Juice Feasting – Day 2

I’m finishing up the second day of my juice feast. So far it’s going very well, better than I expected.

Day 1

Yesterday (Day 1) was pretty easy. I had 4 batches of fresh juice, including:

  1. carrot, apple, beet, parsley, kale, ginger, lime
  2. fresh coconut water
  3. pineapple, garlic (1 pineapple + 1 small clove garlic)
  4. carrot, celery, kale, dandelion greens, parsley, ginger, lime

This added up to a little more than a gallon of juice total.

I made every batch fresh and drank it right away. The juice satisfied me well enough, and I didn’t have any problems with hunger. In fact, I found all of these juices quite delicious.

I felt pretty much normal throughout the day (“normal” meaning the same as I felt while eating 100% raw).

I’ve seen some juice feasters mentioning “fuzzy teeth” in their logs. I experienced that after drinking my last juice of the day. The inside of my teeth felt furry or gritty when I rubbed my tongue against them. Brushing my teeth was enough to remedy that.

At night I had a hard time sleeping. I stayed up later than usual, slept a few hours, and woke up early feeling wide awake. I just didn’t feel as tired. I probably slept about 4-5 hours total.

While I did sleep, I had some amazingly vivid dreams. One dream involved spending the whole night at an amusement park and going on different rides with my family. It felt incredibly real and seemed to last for many hours. This imaginary amusement park had a small roller coaster on a moving vehicle resembling a parade float. So you could climb aboard the float-like vehicle and ride the roller coaster while the vehicle made its way around the park to the next stop. I didn’t get a chance to ride it, but the “roller coaster mobile” seemed like a pretty cool idea. 🙂

I should mention that I drink water throughout the day between juices. I also start each day with a whole quart of water with the juice of half a lemon and some MSM powder mixed in.

Day 2

Today (Day 2) I made the following fresh juices:

  1. celery, cucumber, apple, ginger
  2. watermelon
  3. orange
  4. carrot, spinach, romaine, lime

I drank about 1.25 gallons total.

When I went to bed last night, I was concerned that I’d feel poorly this morning because I’d read about some bad Day 2 experiences in other juice feasters’ logs. But I actually woke up feeling incredible. I was wide awake and super happy. Upon waking I didn’t detect any detox symptoms aside from sneezing a few times.

As the morning progressed, however, I felt like I was on an uncontrollable emotional roller coaster. Maybe that dream was prophetic. I went from feeling like I was on top of the world to ruminating about a friend’s problem and becoming intensely angry about it — and it’s not even my problem. Erin had to stop me from plotting revenge against someone who never wronged me. That was rather out of character for me.

About 30 minutes later, this feeling of displaced anger merged with a feeling of super-high energy, like my whole body was charged with electricity. I felt euphorically strong and incredibly pissed off at the same time. I thought I was on the verge of turning into the Hulk. I really wanted to go to a martial arts class to burn off some of that energy.

Erin seemed slightly amused by my rapid state changes and handed me a plastic container that had frustrated her because she couldn’t open it. The container itself was disposable — she just needed the (non-fragile) contents inside. I grabbed the container and violently smashed it against the bathroom counter. Then I ripped it open and yanked the contents out. I quickly realized how silly that aggressive display was, and I broke out laughing for a minute while Erin looked perplexed.

Fortunately I started feeling more mellow within a few hours. I felt mostly normal the rest of day, with just a mild headache in the afternoon that I could easily tune out.

I felt a bit hungrier today vs. yesterday. Around noon I was strongly craving raw nori rolls, but as soon as I drank the next batch of juice, I felt fine. The last solid meal I ate on Friday night was nori rolls with clover sprouts, cucumber, avocado, and ginger.

I actually prefer veggie juice to fruit juice. Veggie juice seems more satisfying, and it seems to do a better job of staving off hunger. Straight fruit juice seems a little too sugary, even when I mixed it with powdered greens and kelp. I might shift to 75-100% veggie juices tomorrow and see how that goes. That would require drinking more juice to keep my calories up though.

I think my taste buds have shifted a lot this year. When I tried a sip of straight spinach-romaine juice this evening, it actually tasted sweet to me. When I added carrot juice to it, I could really taste the sugar. I think that in time I’ll be able to handle a quart of green juice with no sweeteners like carrot, beet, or apple. Presently I can handle a quart of green juice with as little as 3-4 carrots juiced in. I’m actually a bit shocked that such juices seem so palatable to me; I didn’t find such high-greens juices attractive a year ago.

Outside of the morning enemas, I haven’t had any bowel movements since I started the juice feast yesterday morning. I have to urinate quite often though, usually more than once per hour after I drink a quart of juice. After the watermelon juice, I was going to the bathroom every 30 minutes for at least 2 hours.

I have eight different varieties of herbal teas in my cupboard, including peppermint, chamomile, dandelion, pau d’arco, senna, and a few blends. I haven’t had any of these teas on this juice feast yet, but I’ll make a cup of something before going to bed tonight.

Early today I had a mild freak-out moment when it sunk in that I won’t be eating any solid foods for 90 more days, overlapping Thanksgiving and Christmas too. I jokingly said to Erin, “I’ve gone so far that I’ve even left rabbit food behind now.” 🙂

Presently I’m feeling okay physically although slightly lethargic. Mentally I feel a little foggier than usual, like I’d feel if I was mildly sleep deprived. And emotionally I feel very mellow and content, but there’s a touch of mild euphoria present as well. The mild headache I had earlier is gone now.