Juice Feasting - Day 17 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Juice Feasting - Day 17

[Matiasfx]

Hey Steve, sorry to hear u still have some detox issues..... but i know you can do this!!!

Just do it as you said, one day at the time and remind yourself each day that you can always eat solid food tomorrow, but today wont be the day you break the juice feast!! and hopefully soon, the strong detox will be over.

best regards

matty

[appifanie]

Sorry you're feeling crappy again! And watermelon-cantaloupe-blackberry-raspberry juice sounds awesome!

[Holistic Star]

Hi Steve,

You might not want to mix melon juice with others if you are having digestive problems.

Melon digests quicker than other fruits and can cause fermentation in the digestive system when mixed with other fruits

Actually saying that, I'm not sure about melon juice compared to the fruit, however melon does have a high mould count which might make you queasy too.

From memory you seem to be getting ill after melon juice, so maybe lay off for a couple of days and see if that helps.

[dandylion]

its the melon. it happened to me a couple of times and i have never encountered 'allergy' like symptoms when i had melon as a kid. maybe all melons are GM these days...who knows. do you know the country of origin of your produce?

i suggest that you continue juice fasting sans melons of any kind and continue recording how you feel.

[debbiedoesraw]

Hey Steve
I think the melon is making you ill.. the only way I would do them is blended, but I agree with the others, watermelon is not your friend!

You seem to really be cleaning out.. when is your next colonic? That may be the ticket to making the bad stuff move out quicker.
It's amazing what goes on in our bodies, huh?
Deb

[RRR]

ha.. I think everyone noticed the watermelon correlation. From the little I've read about natural hygiene melons should be eaten alone and can cause some people to get "melon belly" which is described as a lot of gas, nausea, and pain. Perhaps avoid the melons?

Its amazing diet matters this much, really truly amazing. Blood gas theories, enzymes, etc. I am a bit bothered the science isn't concrete yet, your results will have to be my pre-experiment influence.

[Steve Pavlina]

I agree it's probably the melon juice, but it's strange that I'm having these problems now. I used to make watermelon juice before my juice feast and never had these kinds of problems before. And I would eat plenty of watermelon as well, which is mostly juice anyway and not much fiber.

[Fullcrum]

It seems you don't care much for the green juices. I've heard those are extremely dense nutritionally. You also said they're not as calorically dense. When we're sick, we lose the urge to eat because our body is healing. Perhaps you should go a day on green juices to produce more stable blood sugar levels through fewer calories and perhaps a cleaner detox?

[geekmba360]

Steve,

I'm sorry if I sound ignorant or rude here -- I'm not a vegetarian and I'm not familiar with the detox symptoms.

However, based on what you've described in your blog posts, I'm starting to getting concerned about your health. How do you distinguish detox symptoms from health problems? How do you know if your liquid diet is not having ill effect on your body? You're one of the smartest guys on earth, but still I'm questioning the benefits of the diet you've having now. How do you know it's a healthy diet?

Also, I don't think you should continue doing this just because you're very disciplined and you never quit. I have long admired your discipline and mental toughness. But, I have to say that this is one of those situations that I think you might be better off by 'quitting'.

Just my 2 cents.
GeekMBA360
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[Antarananda]

I've been meaning to write you an email, Steve, about the Ayurvedic perspective on this experiment. My training is in Western medicine, but I abandoned that approach to become deeply involved in Ayurveda, which is aligned and in tune with the self healing and inherently intelligent dynamics of Life.

I have to say that a lot of what you're attributing to "detox" is simply the tridoshic balance of your body and mind being thrown out of whack quite severely and regularly through an imbalanced diet.

The symptoms you mention this time are a classic increase in pitta dosha (fire element in the body). The hives were a direct result of the increased pitta, as were the reflux and nausea. In other posts you have mentioned spaciness etc; that is a direct result of increased air and ether elements in your body as a result of avoiding cooked food, grains etc (which tend to increase the earth element and are grounding).

I'll write a more comprehensive post or email detailing just why this raw / juice approach may give some great results short term, but is not balanced or holistic in the long term. Much of the research supporting the various cleansing regimens you are utilizing are similarly reductionistic in approach as the more prevalent paradigm of medicine / nutrition.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

It seems you don't care much for the green juices. I've heard those are extremely dense nutritionally. You also said they're not as calorically dense. When we're sick, we lose the urge to eat because our body is healing. Perhaps you should go a day on green juices to produce more stable blood sugar levels through fewer calories and perhaps a cleaner detox?

I'm drinking about 2 quarts of green juices every day, aiming for around 2 lbs of leafy greens juiced each day. I also juice a head of celery and one cucumber per day minimum. Lately I've been doing about 50% fruit juices and 50% green juices. I often add spinach or green powders to the fruit juices as well.

So I'm definitely consuming a lot of greens every day.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by geekmba360

However, based on what you've described in your blog posts, I'm starting to getting concerned about your health. How do you distinguish detox symptoms from health problems? How do you know if your liquid diet is not having ill effect on your body? You're one of the smartest guys on earth, but still I'm questioning the benefits of the diet you've having now. How do you know it's a healthy diet?

I don't know. The point is to find out.

What I've experienced so far is well within the scope of what others have experienced on a juice feast, so I don't see any cause for concern at this point.

[Fullcrum]

Never mind then. You just never really mentioned green juices, and the last logs you had of the juices you made every day seemed to involve less greens than when you started.

Reading about detox is quite enlightening. I hope to undertake something like this one day away from the rigors and confines of high school .

[floslib]

I'm sorry to hear it's not going so well at the moment. I hope things will get better with time, especially given that's the point.

I actually have a question about the whole juice feasting thing though, and wasn't sure if I should put it here or start a new thread for it.

As far as I can tell, you make your juices from foods that you would normally eat on your raw diet anyway. What's the difference nutritionally or even just health-wise of juicing your food first instead of just eating it? Is it the ease of digestion, or something I'm missing? Or is this just something people say works, so you decided to test it out and let us all know your results?

[MasterD]

Don't force the juices down Steve.

As Dr. Graham says, many detox 'symptoms' are just symptoms of not doing the diet right (it applies to 80/10/10 here).

That's also my experience. Whenever I ignore the signals of my body, e.g. no appetite, and I eat anyway, out of habit, I pay the price. It can be as big as still being sick 2 days after. Even if it is just fruit. In your case just fruit or veggie juice.

If you have no appetite, wait till it returns. It's just common sense, but very hard sometimes.

[MasterD]

Btw.. it can take a day or 2 till true appetite returns, but after that you will feel immensily better and you won't go through the constant cycle of feeling good and bad. Of course you will still go through cycles, but if you just listen to the signals of the body, the bad periods will be a lot shorter and less intense.

[MasterD]

Getting in perfect contact with your body is the ultimate way to perfect health I believe. It's hard when you feel bad, because your thinking becomes irrational.

You know you have certain yoga routines, but very experienced yogi's just FEEL what kind of moves they have to do in order to get energy flowing in the body the way they want it.

Ultimately you just want to be able to feel what your body needs, all the time, because you have been so many different routines and just know the effects of everything you do. According to Dr. Graham it takes about 7-10 years of serious focus to get there, but then you'll just know what your body needs, all the time.

[Rose of Cairo]

I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well Steve.

In my opinion your "detox" symptoms are no detox symptoms but simply signs that your diet is inappropriate. It's perfectly normal to get heartburn and indigestion given what you ingest. These juices get poured into your poor stomach without having been in the slightest prepared by chewing and saliva. Digesting them without such preparation is a tough job. Then you have no fiber to push them through the intestine, and what you drink contains a lot of sugar. No wonder it rots in your guts.

Seriously, I'm not surprised you get problems.

What helps wonderfully against heartburn is green clay.

What also might help is to chew the juice for a while before you swallow it.

Good luck!

[Hyperchiller]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well Steve.


What also might help is to chew the juice for a while before you swallow it.

Good point. Steve never said anything about chewing his juices so that's a pretty plausible reason for the stomach problems.

[Amandaaa]

This whole juice feasting/raw food craze is kind of amusing to me... because I used to be really obsessed with that stuff, and I never would've dreamed of talking about it so publicly.

My close friends who knew about my health food "obsession" all thought that I was insane... so it's kind of funny to see Steve develop such a huge following on this website. He has once again proven that: a) I'm not completely crazy; and b) Being "abnormal" can be a good thing.



The world of natural health can be a slippery slope though... You might keep telling yourself that you're just "detoxing," when your body might be asking for something else. After a while, it gets hard to tell... especially since juicing can really kill your appetite. (There was a point in time when I really believed that I could live on water and air. haha.) You might not even be able to recognize your own hunger...or you might just brush it off as another "addiction" that you need to break.

I don't know... Try not to completely lose your mind before your juicing experiment is over!

[Jasper]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I agree it's probably the melon juice, but it's strange that I'm having these problems now. I used to make watermelon juice before my juice feast and never had these kinds of problems before. And I would eat plenty of watermelon as well, which is mostly juice anyway and not much fiber.

I used to love banana's, but now I get a very nasty allergy reaction when I eat them. This seemed to have happened from one day to the other.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by Jasper

I used to love banana's, but now I get a very nasty allergy reaction when I eat them. This seemed to have happened from one day to the other.

Interesting. May I ask you what your reaction looks like?? I suspect I might be allergic to bananas too but I've never heard of banana allergy before.

[Raphael]

I've got a very "worldly" question:
Which equipment do you use to get the juice out of the fruits?

[Fullcrum]

He uses a green star juicer. It seems, based on what's online comparing to other juicers, to be among the best of juicers.

[spazgirl]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Interesting. May I ask you what your reaction looks like?? I suspect I might be allergic to bananas too but I've never heard of banana allergy before.

My mother is allergic to bananas. She gets nausea and a headache when she's near a peeled banana, and she reports that if she were to eat one, she'd get hives or a rash.

[Jasper]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Interesting. May I ask you what your reaction looks like?? I suspect I might be allergic to bananas too but I've never heard of banana allergy before.

It's the same reaction I get to penicillin.

It starts with an itching and burning sensation, all over my body. Then my skin get's irritated all over, like i have mosquito bites everywhere. Finally my fingers, ears, and face swell up.
I've had these reaction from a few hours (bananas), to a few days (penicillin).

The first time I experienced the banana-allergy, I didn't get it. I ate a banana in the morning, before work, and during that day I felt some sort of allergic reaction, but it was mild. Just a warm feeling and itching here and there (especially on the top of my head). Then when I got home that evening, I ate another banana, not aware of the relation to my earlier mild allergic reaction. The second reaction has been the worst allergic reaction for me uptil now, as intensity goes. My fingers, ears and face were so swollen and so red that my girlfriend actually screamed when she came by to check on me, after I told her what happened. She didn't recognize me, and just saw some monster-like red-faced creep (like Hell-Boy or something)!

We can laugh about it now, but at that time I was pretty worried. My fingers and ears were so much bigger than they should be and the hole in my ear was so small. I was very afraid at that time, that the swelling might move to other places, such as my throat. Of course the itching was the worst part. It took a lot of effort to stop myself from scratching constantly. At that point, scratching seems to be the only way to give yourself some relief.

Funny thing is that I found out the allergy is only for raw banana's. I can still eat fried or baked banana.