a juice feaster

This week, I committed to a 7 day juice feast.  Terces of Cafe Gratitude has created juice club supported by daily emails and blog entries.  She juices for the first 7 days of every month.  I signed up for the club in March and this is the first month that I have actually gone through with it.  I love the idea of juicing for a week, but I do love my food.  This felt like the perfect to time to finally commit though.  I have just moved to New York City, launched my website, and September is here, a shift in seasons and in my life.  Why not kick it off with a fresh start for my body, too?

This city is abundant with juice spots, so that makes it easy.  Along with the Union Square Farmer's market that happens every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 9am-6pm where I get my fresh produce to make my own juice.  This week I have been on the apartment hunt, as my sublet ends Sept. 19.  I was zig-zagging about town and it was really quite easy to pop in to health food shops and cafes for some juice and then rush off to my next appointment.  I definitely felt like  a real New Yorker this week, whizzing about, transferring from train to train, leaving the house early and not returning till much much later, but fitting it all in while I was out and about.

I would leave the house to drop off my compost at the farmer's market and get to the gym and then end up being whisked away to see apartments, making an effort to still squeeze in making it to the gym and all the errands I planned to get to done.

Most of the time I felt great, light and full of energy, not feeling as if I was fasting with just juice.  I was completely fulfilled.  When thoughts of "I am so hungry!" came up then I got more juice and remembered to hydrate.  It is quite amazing to notice how much drinking water took away those starvation feelings.   I have been able to fully function while juice feasting.  I make it to yoga classes and to the gym.  The most important thing for me to remember is to drink more and more water.

A few of the days, after seeing apartments and feeling a bit discouraged in that area, I would be standing in line for my juice and my eyes would fall to some yummy treats.  I immediately went to, "I am going to give myself a treat!"  I really got present to how often I treat food as a reward.  A reward for what?  Being alive?  Taking life on?  I quickly caught myself and reminded myself that I am giving myself a treat, by committing to the week of juicing.

The last two evenings I was craving non-juice so I went and bought some miso paste at a cute little food co-op around the corner from me and mixed it with some hot water for a little miso soup tea that I drank down.  This was so satisfying that I plan on keeping it as my regular evening snack when I get hungry after dinner.

This was the perfect week for me to be committed to juicing.  I really am not finding it hard.  Today is day 5 and  I am excited to get some more green juice in me!  Off to the juicer I go!