Juice Feasting - Day 23 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

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

Juice Feasting - Day 23

[kenwagner]

Hi Steve,

This is my first visit to your forum, but I have been discovering your podcasts recently. If I have learned anything from you (and your wife) so far, it is not to stick to arbitrary rules. 92 days is an arbitrary rule that only becomes meaningful if it makes sense to you at this moment in time.

I think you are right to pause, reflect, and ask for other opinions before you stop something that was previously very important to you. But it seems like you know you need to return to your family.

Best,
Ken

[Dan.Linehan]

RE: what would I do...

I would make it a thirty day trial instead of 92 days, and decide how to proceed then.

The herb and parasite cleanse do sound interesting.

[sarah786]

yes i was thinking the same finish 30 days and see how you feel from there

[TravisBickle]

I agree with the above 2 posters, turn it into a 30 day trial and decide from there.

[Raphael]

cool, 30days has also been my idea.

[skinnyninja]

I think you know that you want to, and should, stop. Just the feel I got from your post.

No shame in stopping at day 23. Who can claim to have done even half of that, really? Not many.

You got in, learned some stuff, now you're getting out. Maybe return to it later, right? I applaud your efforts either way. Thanks for documenting so well thus far.

[phoenixxx]

I think you should stop. It doesn't mean you haven't learnt anything from the juice feast- you've learnt what your priorities are (or have become). You've recognised that you are more inclined to prioritise spending time with the people you love and connecting with them and growing through them than through purely solitary methods. There's only so much growing you can do without other people.

Remember 7 Habits for Highly Effective People? The 2nd quadrant was Relationships and Exercise. You exercise so that you can give the best parts of yourself to other people. And I personally dont think that needs to mean giving them an insight into juice feasting or whatever. I've found that the most value you can give people is just to express yourself authentically and help to open them up to full authentic expression also.........

I'm saying this to myself just as much as to everyone here!!!

[Jesann]

You should stop now. The sense I get from your blog posts about it is that your body is rebelling against the juice feast, not from a detox point of view, but from nutritional and survival points of view. You wrote at the start you'd be taking supplements, but there's a reason they're called supplements and not replacements, and supplements aren't always fully utilized by our bodies.

[debbiedoesraw]

You know, I was wondering, is it necessary to only drink juice? Can you do green smoothies or no? I like the idea of ending at thirty days too.
I think that your weight is probably getting too low and the old bod is freaking out, saying, give me some calories dammit!
or something like that..
good luck whatever you do
we will still respect you after the feast ends!
deb

[Speedbump]

Hi Steve,

Judging by your recent entries and this latest one, I think that it is likely a good time to stop this feast (that doesn't mean you can't do another one later). Family relationships are very important and it simply isn't worth it to feel disconnected from your loved ones unless you are truly unhealthy and really needed to detox for illness reasons. Since you do not fit into that category, I would put family first if I were you. You definitely made a solid go of it and know enough to understand your next feast better, if you should decide to do another one.

[ArthurHung]

I meant to press "No, it's time to stop" but accidentally pressed "I'm not sure".

For one thing, and this is the main thing, I think your time and energy would be more wisely put into focusing into something else: polarity e-book, time-management (unique one with connectedness focus), that brand new club you were writing about in that magazine article etc.

I think the uplifting affect of feeling more connected with your family, after choosing to eat raw-foods/vegan/foods of your choice again will be an incredible boost that will give you a great initial push that can bring you an unexpectedly far higher passion in one of the above mentioned suggestions.

I have found a few of your recent forum/blog posts to lack a certain something that brought a lot of depth to what you say that I could never point a finger to as well, perhaps a reflection of the disconnect that you feel with your family. If I had to pin it down, I would go so far as to say it lacked polarization, which many of us lightworkers/potential lightworkers are eagerly anticipating to obtain.

That said, and I've written about this before, your posts on your juice feast did inspire me to significantly reduce my sugar/salt consumption. And I still greatly enjoy reading all your blog+forum posts. No matter what your decision, it'll be a good ride for all of us interested parties I believe. Choose what will make you and in effect, all those that you influence, more intelligent.

[Rapid]

Hi, Steve. Perhaps do another 7 days if you are able, or until the day before Thanksgiving (so that you can spend some quality time having dinner with your family).

[Kathy]

I say follow your intuition and what your body is telling you. Your body can do it, it can do amazing things if you ask it to do so, but each cell has a consciousness of itself, and your entire organism has a consciousness beyond the consciousness known as Steve. What does your body feel about this?

[jules1896]

"Everything popular is wrong." ~Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“The price of discipline is always less than the pain of regret” ~Unknown

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." ~Mark Twain

Steve, please keep going. You said yourself, it's only 3 months out of your whole life. I hope the poll results won't influence you to do something you'd later regret. I am fascinated by your experience and am sending positive thoughts your way!

[rbhambha]

Steve,

I don't know much about juice feasting other than what you've posted over the course of the last 23 days. However, I do feel that you should keep going. I know you haven't experienced any substantial benefits yet, and you're feeling disconnected from your family. But you never know, you could be choosing to give up right before the amazing benefits kick in.

You decided to do this thing for 92 days, and there was a reason for choosing such a length of time. Stick with it and evaluate at the end of the period how the experience was for you. I'm almost positive your family situation will be okay because like you said, they are very supportive AND it is only temporary. You've come so far, don't give up just yet! Take it one day at a time and we all know you'll make it. You're posting an incredible resource here for millions of people to use in the future.

Rahul

[freddy]

I would like to see you make the 30 days if you can hold out I don't see the point to go further if you are not able to because of family traditions.I know having to cook for my kids have shortened food change I have tried to do. Any way you look at it you have had a lot of people take a closer look at the way they eat and make some changes. Your still a hero in my book no matter what you chose to do.

[Eleanor Rose]

My intuitive response to your article was that your energy could be much better spent doing something else.

It doesn't seem worth it to continue if your heart's not in it - your heart could be in something else, making a difference in another, perhaps more productive, way (not that this hasn't been productive - I mean, it's been so interesting to read about the juice feast so far, but is it perhaps going to get tedious and drawn out if you continue, for your readers and for you?) And what will the real benefits be to continue?

Plus feeling disconnected from family is quite a sacrifice to make.

I wouldn't continue in your position.

[Lanya]

It sounds like you're sacrificing love for power. Am I hearing you right?
Don't you need an abundance of all three for intelligence?

[lifetimelearner]

from what I can tell from the short while I have been here you like to hear other people's opinions

but I want to ask questions-

are you happy?

would you be happier if you quit ?

or would you be upset with yourself for not finishing ?



I would like to say -
I admire you for the trials you have put yourself through and the truthful blogs you allow us to read

[Scorpio]

Would you still do the liver and parasite cleanses anyways? Isn't that the whole point of this? To cleanse yourself, not just drink juice for its own sake? Maybe you can quit the hardcore juice drinking and still do a lot of the detoxing stuff.

I know this is overly cynical, but I wonder if anyone is saying you should stop because they don't like constantly reading about the juice feast, and are hoping if you quit you'll write about something else?

[Rachelle]

I went back to visit your Day 1 post on juice feasting and noted this:

"Why 92 days? There’s a story behind the number, but I don’t consider it a big deal. The number 92 was used because supposedly the body needs 92 different elements to function optimally. For practical purposes, we’re essentially dealing with a 3-month target, which is a good length of time to give the body a rest from digestion and allow it to focus on healing and regeneration.

Instead of forcing myself to go exactly 92 days, I’ll do my best to listen to my body to determine when to stop. Some people go 30 days."

I personally think you should do 30 days or so (maybe 31 or a few more) - i.e. at least a solid month, and then stop.

I think it would be wonderful to celebrate the end of your juice feast with a sit-down (Thanksgiving?) meal with your family where you can all share the joys of eating solid food and each others connection and company.

[TheAndySan]

I think that you should continue with the juice feast.

You've already established a deadline (69 more days) and I feel that if you were to stray from that, you would become more inclined to do so with your future endeavours.

If you feel disconnected from your family during meals, why don't you drink with them? Just pour yourself a small glass if you're not that hungry. Before the juice feast, you were the only one in your household who ate 100% raw vegan while the others eat mostly cooked vegan and you were still able to connect with them at the dinner table. Have them try out some of the juices if they want to, so they can better connect with what you're doing.

I'm glad that you're honest in sharing the disconnection you feel with your family. However, I believe that simply calling it quits now would not be in your best interests. I feel that you should instead find ways that you can connect with your family (like I said above). Take a drive, go for a walk (I dunno how cold it is this time of year in Nevada), play board games. Sometimes the simplest things can bring us together the closest.

If you were to quit the juice feast before the 92 days were up, your Power would become weaker because you didn't discipline yourself to go the full distance. You think that eating solid foods again with your family would be like hitting the reset button. You are denying the Truth, which is that you can always connect with anyone and are always able to accept Love.

Of course, after the 69 days are over and you feel that you didn't get the results that you were after, nobody's gonna force you to do it again but yourself. Also keep in mind that you were pretty healthy to begin with due to eating 100% raw, so I wasn't that surprised when you weren't losing a lot of weight.

Hang in there, Steve! I know you can do it!

[DerekH]

Why don't you look for other ways to connect with your family?

[rrrearden]

Hi Steve-

I think Speedbump hit it on the head. There is a definite lack of energy and excitement in reading your posts of late. It doesn't sound like you are getting a whole lot out of this particular experiment other than detox (which is good of course) but with the effect it is having on your relationships doesn't seem to be enough of a trade off for continuing.

I may have missed something but I wasn't sure why 92 days to begin with....unless you were thinking of making this a permanent change, I don't think there would be any real reason for going beyond your typical 30 day trial.

Good luck in whatever you choose, I hope you've asked you family this same question!

Rebecca

[HealingMaven]

Oddly enough, being not even of vegetarian persuasion, I said to keep going. I've found the concept of juice feasting really interesting and have read a lot on it in the last couple of weeks. The impression I get is that it varies by person, but that you're still in the tougher zone. Additionally, I've never seen you do less than a 30 day trial. To me, that says something. I would suggest that you re-set the goal of 92 days to either 30 days, the day before thanksgiving, or the day before christmas.

However, there is something not being addressed, and that's the feeling of isolation. My heart aches for you there, and I'm so sorry. That *needs* to be addressed in some fashion. The question is "how?" There are ways to bond without food - food just seems to be one of the most primal. Maybe replace one primal with another; ie., get a baby sitter - if possible a relative who can kep them for 24 hours, and have a special date with Erin. If you use your time (ahem) constructively enough, then the afterglow should be enough to ground & reconnect you there. (Yes, seriously. Sex isn't the be-all and end-all, but it can be a very useful tool for connection.)

Then the next day, take the kids someplace that's special to you guys that's always been good for connecting before. (I don't know where, I'm not a parent. Maybe they love miniature golf? Maybe there's someplace they've been wanting to go? Maybe there's someplace that they almost always seem to grow and discover something new?)

Heck, maybe the older one wants to learn blackjack... o

Good luck.

[cinnabar]

So you've gone through some detox, which you wouldn't have otherwise done... you have a good feel of what life is like on a juice feast, which you documented well for others to see and learn from.

If it's not doing anymore more for you than that, (besides a little weight loss, which doesn't seem like a huge necessity in your case), then why continue?

If you decide to press on, that's great. But I certainly would not be one to point fingers if you decide you've had enough. Your family is so important... and not being able to share meals is surprisingly distancing. I went through something like that with trying to switch to raw. Sure it's supposed to be the perfect diet, but it became a wedge that made all my family members drift further and further apart. Being able to eat together again, and have foods that we all can enjoy has revived us!

Everyone's different. Find the balance that is right for you, and for your family.

[ncos]

It's pretty clear to me that you should stop the experiment.

[RRR]

I saw this starting to happen on day 10 and day 11. I posted about it and you denied it being a disconnection problem.

Eating is not only about food. There is a communal aspect. Maybe you can alter the eating in your house? Maybe you can eat more communally? Everyone brings something to the table and shares? Eating becomes a way to feed your soul, maybe spend more time focused on your interpersonal relationship with your family instead of on the different foods you are eating. Acknowledge that consumption is a way of continued survival, and if Juicing works out over the 92 days you will have data to help countless readers and the ripples they produce. Maybe let your kids make some of your juice so they have a way of connecting with you?

The question I have is: how does being raw or being on a juice feast affect your parenting decisions? How do you allow your children to eat cooked food when you believe them to be full of toxins? What if they aren't able to make the decision to do otherwise without going through withdraws, and as children lack the self-discipline to make that choice?

The juice feast isn't about you and your self-discipline. These experiments aren't about you and your growth only, there are answers we need to know and data we need as a community. You haven't gotten to parasite flushing. You haven't gotten to liver flushing. And you are now faced with even greater love based challanges. Your old answer was to press on with truth and power, I see bachelor Steve whipping himself with self-discipline in this last post. Your juice feasting isn't aligned enough with love and it would help you grow to learn how to make it so.

Please press on Steve.

[Steve Pavlina]

Just checked the poll results, and it's 11 for and 11 against. 11-11 rears its head again, but what does it mean?

I've been getting some email feedback on this too, and the results there are split about 50-50 as well.

I should mention that it will take me 6 days to progressively break the juice feast, regardless of whether I stop now or at Day 92. This is to ease my body back into solid foods and avoid getting sick from an abrupt transition.

I should also mention that I can do the liver and parasite cleanses after a juice feast if necessary. They can be done at other times. They might be more effective as part of a juice feast though.

My default decision is that I'm going to keep going unless I gain sufficient clarity to say that stopping is really the best choice for me. If I continue to feel ambivalent like I do now, I'll keep pressing on.

I really appreciate all the feedback. It certainly gives me a lot of angles to consider.