5 things i learned from my juice feast

Hey everyone! It’s been a few days hasn’t it?  I didn’t quite get the chance to blog during my mini juice feast, mostly because I was so busy putting my mum through her paces! 🙂  We did so much on top of just drinking juice for a few days including cycling, going to the gym, rebounding, meditating, yoga and massage!  Amazing!  We ended the juice feast on Sunday which was my fifth day juicing.  I think I could’ve gone on a bit longer but for whatever reason I didn’t choose to.  It was definitely a worthwhile experience and here are my top 5 learning points over the 5 days…

1. Cravings are weird!

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post I’ve done quite a few juice feasts and I have to say that cravings are usually pretty minimal, especially after the first day.  Having spent a bit of time analysing why this one should be different, I’ve come up with three main reasons.

Firstly, this is the first juice feast I’ve seen through during the Winter months.  It’s obviously a little colder round these parts in February (think baltic) and whilst I didn’t feel very cold, I think a wiser part of my mind and body was asking “What the bloody hell are you doing?” 🙂  So yes, I think solid food is definitely more useful to the body when it’s colder outside…

Secondly, this is the first juice feast I’ve done which is mostly vegetables with very minimal fruit.  The only sweet fruit we juiced was pear and grapefruit but in very small quantities.  Everything was vegetable based with herbs thrown in for good measure.  Oh and we did have one hemp milk.  The other feasts I’ve done have been largely fruit based and I think that this may have an impact on cravings although I couldn’t go in to the whys and wherefores on that one.

Lastly, I spent a lot of time with my mum as she was doing the feast with me.  What has that got to do with cravings you ask?  Well, spending time with your parents can be challenging (in a good way of course ;)) and whilst doing a juice detox, you’ll discover some emotional as well as physical things can come up.  What is bizarre to me is that at one point I was craving mince and tatties!  ‘They’ do say that cravings can be the releasing of those foods from your fat cells back in to your system.  This was astonishing to me as I haven’t eaten mince and potatoes for nigh on 5 years now so why was this coming up?  Then it hit me, this was my favourite food when I was growing up and it was my mum that made it for me!  Spending so much time with her to me means that on some level there was a connection there between a physical and emotional craving.  It was really interesting for me, even though only sheer starvation would make me touch mince these days…

2. I have a favourite juice ever!

Didn’t think it was possible but I’ve actually discovered my favourite green juice on the planet.  It’s the first time I’ve ever juiced Fennel and I LOVE IT!  I could honestly drink this till the cows come home:

Emma’s Favourite Juice

1 Cucumber

1 head of Celery

1 Fennel Bulb

3 full sprigs of mint (stalk and leaves)

1-2 pears (depending on sweetness)

3. Exercise makes all the difference

Juicing is definitely one thing, juicing and exercise is quite another!  There’s a fine line here between getting your sexy bod moving and over-doing it!  When you’re detoxing and juicing it’s important not to over-exert yourself and end up dead!  However, after ten minutes on the rebounder I felt like bloody superwoman!  Must, must, no hang on, choose, choose, choose to exercise!

4. I LOVE green juicing

I’ve definitely fallen in love with juicing.  Not that I was out of love with it, although I was out of love with cleaning the juicer 🙂 but it really is such an amazing short-cut to feeling amazing.  Since breaking the feast I’ve had a few juices and still feeling pretty awesome for it!  I’ve decided it’s my optimum start to the day and a habit worth keeping.

5. I LOVE raw food!

You might be thinking, well ok Emma, we kinda already know this but what I mean is I have renewed my passion for what I eat and why I eat the way I do.  Yes for the first day or two I was having my weirdy cravings and thoughts about mince and tatties, oatcakes and hummus but when they subsided all I could think about was rich, green salads, succulent olives, nori wraps with alfalfa and plain cucumbers!  I was desiring and longing for fresh raw foods and was so excited about munching on live foods!  I’ve fallen in love with raw all over again and it’s such a wonderful feeling!  Er, what’s that famous saying? Absence makes the heart grow fonder! So true!

I think I’d like to do a mini feast once every 8 weeks or so.  Who’s up for it? 🙂

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