Juice Feasting!

Day 10, continued:
self care:
Queen Afua's Rejuvenating Mask

Day 11:
apple spinach romaine lettuce juice
carrot sweet potato juice
apple cucumber celery juice w/ Queen Afua Green Formula
apple celery juice w/ Queen Afua Green Formula
carrot juice w/ flax meal 
fit to a tea
water

self care:
Kundalini Yoga Spinal Energy Series
EFT, for chocolate and sugar cravings

Per yesterdays post, two sheets of paper are on my fridge: my favorite raw foods and drinks and the food I need to have in my home to make the favorites.

My favorites are:
Drinks
Skin Saver Juice (aloe vera, carrots, green pepper juice)
Apple carrot juice
apple celery cucumber any dark green lemon juice
peach spinach smoothie
Blood (beets, apples, lime juice)
Vanilla Milkshake
Orange Banana Smoothies

Salad Dressing
House Dressing
Vinaigrette
Ranch Dressing

Main Courses
Broccoli w. sesame sauce
carrot tuna
Dahl (not raw)
Zucchini Pasta
Mango kale salad
Zakhah Kale salad
Royal Seaweed Salad
Cauliflower salad
Portobello Wraps
Mediterranean Burgers
Sun dried Tomato Sushi
Tacos
Salsa
Sesame Noodles
Spicy Flax Crackers
Hummus

Sprouts
Hard Winter Wheat Berries

I did this so I have "go to" meals all the time. I took the food and drinks I love and compiled them all together. I made copies for both my home and my car. The shopping list helps me know what I need to keep in my home. This also helps me post-feast so I know what to purchase the last few days of the feast. When it's time to eat again, I have what I love around me.

Take the time to do the same. Having your favorite foods on hand will make your raw (or vegan) lifestyle easier.

Morning of Day 12, self care:
EFT
dry skin brushing
fit to a tea
carrot juice w/ flax meal

Realization: Mama needs more fat. When I was driving to see my old Mystickal Voyage buddies last night, I was lightheaded. I'm going to add smoothies/soups back to keep me more grounded.
Love,
Althea

Mocha Angel message: See good, hear good, speak good. (And EXPECT YOUR GOOD!) ◦

Juice Feasting!

Juice Feasting!

Day 10:
Carrot sweet potato juice w/ flax meal (x3)
apple spinach romaine lettuce juice (x2)
fit to a tea (x4)
orange juice
water

I've decided to juice feast, with robust enthusiasm, through my birthday on March 7. I will be turning 39 years old. That would make 21 straight days of juicing. Turns out that it takes 21 days to create a habit. Sounds good to me.

Tomorrow I'll photograph what I've put on my fridge. Most people have 7-8 "go-to" meals they make all the time. I came up with those for myself, and taped it to my fridge. I'll still blog through Sarma and Matthew's books, but having a focus of foods, and a regular list of staples is critical to long-term success as a raw vegan. I LOVE to create new dishes, which is why I create new things all the time. But being grounded in raw foods that I love is necessary.

Oh, and I have lost 7 pounds since starting the Raw Food Rehab Resolve to Evolve program.

Love,
Althea

Mocha Angel message for today:
Ask God not what He can do for you. Ask God what you can do for Him (or Her). :-) ◦

Juice Feasting!

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Day 7:
water
hot chocolate
apple lemon wheatgrass celery juices (x2)
apple broccoli celery romaine lettuce juice (x2)
(all juices had a tablespoon of flax meal and psyillum for bulk and heft)

Day 8
was Rom's birthday.
I did sample what I had made him, which was vegan mac & cheese, kale salad, Amaadi's gluten-free pasta salad, and black-eyed pea salad.....I bought vegan cupcakes and chicken wings (didn't eat the wings).
I also had carrot juice with flax meal and psyillum (x2)

Day 9
apple wheatgrass romaine lettuce cucumber lemon juice (x2)
carrot sweet potato juice (x2)
fit to a tea (an herbal tea I'm taking for my lungs. I'm neither endorsing nor reviewing the product. It was something my brother recommended and I do feel better already)

I got Matthew Kenney's Everyday Raw Desserts yesterday. I won it back in June from The Daily Raw Cafe. I had to bug the publisher about it, but they were gracious enough to send me the book. Won't be making anything out of if for a while.

On December 18, I wrote a post about SELF-LOVE. With this juice feast, I realized I need to show myself love in small ways. I'm dry skin brushing everyday. I'm doing a foot soak in the evenings. I'm doing EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to break the emotional chains of the past.

Think of small ways you can show yourself love each and every day.

Love,

Althea

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Juicefeasting Transition Week

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Days 5 and 6 were total blowout. Between touring Baltimore Lab School, work, getting ready for Rom's birthday, I only had one smoothie. Those were 48 hours of stress. I talked with my friend Amaadi this morning during our weekly "Sanity Saturday" (or as Rom calls it "The Traveling Sisterhood of the Divine Ya-Ya's...LOL!) and we had a deep talk. I realized some things and plan to move on them to heal myself at the cellular level.

More to come....

Love,
Althea

Mocha Angel message: {{Life is}} a fascinating game. As complex and complicated as we choose to make it, or as simple: put your fear behind you, your love in front of you, and run like hell.--- Steve Barnes ◦

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Day 4, I had:

water
vanilla milkshake with psyillum and flax meal
apple wheatgrass cucumber celery lemon juice
carrot sweet potato juice
green sweet potato soup

I finally mowed down that wheatgrass! I added it an apple juice and it was refreshing.

But one tray yielded 3 ounces of juice, so I see the importance of keeping trays growing constantly. :-)

Love,
Althea

Mocha Angel messages: Believing in a God that you cannot see, feel, smell, or touch is the ultimate act of faith. But what is faith? Faith is the evidence of things unseen. But pay attention. God is much, much closer than you think. ◦

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Day 3 I had:
water
apple banana swiss chard coconut oil smoothie
vanilla milkshake w/ psyillum and flax meal
orange banana smoothie
orange banana swiss chard smoothie
apple carrot ginseng liquid vitamin C ginger bee pollen juice
(at Liquid Earth)

I missed so many camera-ready moments on Day 3. Raymond had a consultation in the neurology dept. at Johns Hopkins. I will bring my camera next time when he has an EEG. I brought 3 mason jars of smoothies and drank them all. We met with a nurse practitioner and a resident. I must say both women were kind and thorough.

JHU is a mammoth place. It's not just one building. We were in the Outpatient Center, which is teeming with humanity. We had to take a number to be seen, and this is in one tiny department! I felt like I was in an assembly line. But I am going to follow through on everything with Raymond. And next time, pictures!

Love,
Althea

Mocha Angel message: Think about how much you love your parents, children, significant other, etc....Now multiply that times one million. That is how much the Universe loves you. ◦

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Juicefeasting Transition Week

Days 1 and 2

Me on Sunday morning, February 6, 2011. I thought I looked cute, but I look so tired. I'm still coughing too.
Day 1 I had:
water
vanilla milkshake
pleasing greens soup
broccoli soup
homemade veggie burger
apple/swiss chard/lemon juice (2x)
apple cider (hot)
apple/kale/lemon/psyllium/flax meal juice

Day 2, I had:
water
vanilla milkshake w/ coconut oil and psyillum
orange banana smoothie
pleasing greens soup (3x)
Broccoli soup
carrot/sweet potato juice
apple/kale/lemon/psyllium/flax meal juice

I made the mistake of not drinking anything until 10:30am. I was tired, cranky, teary, and ready to bite someone's head off. By noon, I said to myself, "If I don't eat something, I'm not going to make it through this day." I had a homemade veggie burger (from Vegan With a Vegeance) the diameter of an apple. I didn't eat anything else that day, and I haven't eaten anything today.

Don't start your fast the way I did. You are supposed to transition into it. Last week, I ate whatever I wanted. I taught a vegan cooking class on Sunday, January 30th (which was supposed to had been on Sunday, January 24th but I had the flu). The class went better than I had intended. Huge hit! But I was eating all this cooked food, good as it was, but that wasn't best for me.

The supporting characters: dry skin brushes for body and face.

Ann Wigmore has taught me how to grow wheatgrass!

Jona helping me juice.

Broccoli soup ingredients.

Four tray of wheatgrass at different stages of growth.

The first tray, now fully matured and ready to cut!

Love,

Althea

Mocha Angel message: God never abandons you. That is impossible. God is part of you, so rejecting God is a rejection of your self. Accept God as you accept yourself.

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Juicefeasting Transition Week

Juice Feasting

Last fall, I got a clear message to do an extended juice feast that is to begin today. I'm not revealing how long, but it is not 92 days. David Rainoshek, who created www.juicefeasting.com, suggests 92 days. Both Terilynn Epperson of The Daily Raw Cafe and Angela Stokes-Monarch of Raw Reform have completed that 92-day feast. I have Angela's juice feasters book and I'm using it as my guide.

To back up a moment: I wasn't feeling an extended juice feast at all. Not in the least. That is why I haven't discussed it until now. But after Raymond's seizure, I didn't sleep well for the next four days. Then I got the flu, again. Since 2006, I've had more upper respiratory infections than I can count. The lungs, as I have said before, are the seats of love and compassion. On the shadow side, they are the seat of grief. I have been told, more than once, that I am not allowing joy into my life. I'm stuck in the day-to-day mundane-ness of life. I can see that.

When I was laying in bed for three straight days from the sheer physical exhaustion of influenza, I said, "Okay, I surrender. I'll do it. You all obviously know more than I do."

Then I got a copy of Kris Carr's new book Crazy Sexy Diet. In the introduction, Dean Ornish, MD writes:

In 2009, the Nobel Prize for Medicine went to Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn for discovering telomerase, an enzyme that repairs and lengthens damaged telomeres, which are the ends of our chromosomes that control aging. Dr. Blackburn and her colleague, Dr. Elissa Epel, studied women who were under chronic emotional stress because they were taking care of children with autism or chronic diseases.

They found that the more stressed the women felt, and the longer they felt stressed, the lower their telomerase and the shorter their telomeres. This was the first study providing genetic evidence indicating that chronic emotional stress might shorten a woman's lifespan.

HELLO! Sometimes books speak to you. Dr. Ornish might as well have been sitting in my living room.

Kris Carr writes in her book:
The early signs and symptoms (of her cancer) were obvious, but I couldn't see them for what they were: a toxic lifestyle and environment that was causing physical and emotional stress. I had a bunch of chronic health problems, including zits, colds, chest infections, allergies, depression (prozac and wine helped that), dry skin, eczema, low sex drive (in my twenties!), bloating, constipation, abdominal pain, acid reflux, yeast infections, and fatigue--all distress signals from an imbalanced body.

Then today, I found out a friend of mine died. Dear Elizabeth was a phenomenal older woman. A survivor. But she had a stroke and passed away. Stress was the major cause of this stroke.

Juice feasting it is. I'll be drinking wheatgrass (and putting on my skin and doing implants), tea, vegetable broth, and juices. I may do smoothies and soups in the beginning. I'll be taking supplements to help with candida and parasites. I'll write how I am doing and feeling.

I want to share with my readers, but I'm not linking this to my Facebook page. I always share my posts on Twitter and Facebook. Not this time. People who subscribe want to know what's going on with me. I do not want to open myself up to "why, what for, and how long?" with people who do not understand.

I intend to be a Wellness Warrior. I'm taking the health of myself, and my family, into my own hands. I'm excited, pumped, and ready to heal. Thanks for coming along and supporting this journey.

Love,
Althea ◦

Juice Feasting

I'm growing my own wheatgrass :-)

I have to stop saying that I have a brown thumb. Every plant I touch doesn't grow. But I have a strong desire to grow my own wheatgrass, so I'm intending that I am a champion wheatgrass grower and I DO have a green thumb. Above is my very first tray. It grew! I did it!

My stuff: shallow planting trays, hard winter wheatberries, limestone, and soil.

Sprouting the first batch of seeds. Soak a cup of wheatberries for 12 hours. Sprout for 12 hours, then plant.
Water, then cover in complete darkness for 2-3 days. I'm covering them with black garbage bags, or you can cover with another tray.

This is batch #1. I have three other trays sprouting now. Wish me luck with them. My goal is to have wheatgrass growing in my home constantly.

Love,
Althea ◦

I'm growing my own wheatgrass :-)