Why Juicing?
This is a personal testament of my experience of a 15-day Juice Fast.
Let me say from the onset, I am not telling anyone to do a juice fast. I would simply like to share my experience as a diabetic doing this protocol.
Juicing is a process that extracts the juices from fresh fruit and vegetables. Depending on the machine you use, it usually strips away most of the solid matter, including the seeds, pulp and fibre, from whole fruits and vegetables. The resulting liquid is where most of the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants are naturally present.
For the duration of the juicing cleanse, I stopped the high blood pressure meds, and continued with the insulin, only when necessary.
A few months ago, I had a personal consultation with Dr Jody Lewis, a Naturopath and Traditional Healer. The purpose of the consultation was to explore healthier options to correct my health and balance my mind and spirit. Being diabetic for the past 17 years has been somewhat challenging, and Jody explained the importance of re-booting my body, which is ultimately a computer, receiving data every day from what we eat and drink, as well as our emotional behaviour. And just like when our hard drives tend to crash, we need to press CTL / ALT / DEL to refresh. And Juicing provides that reboot. Jody explained the connection between the mind, body, and spirit and how collectively these three need to work in conjunction with each other for optimum and overall health results.
Now, let me say this. I am a T2 insulin-dependent diabetic. So for the period of the juice fast, I stopped the fast-acting insulin during the day and reduced the nighttime insulin by half the prescribed dosage. I also stopped my blood pressure medication.
The outcome of the consultation was the following:
The first step was to address the mind and spirit because without changing my thought process, my body would never buy into the change. The reboot would be a 15-day vegetable juice fast, coupled with daily walking in the morning. I am traditionally awake in the early hours of the morning, so taking a walk at 6 am was not a problem.
My initial shopping list consisted of Celery, Baby Marrows, Sweet Potato, Beetroot, Fresh Ginger, and Lemons.
Going into the Juicing on day one, my skin was somewhat dull, with dark rings under my eyes (which you can see in the image provided). I started every morning with a glass of warm water with lemon followed by a glass of pure celery juice, an hour later. The rest of the day was a combination of each of the vegetable juices. At all times, these were diluted with water. The best tasting was by far, the celery and the baby marrow. With each glass of juice, I also had a glass of lemon water. I was consuming about three litres of water a day.
The first three days were ok. No major side effects or constipation. I did experience a headache on about day 5 but pushed through the pain. Constipation also set in from about day 5, but after including Psyllium Husk with my juicing, that problem was rectified.
Did I have any notable health or physical improvements? Yes, definitely!
Blood Pressure: My blood pressure has literally normalised! From a reading six month ago, of 182/88 (on medication) to 129/69 (off medication and during the juice fast!)
Blood Sugar: I traditionally follow a very low carb diet (max 30g carbs a day), so my blood sugar was pretty much consistent, reaching a high of only 12 mmol/dL only once, and that was after the butternut juice.
Exercise: I walked 3km every day, and my energy levels increased every day. I certainly could have done more.
Skin: My skin has visibly improved. It’s brighter, and the dark rings under eyes are visibly lighter.
Weight loss: I lost 3.2kg in 15 days, I suspect a lot of that weight loss was water – but weight loss was not my main objective.
Negatives: The journaling every day was a pain, but I totally understand the importance of keeping the record. It provides you with a pattern of your health that you can refer back to when you need to understand how and why you’re feeling a certain way. Each day I recorded my waking blood sugar, other blood sugar readings up to 8 times a day, my blood pressure, my exercise and my emotional state of mind. The journaling also helps to you to purge the negative “data” that you have been feeding your mind and soul. Its about taking responsibility and being accountable for how you have treated your body.
Will I do it again? Hands down, yes! It’s a great reboot tool for the body, but not only a reboot, I would suggest that we should all incorporate a juice detox at least once a month.
