The Juicy Life--Day 20 of My 40 Day Juice Feast

What Day I'm On: 20 out of 40--halfway home!

I am love, love, loving the Penni's discussions right now around fortitude. If you read the comments in the Bravery post, you know how incredible it has been. Such bravery! Such amazing people hanging out on this website. And I realize, once again, how flippin' lucky I am! You never really know what people are going through in their lives. Juice feasting brings things up: good stuff, bad stuff, it just stirs the pot and brings it all to the surface. I will tell you though, after reading those posts, it will be really hard for me to have a "poor me" moment again. If you're blessed, and you know it, clap your hands! (clap! clap!)

How's It Going? Team: Help me solve the mystery! Ok, yesterday was not so good. I felt spacey and weird. Maybe a little light-headed. It was not great timing because I was at work all day. Nora has daily doubles all this week (she is captain of the dance team at school) so I didn't wake her up to come work out with me. She has a tendency to over-train anyway, and dancing for 3 hrs a day for 2 wks solid is enough for anyone! Since yesterday was a cardio-only day for me, (I do weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) I decided I would just do it at work. I work across from a huge park and we also have an employee gym, so I was set.

I was walking outside, listening to my praise music, like I do, for about half an hour. Then it got too hot (over 90 and no breeze) so I went inside to the air-conditioned gym. I didn't have work out clothes on--I was wearing a dress and dress shoes, so I kicked off my shoes and walked on the treadmill barefoot. That was a mistake. After about 20 min, I could feel a lot of pain in my heel--I have had plantar facaiitis in the past and I knew exactly what it was. I finished working out, took a quick sponge bath (wash all the creases!) and went back to work. (Today, it is still sore so I am adding ginger to my juice.)

That's when the spacey thing happened. I drank lots of water, thinking I might have gotten dehydrated. That helped, but not much. I lay down in the break room at break. Again, it helped, but not enough. It was scary and I wonder what it was. Any experienced juice feasters ever have this? My juice always has celery in it because I know you need the natural sodium. I've only been drinking about 2.5 quarts of low-glycemic veggie juice. Could I not be getting enough calories?

My biggest suspicion, other than some detox going on, is my blood pressure is whack. I am off of all bp meds for well, 20 days now. I am going to go get that checked today at work. It felt like LOW blood pressure to me, though, not high. (High usually has no symptoms.) 'Tis curious!

Advice From Dave: Dave asked me what size I am wearing, and I told him, truthfully, I don't really know, because I am mostly wearing my old clothes. Like, my 113 lbs ago clothes. He laughed and said he did the same thing on the way down. He said often on a juice feast you take off weight so rapidly that it is best to wait until it's over to buy new clothes. He just pokes another hole in his belt and makes sure his pants don't fall down!

I have been slowly getting new things, at second hand shops, but I do need to stop wearing my old clothes. They swim on me, as you can imagine, and the neck holes always show my bra strap (classy!) and I because my belly doesn't tent them out as far, all my dresses are getting longer and longer till I look like I'm wearing a formal gown. lol

I am realizing that I have been holding onto them because of that fear that I spoke about yesterday, the one where all the weight returns and I have nothing to wear because I got rid of all the big clothes. This actually happened to me once before: In 1990, I took off 125 lbs (sheer will power, white-knuckling it the whole way because I hadn't learned to deal with my Brat or gotten right with God) and over time, I just lost momentum. I felt like I had been hanging off a cliff holding on by my fingertips and my hands just started to slip. I started binging again and the weight came back, and I had given all my bigger clothes away.

I am also wearing the big clothes, because I have not quite accepted that I am getting smaller. The first 50 lbs or so, I really didn't look any different. Even now, there's not a huge change visually--I am smaller all around, but in the same proportions. I only have TWO chins, now, though! lol My face looks a lot slimmer. :)

But the longer I do this, I realize, it is time to let those clothes bless someone else. I am not that girl any more. I can not see me living her life. I have changed in a fundamental way. I have changed my mind, and God has changed my heart. I can honestly say, I no longer want that food that was killing me. He has relieved me of that compulsion, because I asked Him to, believing He could, and He answered my prayer. I have to do my part, but I give Him all the glory.

So, no more hording big clothes, and for Pete's sake, no more wearing them! (I apologize for not showing you pictures of my dresses I am considering wearing to the International Day of Juice Feasting on Sept 12. My photographer, Nora, has been hanging with her girls (last hurrah before back to school for her senior year) and gotten home late and then yesterday, I was not up to playing fashion show. Probably tomorrow!) Love you guys! Smootches!