This was my worst day so far. I slept 9 hours last night and woke up feeling listless and lazy. My brain was foggy the whole day, and I wasn’t very physically energetic. I felt like I was trying to function on 3-4 hours sleep, even though I slept longer than usual.

In the morning I had a mild headache as well as some mild nausea. I didn’t feel like eating anything, and the thought of having some juice didn’t appeal to me either. The nausea and headache passed shortly after I drank my first juice, but they both returned after 4pm. My bowels made some strange gurgling noises today as well.

Despite not feeling great, I was functional enough to get some work done. I decided to stick with mundane tasks instead of pushing myself to do anything creative. I caught up on a backlog of email, compiled the latest batch of book reviews, did some reading, and watched more raw food videos. I also spent some time going through the daily lessons with my juicefeasting.com membership. I enjoy watching David and Katrina Rainoshek’s videos there.

I thought Happy Oasis’ Rawkathon interview was just awesome. The part where she talked about making friends with mosquitos reminded me of my recent post on Killing Bugs. When I showered this morning, there was a spider on the tile wall, so I had to be careful not to splash him because I didn’t want him to be washed down the drain. He’s still hanging out in the shower now. Spiders seem to enjoy sitting in the same spots all day with minimal travel. They must be very patient.

I had one small bowel movement this morning but that was it. On a 100% raw diet, I’d normally average about 5 per day. Apparently the enemas are taking care of most of the elimination for now.

Today’s Tasty Treats

Today I drank the following fresh juices:

1. carrot, apple, kale, red leaf lettuce, dandelion greens, ginger, lime
2. watermelon
3. carrot, apple, kale, red leaf lettuce, dandelion greens, ginger, lime
4. celery, cucumber, romaine, parsley, apple, grape, kiwi, fennel, red pepper, ginger, lime

This was about 1.1 gallons total.

I made batches 1 and 3 together in the morning, while Erin helped me by making the watermelon juice. This took about 45 minutes total, including washing the produce and doing the cleanup. Making 3 quarts at once saved time later in the day since I didn’t need to break for lunch. I just grabbed another quart of juice from the fridge and drank it while I continued working.

Unfortunately I put way too much kale in the first batch (I juiced a large bunch of green kale), so the juice came out very bitter. I didn’t like it very much, but I was able to get it down by ignoring the protests from my taste buds. I’ll need to be more conservative with the kale in the future.

The watermelon juice was delicious as usual. It’s also very convenient because one small watermelon makes over a quart of juice.

My final combo of the day was overly complex. I kept adding things to it along the way, thinking it would taste interesting. In that I succeeded, but interesting juice isn’t always a good thing.

Lime and Ginger

Lime and ginger add a nice kick to any juice, so you’ll probably see me including those two ingredients often. For a quart of juice, I include about a teaspoon of fresh ginger and half a lime. I juice the lime with the rind (they’re organic).

Organic Produce

Virtually all the produce I buy is organic. I think the only exceptions on my last shop were the coconuts and the pineapple. The local stores didn’t carry organic versions of either. Fortunately Whole Foods carries an abundance of organic green veggies.

No Hunger Problems

I didn’t have any major hunger issues today. In fact, I felt strangely uninterested in food for most of the day, although I did get hungry in the evening. I think my brain is a little confused about that, like it’s saying, “Hey, wait a minute here. Weren’t we supposed to eat today at some point? Who said we could triage eating?”

Although I’m not hungry, I have been having some strange food cravings lately. Earlier today I wanted french fries with ketchup.

I think by the time I’m done with this juice feast, the raw food diet is going to seem even more abundant to me than it used to. While I was juicing the red leaf lettuce this morning, it looked delicious to me. When I do a strict trial like this, I’m really good about not cheating though. It strikes me as funny that I’m on a diet where eating lettuce is actually considered cheating.

I can just picture myself 10 years from now: “Sorry, Steve. No oxygen for you today — that would be cheating!” 🙂

Or go backwards 20 years: “I just thought a veggie omelette would taste better than a ham omelette this morning. It’s not like I’m going vegetarian or anything.”

Feeling Cold

In the afternoon I started feeling chilly. Even at 77 degrees in my office, I had to grab a blanket to stay warm. I had issues with feeling cold during my raw food diet trial in January as well. Eventually that problem went away; however, I began to appreciate the hot weather more than ever. When it was 110 degrees outside during the Vegas summer, I loved going outside because it felt so good to me. If this keeps up, I may need to dress very warm soon. During the winter months, it can get down into the low 30s in Vegas.

Emotional Detox

This evening I experienced more emotional issues. I got very frustrated with how long it took me to make the juice and clean up the juicer. And then I got even more frustrated when I discovered that our housekeeper accidentally threw out my nut milk bag, mistakenly thinking it was trash. Fortunately we were able to retrieve it.

Weight Loss

This morning my weight was down to 178.0, so that’s a net loss of 1.0 pounds in 2 days.

Tomorrow I’m getting a haircut followed by a colon hydrotherapy session — one of the more unusual errand combos. “Take a little off the top and out the bottom.” 🙂