I love to eat, I love food, I love this way it feels to bite down on different textured foods. Sometimes I crave something warm and mushy and sometimes cool and crispy. For most of my life I ate emotionally. When I was frustrated, bored, sad, mostly I was trying to fill an empty space inside of me.
Now I eat differently, because I’m different than I used to be and because Jon cooks for me. But one thing I’ve never seriously considered doing is fasting. Noting about the idea of fasting appeals to me. The thought of not being able to eat, even for a few hours, would make me anxious. Even the idea that, if done right, it could be healthy was not enough to make me want to do it.
Until last fall, when my chiropractor said it would be a good idea for me to do a three day juice fast. Maybe it was the way she explained it that appealed to me. She compared the toxins in my body (which she was somehow aware of, it’s like magic to me what she does) to the books in a library that have been returned to the front desk and are piling up. Fasting she said is equivalent to the librarian putting the books back on the shelves. This makes sense to me, this I can understand. And I like the idea of gathering up all those books and putting them back where they belong.
Like Susan’s quilt, I’ve been thinking about fasting since last fall. Actually I’ve been beating myself up over it a bit, thinking I’ve been bad to my body. (Bad Brain, Bad Body) It might be the change of season, the warmer weather that got me motivated, but what ever it is, for the first time in my life, I’m doing a three day juice fast.
This is day one, I’m three hours into it and so far, so good. I know three hours isn’t a long time, but I haven’t yet had one craving for Barbara’s Cheese Puffs (which have become a staple in my diet since discovering them at the Co-op a few months ago). That’s really good for me. I don’t know what will happen when Jon comes home and starts smelling up the house with all those good food smells. But I’m just taking this one day at a time, as the saying goes. I’m not making any promises, but I really want to get all those books back on the shelf.
HI Maria – we just watched a fascinating documentary on DVD called ‘Fat, sick & nearly dead’ an Australian guy who is fed up, on huge doses of steroids for an auto immune disease, he gained lots of weight because of the drugs, and his symptoms still weren’t under control. He decides to do a juice fast, (actually keeps it up for over 60 days under Dr supervision, whilst tapering his med doses)the DVD follows his journey, and people he meets along the way who try juicing too. The ‘extras’ on the DVD also have great info, including a short documentary about food labeling and how to decipher it. It was an inspiring story, would highly recommend it. (The only thing I could fault was no mention of how well you should wash raw fruit and veg to prevent illnesses that can be picked up from the soil, slugs etc)
I also found some free books with juicing recipes to download onto my kindle.
Look forward to reading how it’s going….
I just really like the picture that goes with this. The colors in the spools off to the side, with the green “juice” in the middle. Plus I own the same glasses, so it was like looking at something semi-familiar. Good luck with the juicing. Three days would be a lot!
Just got those glasses at an antique shop. I’m always breaking glasses and dishes, I hope these last a while.