Next Steps

For the next six weeks or so I am planning to follow the eating plan outlined in Dr. Joel Fuhrman's book Eat to Live. I am still imperfect in my understanding of it but I will share what I grasp.

The purpose is to wean a person away from food-like substances and move them towards real foods that are high in nutrition. 

His formula (he has to make it simple so we can remember it) is H = N/C. It means that the way to pick healthy foods is to look at their nutritional density - the nutritional content divided by the calories. Pick the foods packing the most nutritional punch per calorie consumed.

He plans to shock your system during the first few weeks. No sugar. Very, very little salt. No gluten. Very, very little meat - if at all.  Easy on the beans and grains. Basically, you can eat all the vegetables you want. 

In my case, it is more vegetables than I want. 

He wants you to eat a pound of raw vegetables and a pound of cooked vegetables every day.  And at least four fresh fruits.

This is quite a turn-around for someone who lived on juice for more than two weeks. I do not think my stomach will hold a pound of anything.

So I am chipping away at it. Eating little bits when I am hungry, trying to get over the fact that everything seems like it is missing a little something. Like right now, I am eating about a half a cup of real oatmeal with four or five strawberries cut up in it. I can tell you straight up that I miss the sugar. But, oh well. After a while, they say, I will not.

I've gone from spending hours juicing to spending hours chopping.  I spent a good portion of Sunday afternoon chopping vegetables to go on my spinach & romaine salad. Turns out that spinach and romaine are veritable super foods. Who knew? Good thing I like them.

Also cooked up a pot of lentils, another super food. I like it, too.

But I am going to have to come up with some more and better recipes. There are several in his book. I just need to digest them. 

Transitioning

Thursday, May 26, after 18 days of mostly juice, I ate dinner with Sandra and our friend, Jan Kross, at Cafe Trio. Sandae got a coupon for a free meal in honor of her birthday & the coupon was going to expire at the end of the month. She loves Cafe Trio. What else was there to do? Relationships require give and take. It was time for me to give.

I struggled with the menu. I think I am going to find that most restaurants can accommodate a vegetarian. But it is going to be considerably harder to find restaurant food for someone who wishes to be gluten-free and to eat only foods from the earth - in other words, no cheese, no milk. 

This may not be my diet mode forever. But right now I need to make some radical changes just to turn my health around.

At the restaurant, I blew up my diet in some respects.

Here's what I ate: I got a house salad with dressing when everyone else was having salad. I had tomato soup and hummus for my entree.

The good: no meat, no excessive calories, pretty easy to digest. The bad: gluten in the bread I ate while waiting to order (no one made me do it) and in the pita that came with the hummus; milk in the soup.

What did I notice most after the first meal? I felt SO full it was uncomfortable. I could hardly go to sleep because my guts were rumbling around. I woke up with a rumbly stomach. I had not had a stomach rumble in days and days. My insides had been pretty happy with the period of rest.

FAQ: No. I was not hungry all the time during my juice fast. I was rarely uncomfortable. And I got used to being a little hungry some of the time. I don't think it is wise to walk around full 24 hours a day.

Small Observations

I am back on the juice. :-)

Two good things:

• I noticed that my cravings seem to have changed a bit. When I started, I wanted pizza. But this past Saturday I was craving soup. This must be a Good Thing.
• I am in negotiations with Robin at the Filling Station to see how much she would charge for a day's juicing. This would help on the days when I don't have (or haven't taken) the time to juice. It would also save on cleanup and eliminate the pulp disposal problem.

This news article talks about what I am trying to avoid. I do not want to add to this statistic. Or, if I have to do it, I want to do it when I am not obese.:

Baby boomers fueling boom in knee, hip surgeries:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/joint-replacement-knee-hip-surgery-baby-boomers_n_865368.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110523/ap_on_he_me/us_med_boomer_bones

Weekly Wrap Up - Random Notes

Working sure does cut into your free time. This week I barely had time to juice. I certainly had no time to blog. Or if I did, I couldn't find it.

The results this week are mixed, for sure. I have not abandoned the juicing but I have eaten other things. I keep snacking on pistachio nuts. I ate dinner last night at the convent at Mount St. Scholasta and had soup and salad. (I successfully avoided eating the cookies, rumored to be extremely good.)

I am not sure what to think about this. I am tempted to be discouraged. But last Sunday I bumped into Bob Brotowski, a practicing psychologist and killer mandolin player. He told me that if I fell off the diet and jumped back on, I was 50% more likely to stick with it than someone who had not had a lapse.

I do not know if I have had a lapse or if I am moving on to the next phase.

I need to do a lot more reading to be clear on what the next phase is. A lot of vegetables and fruits, I know. That's fine by me. I have been craving soup.

The scale shows me down 6 pounds. That is not earthshaking but it is encouraging. I haven't seen the numbers on the scale go down for a long time.

One more small thing: today I went to a sale at a clothing store owned by a friend of mine. They had what looked to be a fruit punch on the serving table. Lots of lemons, limes and peaches floating on top. I was thirsty and got a cup. Took a big drink & freaked. It was white wine sangria.

It was the first alcoholic drink I have had in over 15 years. I did not know what to do.

I think that was one of the reasons for my crazy eating today. I decided the alcohol should hit a full stomach, not an empty one. So I came home and ate nuts. And ate. And ate.

Day 8

Today was my first day back to work after a three-week vacation. Although I work from home on Mondays and Fridays, it is still a very different schedule. Let me tell you, a person has considerably less time to write when they are working full-time.

Today was the pits. I did not juice on Sunday. I thought I would do it during lunch time today. Boy, was I wrong. So I went out to The Filling Station Coffee Shop and got a juice for breakfast. (Thank you, Filling Station.)

But I skipped lunch and by mid-afternoon I did not have the time or patience to juice. I ate a bunch of pistachio nuts. Because they were there.  And fell into the pit of despair.

I did juice in the evening, although picking up my car from the shop kept me from starting until 8 PM or so. And I was still cleaning the kitchen -- and kind of grumpy -- at 9:30 PM.

On Sunday, my friend Mary from Function Junction tried to counsel me. She says to juice more when I juice so I can juice less frequently.  She says she has three different types of juice in her fridge at any given time. In hermetically sealed glass containers to preserve freshness. (Of course, I ran right out to Function Junction and got those.) She says she only juices three times a week.

But when it is after 9 PM and you have just finished your usual juicing, it is hard to want to forge ahead.

One of the ads I am now getting regularly on Facebook is for a New York company that will juice for you & deliver the juice (in the New York area) for $65 a day. I can see why people are willing to spend the money.

Juice Fast Day 7 - Morning Thoughts

Confession

Yesterday the wheels almost fell off. I spent the day longing for pizza. I didn't have one. But the TV ads for Minsky's gluten-free pizza were almost porno.

In addition, several of my friends read the blog and now I am embarassed somehow & don't want to see them in real life. I can't explain it but I know it is true.

The "Fast" Concept - Why am I doing this?

There are two idea behind the fast. The first - and maybe simpliest - is that I am trying to do something radical to change the way I eat and to recalibrate my food preferences. 

The second idea, which I will address in a later post, is that jucing is giving my body a rest from the work of digestion. By removing most of the bulk from foods by juicing, while at the same time loading up on easily-assimilated nutrients, I am enabling my body to concentrate more on internal healing.

The catalyst was my recent Pilgrimage to Wales. I knew that I had serious arthritis in my knees. Every doctor who looked at them said I was heading for knee replacement. But deep in my heart, I had not appreciated how serious it was. Wales changed that. For sure.

The more I walked, the less I could walk. I was slower than people 20 years older than me. I could not sleep for the pain. I was, as they say, freaked.

Part of me wanted to run, not walk, to the surgeon and have them both done. Immediately. At once - while I still have good insurance from work.

Another, perhaps more sensible, part said, "Why are you always looking to someone else to fix you? Why are you always looking for the softer, easier way? Honestly, you haven't tried very hard to manage this condition yourself. Have you done all you can to see if diet can affect the pain level? Every doctor who talks to you says 'Lose weight'. Have you made a real effort to do so?"

When you are seriously walking down the wrong path, there are two steps to change. First, stop. Don't go any further. Second, turn around.

The fast is the first step. Stop. I am going to spend maybe two weeks NOT eating the way I was.

Perhaps it is the preparation for the second step as well. Turn around. Head in a new direction. If the way I was is not serving me, I have to learn a new way to be.

Juice Fast Day 6

Intro to Joel Fuhrman

Joe Cross, from whom I got the juice fast idea, worked closely with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. From the movie you gather that Cross spent the first 30 days of his 60-day fast in New York as Dr. Fuhrman's patient.

Closer to my life, my friend Jamie Rich lost very many pounds using the ideas in Eat to Live, Dr. Fuhrman's well-regarded handbook for seriously overweight people. Fuhrman aims to change your thinking about how you eat. For example, he pays attention to nutrient density rather than calories.

When it comes to food, taste is learned. The juice fast is an attempt to redirect my tastes to foods that are better for me than what Fuhrman calls SAD - Standard American Diet.

Since I have untaken the fast, I thought I should at least look at his books. You know how Amazon is. I wound up with the three-pack: Eat to Live, The Nutritarian Handbook, and Fasting and Eating for Health.

I got them yesterday and peeked in them last night. Because I am dealing with arthritis as well as obesity, I read a few pages about rheumatoid arthritis. (This is not my kind of arthritis but that of a friend.) I can now see where this diet is heading.

From Fasting & Eating:

"In the first three to five months after the fast the patients were asked not to eat food that contained gluten, meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, refined sugar, citrus fruits, salt, strong spices, preservatives, alcohol, tea, and coffee."

Although this list seems somewhat overwhelming, I have to remember that it is not intended as a life-long diet - just a few months. Also, he is not talking about coming off my juice fast, but a complete water fast. (Maybe I need wiggle room.)

I have friends who are living gluten-free and it is truly a hassle. But maybe this little time period is teaching me that it is OK to spend time and trouble on what you eat.

The movie contrasted the $53,000 cost of a heart attack with the daily cost of a juice fast.

I am heading toward double knee replacement. Isn't forestalling that costly outcome worth a little time and effort in the kitchen?

Juice Fast Day 3

Please read this BEFORE reading days 4 and 5.

I did not spend Day 3 in bed with covers over my head like Joe Cross did. But I was a little grumpy - mostly about how long it takes to prepare a day's juice. I secretly wonder if Joe had a chef do it for him. He has money. It's a possibility.

Me, without a chef, it took 50 minutes to juice and 20 minutes to clean up. That is quite a chunk of time to build into a work day.

Also I was a little grumpy because I am spending all this time with no results, as yet, to provide positive reinforcement. If I had already lost, say, 15 pounds, I would be eager to juice up a storm. But just a few days in, I have lost only maybe a pound.

Nor am I feeling a whole new energy or purity or happiness or any other emotional lift attributable to the new regime. I am, however, wise enough to know that it takes more than three or four days for your body to assimilate a change. I am still running on the old way of eating and the old me.

But I am not in bed with the covers over my head. And I am not ravinously hungry. This is good news.

And I feel a little virtuous thinking of all the vitamins and antioxidents and other good things that I am consuming.

This is my day to quantify.

In addition to measuring the time commitment, I measured the amount of juice needed to keep me going. It takes 24 ounces for me to drink for a full day AND have enough left over for a quick breakfast. I do wake up hungry. I don't want to juice for 50 minutes before I can put some food in my stomach.

I also made a stab at counting the calories. This is not as easy as it seems because the juicing process kicks out a great deal of pulp. How do you figure that into the calorie mix? I finally decided to ignore it and tally the calories just as if I had eaten the whole fruits and vegetables.

According to Fat Secret, my favorite calorie counting site, I ate (um, drank) somewhere in the neighborhood of 870 calories in my 24 ounces of juice.  Here is the breakdown (ignore fiber):

Fat(g)	Carbs(g)	Fiber(g)	Sugar(g)	Prot(g)	KCals
8.26	193.90	55.3	88.08	34.62	870

Remember that the count above says nothing about vitamins and minerals.

Here is the list of what I put in my juice:

• 2 granny smith apples
• 4 kiwi fruits
• 3 drainers' full of spinach (15 - 20 ounces)
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 bunch parsley
• 10 carrots
• 10 stalks of celery
• 1 lemon
• an ounce or more ginger (I like ginger)

It takes that much to yield 24 ounces of juice.

A few notes on the process. I was surprised at how much pulp is expelled. The juice pitcher holds 11+ ounces. I had to empty the pulp container twice during the first pitcher filled. And I had to stop and clean the juice filter during the second pitcher.

I am lucky enough to know a gardner who wants the pulp for compost. There is a lot of pulp produced.

You have to pay attention to the juicer while you juice. If the pulp container gets full or if the passage to the pulp container gets clogged or if the filter cannot express the juice into the pitcher, you can hear a change in the the motor noise. And the whole thing quits expelling juice. You have to stop and correct the problem.

Here are some pictures that I took.

The amount of spinach on the right yields the amount of juice on the left.

Now you can see why it takes 50 minutes to juice 24 ounces.

This illustrates the pulp-to-juice ratio.
The amount of juice on right yields the amount of pulp on left.

This is what I mean about the amount of space required for clean up.
I am getting more efficient about placement but it still fills up the dish drainer.
Yes, it is dishwasher safe. I just don't have a dishwasher.

Finished product.

Now, jump down to Day 4.

Juice Fast Day 5 (Friday the 13th)

I was so burnt out by yesterday's mix that I put off drinking anything until almost noon today. Finally hunger got the better of me and I tried the small batch I prepared last night. It is good. That is good.

Blogger was messed up for nearly a day. I wrote a long (and, of course, brilliant) post for day 3 that may or may not be recovered. We shall see.

The post did come back. Hooray.

It is out of order. Boo.

Juice Fast Day 4

Please read Day 3 first.

An observation:

"Are you sure that's good for you?"

"Don't you need more protein than that?"

How come your friends are all obsessed with your nutritional health when you tell them you are doing something short-term and healthy but they are completely comfortable with your standard non-healthy diet?

No one ever said to me, "Are you sure that hamburgers and fries offer enough micro-nutrients?" or "Do you really think that pizza and beer are providing all the vitamins you need?"

Back to the juice fast ....

Today I added collard greens and a beet to my usual mix. Two things:

• Boy howdy, beets are a mess! The red is really red and any spill is going to stain. No question. Handle with fear. And know that, no matter what else you add to the mix, the drink will be red, red, red.
• I hated it.

I do not know if it was the beet or the collard greens but the mixture did not smell good to me. It did not taste bad really but ...

Did you know that in order to drink something you have to put it in your mouth & that your mouth is right under your nose?

I thought about holding my nose and drinking it but, really, that is going a little far, don't you think?

I pondered on it and finally decided it was a choice between giving up the juice fast or getting rid of this particular batch of juice. 

I dumped it down the drain. 

Then I juiced up enough to get me through breakfast. And washed the juicer. Again.

Went to bed pretty discouraged.

Juice Fast Day 2

How did it come to this? Right before I went on vacation I saw the movie "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead." In the movie, Joe Cross, an Australian who is indeed fat and sick goes on a 60 day juice fast to, as he puts it, reboot his life. 

In the course of this documentary, Joe drives across the United States talking to people about their eating habits, spreading the word on raw food juicing and losing a lot of weight.  Plus he changes the life of a truck driver that he meets who is also fat and sick.

The kicker is that he uses the same Breville juicer that I have in the privacy of my own home. Neglected but present.  Coincidence? I think not.

Realizing that I too am suffering from health conditions caused by my weight, I seized on the juice fast as something that might help me. 

For one thing, the drinks seemed pretty green -- as in full of green vegetables.  I heard that green vegetables can help arthritis. I have arthritis in my knees.  I did not know how bad it was until I spent two weeks travelling.  Oy vey.

For another, I needed a little bit of hope that change is possible.  I have been about twice my optimal weight for way too long and was flirting with despair.

Nobody can go on a diet during vacation, especially one with breakfasts and dinners provided, so I resolved to start the juice fast when I returned. 

And I did.

Yesterday was my first day back and my first day on the juice fast. 

It took visits to two grocery stores and more than $50 (spent all on vegetables and fruits!) to set me up to begin. 

My short recipe list required the following:

• spinach
• kale
• collard greens
• romaine lettuce
• parsley
• pears
• celery
• granny smith apples
• carrots
• beets
• (and I added kiwi fruit)

I didn't even know what kale looked like.  I had to get the produce guy to find it for me.

One thing the movie did not show was how long it takes to fill up the juicing pitcher.  It is a real time commitment.  Because the juicer extracts the fiber, it takes a lot of fruits and vegetables to yield a quart of juice.  A lot.

Another thing the movie did not show is how long it takes to clean up the juicer.  There are very many parts to clean.  And the pieces overflow my dish drainer.  I contemplated adding on a second kitchen just for this apparatus and its clean-up requirements. 

But it was fun to play with the machine, the juice was great and I was happy.

This morning I decided to do enough juice to get me through the day.  Again, it took a long time.  Today I made a double batch, two pitchers' worth.

In the past two days, I have gone through 40 ounces of spinach and three bunches of kale.  Upwards of five apples.  Many bunches of celery.  A lot of ginger.

I generated a bucket full of pulp.  I am going to have to find someone to compost it because our compost pile is full.

And how do I feel?  Well, right now frankly I am hungry.  But it has been five or six hours since I last ate.  Or, more precisely, since I last drank.  I am going to drink my dinner now.

I added a few days of vacation to my trip so I could start the juice fast without having to work around a work schedule.  This is good.  It is going to take some planning to build juicing time into my normal work week. 

Also in the movie, Joe bottomed out on the third day of the fast and spent it in bed with the covers over his head.  I wanted to have the luxury of doing that, just in case. 

Tomorrow is the dreaded day 3.  Stay tuned.