June 24, 2010

" To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals."
Benjamin Franklin-American Scientist, Diplomat

Good Morning!

2 days and counting for our first group juice fast. I wanted to give you some instructions on how to a juice fast works. Here it goes:

The Dealio:
Fresh vegetable juices: The juices should be unpasteurized and freshly pressed. Each day a minimum of 1/2 gallon of juice each day is required. That's 64 ozs of juice minimum. Which works out to be 4-16 oz of juice/day. I say that since most of the pre-made juices out there come in 16 oz bottles. Which make it easy to pick up 4 and be done for the day. The most common amount is to have 4-6 vegetable juices-it all depends on how hungry you are.

Water: You need to continue to hydrate yourself while juicing. Juice does NOT count as water. Water is water. A minimum of 1 quart of water is required- which is 4-8oz cups. you can increase this if you'd like, depending on your thirst. But this is a MUST during a juice fast. Feel free to add lemons, limes, or cucumbers to flavor the water. Water should not be ice cold, chilled is fine. Room temperature is preferable.

Options: For those who would like to have a meal, you can have 5 juices, and then have a light, leafy green salad in the evening. The dressing should be lemon and good quality olive oil. Try and refrain from grains and protein here. Please be sure you are also having your meal before it gets dark out.

For those who are making their own juices, please try and make them daily if you can, and have them right away. Make sure the juices are clean- meaning free of any pulp. You will need to have a fine mesh strainer and strain it as many times as necessary until its pulp free. Often with a good juicer, you will only need to strain it once or twice. The thought being that we want the vitamin and enzyme packed juices to go straight into the system. If there is pulp, the body will recognize it as food, and it will begin to digest it as food. The goal of doing the juice fast is to give the body a break from digestion.

Tips:
1) Try and drink all your juices and water slowly, savoring the flavor. Don't gulp or inhale it down. Drink from a straw if you can. This will help alleviate gas bubbles from happening on its way down.

2) Don't drink the water immediately after the juice, wait about an hour before you have your next liquid.

3) Ideally, you would alternate juice, and then water through out the day.



**Please do not use the bottled vegetable juices in the stores. They are pasteurized and enzyme deplete.

Hope this helps prepare everyone for this weekend. I encourage everyone to add comments or suggestions so that others may benefit from your experience.

2 days & counting.......

Jenn