I am Juice Feasting: Meaning that the aim is to drink at least a Gallon of fresh juice a day.

At first I thought it was going to be hard. Like that’s A LOT of juice!

But just yesterday I realized that my quart sized mason jars make it SO easy!

Drink 4 of my mason jars filled with goodness and that = a Gallon!

So simple.

So I have been drinking a Gallon of juice easily for at least the last week.

What this means?

I am getting stronger and my insides are healing.

Sa-weet!

When I first came out of the hospital on Jan. 31, I could barely drink 3-5 CUPS of water in a day.

20 days later, I am drinking at least a gallon of juice and at least 2 quarts of water. (I choose to upgrade the number of quarts of water I’m drinking as well.)

So it’s Amazing!

Some other things that are helping:

- Making juices that I love.

I am not getting fancy right now with exotic greens. I am sticking with spinach, romaine, kale, and chard. (Dandelion greens, stinging nettles, all these other interesting things from the farmer’s market can wait. They wind up going bad and I make juices that I don’t like the taste of, so they are off the list right now. And I love them for later.)

- Prepping all of my juice for the day at once.

It takes about an hour maybe? I haven’t actually timed it, but it’s all fine because I consider it major self-care time. It’s fun. I hum I love you I love you I love you to my veggies as I push them through the juicer. Such amazing colors come out of the juicer. And I like to stir the bowl I catch the juice in with a spoon like I’m a little chef making cool potions to taste.

- Using recipes.

Yes, I could just look in the fridge and grab what’s there, but I don’t always have the right proportions of things. By going online and looking for recipes to try and tweak to my liking it takes the brain work out of making the juices and I can trust that what I create is going to turn out to be something that I ENJOY drinking. Here’s one I made up:

Green Pineapple Juice:

- 1/2 pineapple
- 1/2 head of romaine lettuce
- 2 full sticks of celery

Juice and enjoy! Super refreshing.

- Straining

Some of my juices are coming out more pulpy than I would like with my JackLaLanne juicer. So I have a paint bag/nutmilk bag that I strain them with. That helps everything. Because of my intestinal issues in the past, I am really choosing to give them a break and not have them require breaking down food.

- Emotional Work

It’s essential that I continue to do my inner clearing and work as I’m doing this. Stuff comes up and if I don’t have tools and approaches for working with it, it would be a serious bummer. If you’re considering doing a serious juice feast/cleanse, make sure you have emotional support of someone who knows the road.

I do The Work every morning on the same thought: “This shouldn’t be happening.” Anything in my life that I don’t like, I apply to that inquiry and I question it. I learn something new about myself and my world every time.

I do 15 minutes of “square breathing” as some people call it. 7 counts in. 7 counts hold. 7 counts out. 7 counts hold. I count as fast as I need to do it comfortably without hurting myself or feeling stressed about running out of air. Each time I do it I’m able to do it better and better in terms of increasing lung capacity. I have different mantras that have 7 sayings in them too (sometimes all the same like “i love you” and I say those during this sometimes too instead of just counting.)

- Enemas.

I am doing these nearly every day and they help me feel fresh and clear. I am pooing on my own as well and it’s important to me to get everything I can out as I’m doing this juicing. I am planning on starting to do to Aloe Enemas also because aloe is very healing and I have had intestinal/color sores in the past.

- Imagination

I am doing a lot of inner child work (talking to parts of me) during my emotional work. This has proven especially helpful when the thought comes in like Ooo I want some french fries. Something i would never eat right now, but have an interst and thought focus on eating for a while anyway. So I pretend that I am eating french fries…and it totally does the trick. I imagine eating a big hot basket of them with ketchup and salt and having friends around. I put my fingers to my mouth and pretend I’m nibbling on them like a squirrel and I imagine how good they are. This takes about 30 seconds max. And then I’m done with it. As a result, I am not struggling with cravings of any kind.

If I think of a food that smells/tastes good, I give it to myself in my imagination and it is perfect. Most hunger is in the imagination anyway. We tend to be ruled by our tongues and what they want to taste. That’s it. My tongue isn’t in control of everything I eat anymore. I love you tongue.

- Oils

During the first week, I craved oils big time. I got a jar of Flax Oil. I drink 2 big spoonsfuls a day straight from the jar. I’m going to start upping that to 4 TBPS (2 of them 2x a day) and then also add in some Hemp Oil if I enjoy the taste of it. I am still taking oils.

- Watering My Insides

Giving my body fresh juice like this has really helped change the relationship I have with my insides. I often think about all the pink fleshy parts of my mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, intestines, colon, liver, etc.

I imagine that when I’m drinking the juice it’s coating all of the lovely pink parts and they are so happy to absorb the goodness like sponge. So much happier than if I were to throw a chomped up triscuit down there with some cheese on it or something. Or even so much happier than if I were to throw some raw food lasagna down there since I have been a raw vegan for a year.

My body is so happy to be receiving these liquid nutrients and to be “watered” with love like this.

Juice Feasting has been awesome. I love it. I am feeling good. I am healing. I feel good and I am healthy. I take great care of myself and give my body everything it requires. I dance and I walk around the block. I went on my first bike ride last night since being out of the hospital too. One of my goals is to be able to ride my bike to the beach. 15 minutes with some slight hills. I can do it! I will get there.

I love you and thank you for your support and kindness. My life is so beautiful. I am surrounded by support. And I love and respect my life path.

There’s something I gotta say…

And I probably say it on behalf of a lot of people who go through mysterious health issues that every well-meaning person wants to help you with…

The thing I gotta say right now is:

“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Not super original, but it’s totally important here.

Sometimes we have issues going on in our lives where we want problems solved…

We need troubleshooting. We need questions raised. We need to explore the possibilities of what could go wrong and what might not workout.

We need our friends to say to us, ” Are you sure about that? Because it’s sounds a little messed up and wonky for these reasons…”

Then if we’re lucky, we’re willing and available to listen to some of the wisdom they can share with us.

This kind of interaction with people is really valuable when we’re in a confused place and thinking clearly is hard.

But there are other times when that kind of feedback and input isn’t what’s best…

There are times when hearing about all the bad stuff that could go wrong, and the things to “keep in mind” and the things that might be worth worrying about – even a little bit – just don’t contribute to the conversation in a positive way.

I’m in one of these situations right now with my health…

So if you don’t have anything nice and supportive to say about my health and my choices, then please don’t say anything at all.

Not that I’m asking you to ignore your thoughts…

Just don’t share them with me.

Tell them to a friend. Write them on a piece of paper and put them behind a picture of Baby Jesus. Go to a message board and vent your concerns with some other people who have the same thoughts…

But please keep them to yourself.

I Require Positive Loving Support

This is what my healing path is about right now…and I’m recruiting positive, loving supportive team members!

If you’d like to be on the team, here’s my scoop:

- I’m doing liquid only eating right now.

I’ve been doing this for a little over a week and I see no end in sight for it as it is now. If you you are curious about my liquid diet approach and want to learn more and support me, instead of looking up stuff about how a liquid diet is BAD…do some research about the benefits of liquid diets for healing intestinal issues and then share *those* things with me. I will love hearing from you and receiving the great support!

- I am blending soups with raw organic cacao and mexican flavor super foods.

If you think superfoods are stupid, or you don’t think it’s a good idea to eat them on the same days I’m doing juicing…this healing supportive team is not for you. To be part of the team, see if you can find GREAT information about how healing superfoods are and how they can help me get stronger and better. I’d totally love it.

- I am drinking coconuts and fermenting some of the water also.

If you’d like to be a part of my healing team, find out more about the powers of coconut water and probiotics and fermentation. Skip articles you find about how coconuts are bleached and bad for you, fattening, or anything else that is not happy and encouraging and fun about them. Makes sense, right?

- I am interested in Garlic and Cayenne as well as other healing spices.

I choose to know more about how much is good for me and how often to take and in what form it’s good to have it. I don’t want to hear about why it’s going to be BAD for my system right now. I have done preliminary research and know these things are good for my insides. So now it’s just about finding out more. If you love me and want to help, please send information and resources about how I can use these spices better.

It’s Not Just About Pollyanna…

If and when I get concerned about something I am doing and I am considering changing it up, I’ll let you, my Lovely Health Team, know about it so that you can help me research other things.

Right now, it’s the MOST important to me that the habits I’m creating with my juicing and liquid diet food intake is being supported wholeheartedly.

It can be challenging enough to have a complete change in the way I ingest food – so I require all the loving support as I’m going through it as I can.

Who’s with me? xoxo

Last week I was in the hospital with a Crohn’s flare-up.

I required a blood transfusion from loss of blood and was heavily medicated with many things that I am now detoxing. Some I am still tapering off of. My weight has dropped significantly and it’s important that I am rebuilding myself with nutrients and lots of hydration.

I’m now staying with my friends in Southern California. I am grateful to be with them again. I am giving myself a retreat to heal myself and be healed and receive support from nurturing friends and food and community.

Being in the hospital around all the plugs, needles, cords, medicine, pain, etc. was not a happy time for the part of me that loves to have fun and be playful…

So I’m choosing to bring some fun into my healing so that I am enjoying every moment of this and getting the most out of it that I can.

Because I’m giving my insides a rest from having to do a lot of work with digestion as they’re healing, I’m doing what’s known as a Juice Feast – this means I can have as much as I want of any juice I choose to make out of fruits and veggies. It’s wonderful for sore insides because it’s very easy to absorb and assimilate.

So how to make this more fun for myself?

Here are some of the things I’m going to do to make this juicing experience more fun and creative:

- Draw a poster of my intestines and everything inside on a big piece of paper so that I can get intimately familiar with my parts and draw hearts on them and send them loving vibes several times a day as they are hanging on the wall.

- Create 3×5 cards with drawings of my favorite juice ingredients so I can see colorful representations of the foods that I enjoy the most. I can also deal them out like cards to create my ideal juice for that particular meal and make fun flavor combinations like a game.

- Design a little menu so that I can make sure I’m rotating foods and not having only watermelon juice or not enough spinach, etc. So I’ll be tracking how many different items I have in each day and I can know which I’m getting more of and less of. Still formulating in my mind how this chart will look/work.

- Host a Juice Party in 2 weeks. I’m going to invite my local friends over and have them bring some of their favorite things to put in juice and then we will put them all together and create delicious drinks for all of us to enjoy. I will have fancy glasses and straws and maybe party umbrellas. This will probably be combined with a game night where everyone brings their own game and we take turns playing them. (I love Bananagrams.)

- Draw a rainbow poster with pictures of the colorful fruits and veggies that go on each part of the spectrum. This will kind of go along with making sure that I’m having plenty of all the things from each of the categories and not having too much/too little of one thing.

Mmmm. Just listing these things out makes me feel so much more alive and ready to empower myself to take care of myself.

I’ll be getting out the markers, paper, crayons, and creativity on Wednesday as I spend this special time with myself.

Is there something creative you could draw or make a visual representation of that would help make taking care of yourself, your business, your family, your body – a little more fun and easy?

I love you. Thank you for being here.