Juice Fast {Take 1}

As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, I'm attempting to live a more intentional life. I've decided that this journey has to begin with a dedication to holistic health--mind, body, and spirit. While I've been devoting a lot of time to my mental and spiritual health lately, I've not been the kindest to my body. In my last post I mentioned that for the last three months I've been grieving the death of my brother, something that has caused me to reevaluate my life and priorities and spend far more time on my mental and spiritual health than I have in a long time. One thing I never realized however, is that in the midst of grief, it can be very hard to take care of yourself physically. I think there is a tendency to put all of one's energy into mental, spiritual, and emotional healing (and for good reason) and forget to make physical health a priority. For me, this has meant eating in a rush, eating too many sweets, too much salt, and too little fresh fruits and veggies.

After watching a few health-related documentaries (Fat Sick and Nearly Dead and Hungry for Change), Matt and I became inspired to try a juice fast. Our hope was that the fast would help us to re-calibrate our systems and get back to a primarily plant-based diet that included many more fruits and vegetables than we had been consuming in place of the processed junk we'd become accustomed to.

The plan was to complete a three day fast, which turned into a one day fast for Matt and a two day fast for me on account of my getting sick--this made it really difficult to decipher between detox symptoms and illness symptoms (I go into more detail below). So erring on the side of safety, I decided to cut the fast short and try a longer one in a month or two. I still consider it a success because I'm extremely motivated to continue juicing, upping my intake of fruits and vegetables, and decreasing processed foods (or at this point, just not reintroducing them into my diet.)