How I Did On My Juice Fast

My buddy Doug asked me how I was doing on my juice fast. I gave him this answer, and he said I should post it. Sooooo - here ya go:

I failed at it, just like other diets - but I got through 5 days, and that was a start. It got me liking some vegetables and eating better. Even yesterday, where I felt I totally f'd up (I had a couple of fish tacos at Ruby Tuesdays with my salad bar, and then a big tuna wrap for dinner), I still wound up under my calories for the day. Granted, I get like 2,300 for being such a fat ass, so there's a LOT of wiggle room there, but it still feels good. I went to the docs on June 25th and weighed in at 311, the heaviest I've ever been. I began eating better shortly after, but really focusing July 9th. My next visit to the doc for consulting about the juice fast was July 17th. On that weigh-in, I weighed 290. Admittedly, a huge chunk of that was water weight - but it's still going down. I'm drinking a TON of water, and today I'm at about 279.

Yesterday was the first day I didn't juice, but I'm back on it today - I actually kind of missed it! I'm finding some recipes that I'm really grooving on, and I feel like I'm preparing to start the fast all over again, only this time better prepared. It's INSANE how many veggies you go through doing this - one 500ml drink (of which I'd drink FOUR of in one day) is something like this (my breakfast today): about 18 leaves of kale (or 6 cups, chopped), a small apple, half a lemon, a tomato, and two carrots. It doesn't sound like that much maybe, but that's a HUGE bushel of kale - that's like one trip to the store for me normally. Cucumbers give a lot of juice, but even with them I'm throwing in 4-6 per batch. I try to make a liter at a time, that way I have two meals at once. And then I'd clean the juicer and do another batch, and clean it again after that. So yeah, it's time consuming.

I was doing okay with the hunger, but what really messed me up was my sugars. I was trying to cut out as much sugar as possible (I'm consistently showing up as pre-diabetic in my blood tests), so I thought it would be simple with just veggies and some fruit. Instead, I learned the cucumbers are crazy high in sugar (well, relatively speaking)! So even my "best" concoctions still were putting me over the RDA for sugar in a day! I was HUGELY stressed out about that, and that frustration and my evening hunger (I'd always get cravings at night, especially making dinner for Becky) made it impossible to resist and I broke down and snacked. And once the floodgate was open, I just gave up and started eating again.

It was hugely disappointing, but I'm not dwelling on it. I'm still eating well (and struggling with self-control!), and if I can keep that part going, that's good enough. I'm now trying to get motivated to actually try exercise - I'm doing a little bit of walking, but I want to get my exercise bike cleaned off and give it a go. I would REALLY like to figure out a setup like the War Biker, but I don't know if I want to invest in another PC/HDTV for the basement. But if I could get this setup... man, that'd be sweet! I'd just have to figure out what game I'd play...

So that's probably way more info than you wanted, but there you go.