Another Juicy Recipe

Although my juice fast ended early and I'm fully enjoying my solids again, there's still a juicy recipe I just had to share with you guys. Nice and sweet, but not overtly sugary because of the use of tart green apples and therefore less prone to cause havoc on your blood sugar.

I'm submitting this recipe to Raw Foods Thursday and Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Groovy Ginger Granny Juice
Adapted from Ravishing Raw's Ravishing Juice Fast

Ingredients
(serves one)

4 green apples
1 lemon
1 stalk of celery
a bowl of greens
a piece of fresh ginger to taste

Put everything through a juicer and enjoy.

I Count The Days

I don't really know how to write this post.

Remember this: “But I didn’t binge. It almost felt like that wasn’t even an option. I do say almost. But a situation like that, letting go after a period of severe restriction, the feeling of being a failure, would undoubtedly have led to a binge in the past. So although I wished that I would have been able to hold out just a bit longer or had ended the fast more consciously with the right transition foods, I do feel stronger for having done it and confident in the fact that I am already able to make better choices.”

Well, umm, scratch that.

In the past I have been rather unwilling to share the bad on this blog. I wanted to reserve this space for positivity. But since I’ve been underlining so much of my progress lately – letting go of stifling eating habits, finally discovering the willpower to break the cycle – I would feel dishonest not to mention the setbacks as well.

You probably already guessed it: I’ve binged. Fuck.

I count the days that go by without bingeing. Yesterday would and should have been day 25. It’s really disheartening to have to start over again, being back at day 1, because in reality I’m not entirely back to square one. Yes, I have binged and it sucks big time. Of course it shouldn’t have happened. But it did. I can’t undo it and hating myself for it only adds to the chance that it will happen again. I need to accept it and just go one. This is something that just a month ago would have been unconceivable.

If I count the days differently it becomes evident I am making progress. 6 months ago I would binge 25 out of 30 days, 3 months ago that already would have been reduced to 10 out of 30 days, one month ago I was down to 4 days and today it’s only been 1 out of 30 days. One horrible day, sure, but it is what it is.

Why the binge, you may ask. I blame “the devil” again, my destructive side, my “dark passenger” if you will, meaning that part inside of me that wants to keep me in check whenever I am doing well because good is never good enough and somewhere deep down I feel I don’t deserve it.

And I am doing well. Sunday I first attended a raw foods workshop that centered around summery soups, enjoying a taste of everything on offer. 

Subsequently, after nine months (!) of not seeing them because I felt too fat, I finally found the courage to face my friends again for a leisurely meal shared in the sunshine while Indie made some new friends of her own.

This was a huge step for me and it stirs my afflicted self. It revolts to the changes I am making because it experiences them as unknown and unsafe. As I wrote somewhere else, my affliction is my comfort zone.

Yesterday that part of me won. Today I am tired of being at war with myself. In my post about possession I asked: “how do I exorcise myself without being lost?”. I think perhaps I am using the wrong analogy. The psychiatrist that describes me my meds once compared my struggles to standing at one end of a cliff with “the devil” standing on the other, having ourselves a never-ending tug of war. At its best, it wears me out; at its worst, it makes me stumble and fall; always “the devil” gets the attention and focus it needs to grow. Another option completely would “simply” be to let go of the rope. I have always understood her example on a basic level, but for the first time it’s beginning to make sense.

Furthermore in today’s skype session with Marie-Claire some important insights came to light. I’m not going to bore you with them now, as this has already become a very wordy “dear diary” kind of post. But Marie-Claire pointed out to me that sometimes we need to relapse a bit in order to reach the kind of insights that will in the end abet in “true recovery”.

So yesterday the destructive part of me won. But today? Today is a good day.

 

To Eat Or Not To Eat

To eat or not to eat? There was a time, not even that long ago, when that was indeed the question. I would wake up every morning thinking just that: will I eat - i.e. binge - or not eat - i.e. eat raw and healthy – today? I hated that question. It haunted me. Whenever I would choose not to eat, it flew back and forth through my mind all day long. Often I would binge first thing in the morning just to stop that particular question incessantly thumping in the back of my head.

Groovy granny juice - recipe to be posted

Fast forward to the past week. During the worst of my detox crisis I couldn’t really be bothered with the psychological issues of not eating. It was all about the physical pain and although it was hard, I weathered it out. However, the reason why I felt I could endure it scared me. The only thing that kept me going was the thought that I needed to do this in order to lose weight fast. I constantly was thinking that it was the only way to lose weight fast enough, which was what I, so I believed, needed before I could see my friends again. Weight losswas one of the goals for this fast to begin with, but the sudden intensity and negativity of this particular thought didn’t sit right with me. Although I was never anorexic, never have been underweight even, the all-consuming need to lose weight fast and the adjacent thought that only then I would be able to go out and live my life was very much a part of my affliction. A part that has proven to be very hard to leave behind at that. As the incredible highs of mania may persuade a manic-depressive to refuse any lithium - an analogy courtesy to the book I’m currently reading: Kay Jaminson’s “Un Unquiet Mind” about her experience with this mood disorder both as doctor and as patient  - the periods between binges when I am able to restrict and lose weight fast are very addictive. I feel on top of the world, or at least, feel that I will be there fast. But I never get there. Just as bouts of mania are unquestionably followed by moods of depression, my restrictions are tailed with binges.

Juice and Jamison's book

The fasting was triggering all that again. But this time I could see the thoughts for what they were, even though I could not separate myself entirely from it. I started checking the mirror every hour to see if there were any definite sight of weight loss only to be looking at a grossly disappointed reflection of myself. Although my coach advised me to think about the fast in terms of “I choose not to eat in order to heal my body”, it soon all became about the “I cannot eat in order to lose weight”. Just I was learning to let “cannot” and “have to” go a bit in regard to food, I was steeped in it all over again.

And so it began anew: should I eat or not eat? Am I ultimately doing this for the wrong reasons, triggering wrong lines of thinking and possibly in the end wrong behaviors? And therefore would it be best to break the fast? Or should I go forward with it and experience these thoughts – which now I at least could recognize as unwarranted – in order to accept them, give them a place and ultimately let them go? To eat or not to eat? The question was driving me bonkers again.

Restricted, but certainly not underfed as evidenced by a pic of the produce that went into just one juice

At 3 p.m. on day five of my juice fast I regret to say I snapped. I ate a big chunk of raw chocolate, two big handfuls of cashews and a couple of dates. Not the best foods to break a fast as evidenced by the stomach ache I had later on. But I didn’t binge. It almost felt like that wasn’t even an option. I do say almost. But a situation like that, letting go after a period of severe restriction, the feeling of being a failure, would undoubtedly have led to a binge in the past. So although I wished that I would have been able to hold out just a bit longer or had ended the fast more consciously with the right transition foods, I do feel stronger for having done it and confident in the fact that I am already able to make better choices.

and then this happened

  

But in the end I feel it is more of the essence now to develop a good, healthy and sustainable eating pattern. I still very much believe that should be a high raw diet for me and I’m not quite sure yet how to translate this insight into my daily eating pattern (was I eating enough before the fast started or not?), but fasting is definitely over for now. I do have gotten more interested in the idea of detoxing the body as a way to reset it and alleviate it. But with my history I feel it would be wiser to do so with a variety of juices, soups and smoothies throughout the day and a simple oil-free salad or monomeal for dinner. And perhaps one day I would like to try my hand at a proper juice fast again when I feel mentally ready, but for now this little experiment is over.

A Juicy Recipe

Nothing to see here but juice, I'm afraid. If everything goes according to plan, this might be the case for the next few weeks. But no worries. I'm guessing a nice hydrating juice recipe is never a bad thing, right? Especially since summer seems to have finally arrived for real (at least here in Belgium). Knock on wood. So, as promised in my previous post, I'm sharing the recipe for this sweet and yummy Pineapple Cilantro Juice with you guys.

I'm submitting this recipe to Raw Foods Thursdays and Healthy Vegan Fridays

Pineapple Cilantro Juice
Adapted from The Complete Idiot's Guide To Eating Raw

Ingrediënts
(serves one to two)

1 pineapple
1 bunch of cilantro
1 stalk of celery
3 big hands of spinach

Put everything through a juicer and enjoy immediately!

Nice and foamy right?

Do you use herbs in your juices? What's your favorite herb-juice combo?

Detox

So here we are, day five of my fast, the second day of actually only juices. I'm going to be honost: fasting sucks! The last couple of days have been pretty rough. Surprisingly it's not so much the fact that I can't eat, it's the detox symptoms that are killing me.

I've been easing into the fast since saturday and steadily incorporated more juices throughout my day. I had my usual green juice for breafast and then these two baby's for Sunday's and Monday's lunch:

Green Pineapple Juice - recipe to be posted on the blog later

Watermelon juice - a lot more than pictured here

I usually had a piece of fruit for a snack in the afternoon, followed by a light dinner: a fruit platter (because I thought: hell, I'm going to have to miss those summer fruits I've been longing so long for for a while) and a light detox salad.

Detox Salad

Fruit Platter

By Monday evening the first detox symptoms set in with full force. I had a massive headache, to the extent I was crying my eyes out, determined to give up even before I had a full-on juice day. I was thinking about what I was going to eat the next day (I absolutely wanted a banana), doubting even if I would get up for a midnight snack and about how I was going to portray my failure on the blog, all the while the headache was still rampaging through my body. About one a.m., when I couldn't stand the pain any longer I took a pain killer (fail) and finally fell asleep.

Luckily in the morning I had a skype session with Marie-Claire and she was able to pick me up. She helped me see that the pain I was experiencing was the pain of my past so to speak. This was the pain I inflicted on myself with every binge, every sleeping pills overdose. The past always wants you back, because no matter how hellish it's what you know, what you've come to expect. But I refuse to go back. And so I dedicated myself to the fast once more.

Tuesday evening though, same story: a massive headache and the inability to sleep although being very tired. I sat this one out, only to awaken from a short and hazy slumber still with a headache, though a bit less intense. I'm still experiencing the pain as I type this and it really makes me question this whole experience: "Why am I doing this to myself?". This part sucks so badly, and I can't guarantee I will be strong enough to just endure, but part of me wants to experience the part that comes after this, I want to feel completely energized again, I want to be healed. So I'll try to stick with it.

All the good stuff that went into my juices Tuesday

My juices for today

But even if I don't stick it out until the end, I have faith that I won't return to my bingeing habbits either and will just keep enjoying my beautiful raw foods. It's dangerous to say that, I know. But I kind of have to believe it first, before I can make it true, if that makes any sense.

So for now, still juicing, but not happily so. I hope that my next update can be a more positive one. Sorry for the downer.

Do any of you have some good tips for how to handle a headache in a natural way? Please share!

Love of My Life

I just realized this will be the last weekly overview of my meals with actual solid foods for a while. So enjoy it while you can:

Fruit salad with buckwheaties

Green Matcha Smoothie

Mango Cucumber Salsa, Avocado and Sprouts on a bed of Greens

Olive Bread with Guacamole, Red Pepper and Sprouts

Simple Salad

Brazil Nut Stuffed Date

Greens, Sprouts, Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes and Guacamole

Raw Sushi and a Side Salad

My Workouts

• Sunday: rest
• Monday: 38 minute run with intervals
• Tuesday: Pure Cardio from the Insanity dvd series
• Wednessday: 35 minute run
• Thursday: rest
• Friday: 60 minute run
• Saturday: Well, some of you may have read the comment on how I was sweating like a cute little curly tailed animal on my facebook page yesterday. I finally made it to a Bikram class!! And I loved it :)

The bikram class is kind of a big thing to me, because I have been avoiding all places with mirrors and/or people that used to know me before my bingeing breakdown last fall-winter-spring. But I always wanted to go back to bikram, as it is my favourite workout. This week I had some extra motivation. I will not be allowed to do any type of exercise during my fast, except for bikram, because bikram supports detoxification and creates energy, whereas other types of exercise tend to be depleting.
Another thing I briefly wish to mention is that instead of my usual 6 workouts there are only 5 here (same last week). I'm intentionally cutting back a little, because I realized although I love working out and need it to feel good, it is not my passion. It is Geert's passion (he does triathlons) not mine. And I would rather make some time for some things I used to be very passionate about (writing, acting, singing, yes - even working).

The Love List

Source

• Using my new slow juicer for the first time - hey, if you're gonna juice fast, you better do it right.
• Making my mom happy with my old juicer.
• Going out with a bang, a.k.a. eating a scrumptious four-course dinner at Eten Vol Leven the night before starting the fast.

 

 

My pictures, their menu - I forgot to shoot the soup

 

• Keep on doing things that scare me: having a fancy dinner and bikram.
• Having clarity on why it is I keep on doing these things that scare me: the two loves of my life

 

Sshhht - Nobody tell him a put a very big picture of him on my blog

What is the last thing you have done that scared you? What's on your love list?

Sobriety

Today I am going down a road I promised myself once I would never take. I am starting up a juice fast. Soon after I contacted my amazingly caring raw foods coach she suggested that a juice fast, although a very drastic measure, could be really significant in my body/mind healing process. Now juice fasting is quite the trend in the raw foods world, but intuitively I have always backed away from it. I love food. My raw vegan foods give me the strength to fight my binges, they are real foods that I look forward to eating each and every day. Of course everyone is different, but I always carried the believe that juice fasting (let alone water fasting) and eating disorders just don’t mix. So I voiced my opinions towards my coach. She agreed with me that proper nourishment was of the essence, and eating regularly could be a way to go, but that in fact the juice recipes she would be sending my way would very probably be more nourishing than a lot of food is. Still my mind went:  “no, no, no, no, no, don’t take away my food – I need my food – What am I going to do without my food”. Then she said that what would be even more important is that a juice fast finally could establish a disengagement of food for me. 

And then it sort of clicked for me. I am a food addict, when I binge obviously. But in a way so in my good periods eating a raw vegan diet as well. My food defines me in a way it shouldn’t, my food is my identity and that’s not healthy. A juice fast might be just what I need to finally detach myself from food and the various systems I have built around food. I say might, because even while typing this, I’m still not sure I can do this and my coach and I agreed that I will take it as far as I can, even if it’s just one day. No point in risking the progress I have made so far, if it becomes clear it isn't working out as tought.
But if you come to think of it, what do you do with a drug or alcohol addict? You take away their substance of choice. I always thought the closest I could get to going “cold turkey” was eating raw foods because it is such a different food experience (and I have used this analogy in the past when talking to my therapist and readers – raw food is my cold turkey), but here was my coach giving me a tool to achieve “sobriety” on an even deeper level. Because all of her advice has been really valuable to me so far and because all of a sudden what she was did make sense, I am willing to jump off in the deep end and explore what a juice fast (I am not calling it a cleanse or detox to hide the potential triggering aspects, let’s face it, it’s a fast) could mean for me and my healing process.

Now what can a juice fast actually achieve?

Juicing rehydrates your body

Your skin will look and feel better

You will start looking younger

You will lose weight

Your belly won't be bloated but flat

You will gain a lot of energy

You will find mental clarity and focus

Your colon will be cleansed naturally

You will feel "light"

You will sleep better

You will be motivated to eat healthier

You will be able to re-think your life

Certain health issues can be resolved

A physical cleanse also heals the soul

A clean body = a clean environment

You get to know your emotions

You will resolve food addictions

Cravings will fade away

You will kick off of bad foods

Emotional eating will decrease

You will detoxify and gain health

Your body will ask for more greens

You will feel goooood!!

This list is provided in an ebook on juice fasting written by my coach and for purchase on her website.

So I highlighted some of the possible rewards that compel me and yes, losing weight is one of them. I know some people might feel that someone trying to recover from an eating disorder should not be actively seeking out weight loss, but hey, I am overweight. What helps me personally in moving forward is the fact that I learn to accept my body as a reflection of my past. But at the same time assure myself that I am working on it, and that as I become a different person the weight will change as well. Marie-Claire and I have made sure that we first activated that new happy shiny person inside of me. But losing weight is part of me becoming a happier, more positive person. An evidently this new person is someone person who does juice fasts. But I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have someone to guide me – so kids, don’t try this at home :o)

Next to disengaging from all the tricky systems I have set up around food and losing weight, I hope that this will bring me closer to my body again and that in the end I will be able to start trusting it again. I hope to undo a bit of the damage I have done by gradually poisoning my body through binging. And I hope to be able to look within myself with more clarity. And feel goooooood!

So today I’m starting to transition from fast to solid foods, which will take three days. I’m supposed to just eat as purely as possible with a juice for breakfast, so that’s pretty much how I eat anyways. Tomorrow I will be juicing for lunch as well, but am free to have whatever for my afternoon snack and dinner. Monday my afternoon snack should be a smoothie and dinner should be a very light detox salad.

Throughout this journey, I probably won’t always do my usual blogposts (such as WIAW – nobody wants to see a day with only juices, right?), but I probably will be using this space to record  how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking etc.

I'm really curious to see where this will take me. 

Have you ever done a juice fast? If so, what was your experience? If not, would you ever consider it and why (not?)