with a foot-long.

spider squirrel chicken

As I turned on the water for a shower this morning, I noticed a spider struggling desperately to make its way out. Between the water spraying it from the shower, and the water swirling down the drain, the dime-sized spider had no chance. After frantically scrabbling to get up the side of the tub, it finally just curled into a ball, and seemed ready to meet its fate. I stood for just a moment longer than I meant to, thinking that now that it was in a ball, it would slip so easily down one of the drain holes.

But I couldn’t let it happen. I turned off the shower, grabbed my daughter’s bathtub fishing pole, and scooped up the little lifeless ball. In a split second, it sprung its legs out and started crawling up the plastic pole. Now what? I just lay the pole on the bathroom floor, got in the shower, and closed the curtain. There must be hundreds of spiders in this house. Let him be. Right?

When I see a spider, I don’t consciously ask myself whether or not to kill it. I don’t want to kill spiders. But here’s the thing: this morning, I had to decide. It would have been so easy to “let it go”, rather than fish it out, but then I would have chosen for it to die. Why was I so uncomfortable afterwards? I had let it live, after all. But I guess that’s the crux of the whole thing: I had let it live. I decided.

The juice feast has given me many things for which I am grateful: weight loss, energy, spotless intestines, and collarbones, to name a few. But the mental clarity (not exactly the same as emotional clarity, for me) is astonishing. My mind was near-sighted, and now it’s wearing prescription glasses.

Metaphors in my life have heretofore been limited to the novels and poetry I’ve read. I don’t see metaphors for my life every day. Ever, actually. But this morning, it didn’t take me that long to figure out why the spider rescue made me feel so strange. It was because I couldn’t be passive. I had to decide. Even doing nothing was deciding on the spider’s fate. Doing nothing is deciding.

Doing nothing is deciding. For the past couple of years, I have known that things needed to change. There were things that needed to be acted on, decided upon. And I fooled myself into thinking that I was just “not deciding yet”. The fact is, I have been deciding. I’ve been deciding to do nothing. Doing nothing is deciding, and as far as my life goes, it is unacceptable.

Failing to make decisions for yourself is just plain pitiful. To avoid making decisions that are necessary for the happiness of someone depending on you is inexcusable. My daughter needs me to snap into action. We need to leave here. And now it has been said.
I don’t want to talk about that anymore right now.

As I drove to pick Olivia up from dance class, listening to my James Taylor’s Greatest Hits CD, I passed by the Seashore Church. Right there in the driveway was a dead squirrel. It was splayed out, headfirst, facing the road, as if it had been running from the church and had almost made it. Killed by one of the faithful. As a non-believer (sorry for anyone who didn’t know, but why hold anything back now), this amused me. Well, except for the fact that the poor squirrel was dead. At the exact moment I passed the church, with all of these thoughts in my mind, James Taylor belted out his uncharacteristic “chicken chokin’ mother f*ckin’ pain” line in the live version of Steamroller Blues*. So appropriate. Spider, squirrel, chicken. Yes, even James is talking about death today. Don’t worry. No more metaphors. Just amusing coincidence.

*Broken heart, broken heart, oh
I just don't seem to cut loose
This here low down
No where
Half life
Freeze dried
Fat fried
Chicken chokin', mother f*cking pain
Oh, roll on over
I got those steamroller blues.

This is so hard. But it’s good.

baby coconuts

Well, to change things up a little, we cracked open two young coconuts today for their "water". At the organic food store where I shop, the woman told me to use a screwdriver and a hammer to take a circular lid off the top. First get through the white husk (by the time we get them at the regular market, this husk has fallen away or been removed), and then do the same thing with the brown shell inside. Then pour out the coconut water, followed by cracking the whole thing right in half to get to the meat. Easier said than done! Still, it was fun, and a new experience, and though Michael didn't love it as much as I did, young coconut water is TO DIE FOR! Yum, I say! Triple yum! It was so refreshing, and so exotic. I can tell from its unique taste that it's not for everyone, but I do encourage any and all to try it.

While I was looking up a recipe for young coconut ice cream (no way was I going to waste the meat just because I can't have it!) for Olivia. It was there that I saw another method for opening a young coconut, which I will most definitely use next time. It involves a cleaver, which not everyone has. I, who have every kitchen appliance, gadget and utensil known to cooks, do in fact have two cleavers. Made my own recipe up in the end, using chocolate, for a chocolate coconut ice cream. Livi gobbled some up before I even had a chance to freeze it. Thumbs up from her. So, for $2.50 per coconut, quite a lovely bit of goodies.

It is Day 23 of the Juice Feast, and may I say that I feel outstanding? As I've said before, I'm just waiting for some huge detox symptoms, or 'healing crisis' to befall me. It's not at all unusual for people to experience such, and I have been reading about my co-feasters' woes every day. Many people are undergoing mood and emotional difficulties, physical detoxification symptoms, getting to the point where they've "had it" with juice, etc. I consider myself extremely fortunate not to have had any of that. But it's early yet. I'm not even a quarter of the way through.

I have dropped a pant size, which is very nice. When I put away my summer clothes (I'm starting tonight...ugh), I am actually hoping that the next time I open them up, I will be packing them to give to charity. It should happen that way, if I am able to maintain a healthy way of eating when the JF is over.

I'm to the point now where I really don't think about food much at all. It's strange, because the first couple of weeks, my thoughts were always things like "when the juice feast is over, I'm going to get myself some (insert naughty food)." Now, I've resigned myself to the fact that food is simply not available to me, and my naughty food sensor is sort of switched off for now. Or at least it's on mute. I'm hoping that is a little bit of growing up on my part, meaning that I hope that it speaks to a later ability to "switch off" my attraction to foods that should not be on my radar. We shall see.

Now, all of this said, it does not mean I am immune to the lure of certain things. When I smell someone barbecuing in the neighborhood (so sorry, vegetarian folk), I am a cavewoman longing for what "they" have...even if it's just grilled corn or tomatoes, or onions.

But, there's time to sort that all out later. For now, I'm enjoying new tastes, sensations, and realizations. And baby coconuts.

Hell no! We won't go!

Today is the first day that I'm having trouble getting all of my juices down. I'm just not hungry, and I'm not really loving juice today. It's not that I'm wanting food. I'm just not particularly in the mood for anything, I guess.

I can tell that I'm losing weight, though it seems to be coming off more slowly than I had hoped. My clothes aren't falling off me or anything, though they are certainly getting looser. My face is thinning out a bit, and my legs are getting a little smaller. The areas that simply refuse to budge, however, are my stomach and butt. They have staged a sit-in, silently screaming, "Hell no! We won't go!". I guess my attempts at weight loss are a personal affront to fat cells that have grown so comfortable where they are. Sigh.

Yesterday, Olivia and I did go for a walk at Leaming's Run, which is the country's largest annuals garden. It was so wonderful. The weather was lovely, the aroma was divine, and in addition to the usual birds and butterflies, there were so many hummingbirds! It is high season for hummingbirds around here, and no matter how many I see, the thrill never goes away for me. I've never seen so many in one day, nor had so many fly so close. It was also the first time Olivia was able to see them, since they were so numerous. We ended the walk (about 45 minutes) with a picnic. I drank my juice, and Olivia had lentil dip with pita, raw green beans, half an orange and some provolone. A nice day.

We did some schoolwork when we got home, and Olivia is proving to me to be scary-smart. She's excelling at analogies, both math and vocabulary, doing word problems well beyond a first grade level, reading at a first grade level, completing complex mazes, working crossword puzzles, and progressing at Sudoku. Her vocabulary and grammatical prowess stuns most people. She just turned four!

We just signed Olivia up for dance classes, and we may end up dropping something. Her instructor suggested we sign her up for a few classes, and see which she likes most, dropping her least favorite(s). She's so excited about all of the classes, though, and I fear she's not going to give any up. She'll take tap, ballet and jazz for the first week or two, so we'll see. She also has martial arts one night a week, at which she is doing particularly well.

I feel like I'm just going through the motions of blogging tonight...nothing of much importance, just yakking away to an empty room. But it's not entirely silent here. I do hear something. Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go! Hell no! We won't go!