Juice Cleanse

My neighbor's scale says I lost ELEVEN pounds!! Now, i have to remember that I weighed in right after a big meal in the evening and then weighed myself on the fourth morning before I had eaten (really, i mean drank) anything, so maybe a 4-5 pound difference. But hey, that still means I lost 6 or 7 pounds. I'll weigh again tonight after my juice dinner and see what it says for a more accurate reading. But I can't seem to stop smiling.

I started the cleanse Monday morning. I haven't had anything but juice and water for three full days now-well, I did have about 5 tortilla chips at my moms when I was starving during a zoning class and didn't have my juice with me, and the other night I had a bite of J's potato. But other than that it has been juice straight out of the juicer.

I feel great. I do get hungry in the evenings. I guess I shouldn't say hungry, but more have the munchies and want something to "crunch" on. I wouldn't say it has been a breeze, but it hasn't been that bad either. It definitely has shown me again (which i am reminded every time i do a cleanse) how much our emotions are tied into traditions of food or our habits revolve around food.

Ben and I and my in-laws started this cleanse after my parents and sisters had so much success with it. And I needed something to jump start me into losing weight and feeling good again. I am still feeling a bit foggy from all the emotions wrapped up in the baby. So i wanted something to help me feel good again and get me started with exercise. So we decided to do it. After watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead with Ben again we knew we could do it for four days. It is more mental than anything. And I am glad I have partners to do it with. It keeps me motivated to keep going even when I just want to eat.

We stuck with a lot of the same recipe and only varied a little bit, but it worked great. Maybe next time we will be a little more adventurous.
This is the base we used for most everything. Mainly because it tasted really good, and because apples and carrots were on sale and super cheap.
10-12 Apples
8-10 carrots
1 or 2 oranges (peeled)
1 lemon (with the peel)
about a Tablespoon or more of fresh ginger
Then we would add our greens and beets to that basic recipe for "lunch and dinner".
We also added pineapple, pears, or kiwis.

The only other real recipe we used was Green Lemonade.
4-5 stalks of kale or chard
2-3 green apples
3 lemons
(and I usually add a beet with the tops)

Although i was hungry the fourth day, overall I felt great.