Day One: Getting Still

Today is the first day of my juice fast, and I'm following Pamela Serure's 3 Days to Vitality program fairly closely.  I say "fairly," because I do things my way.

"Getting Still" is the theme for the day, and I think that's an excellent intention.  Since I have not been able to take off from work entirely, however, I have to integrate my stillness / relaxation activities with some job stuff.

I forgot to brush my skin when I woke up this morning, but I'll do it later.  I don't to the hot water and lemon first thing cleansing, because that's too acidy for me - I don't want to press my luck on that, even though I'm taking Nexium.

So, I started my day like I always do, with a shower, my version of Serure's morning bath.  Then, I did my own take on "morning meditation and breath work."  As I've mentioned before, I'm using Sabrina Mesko's Power Mudras: Yoga Hand Postures for Women; see post of March 9.  Today, I spent about forty-five minutes in meditation and prayer with these mudras:
Mudra for  Divine Worship (that's Om - I always start that way)
Mudra for Letting Go of Negativity (help with diet: "I release all negativity and make space for a lighter and healthier me" see post # )
Mudra for Anti-Aging (this uses breath of fire - good breath work)
Mudra for Healthy Breasts and Heart
Mudra for Protecting Health
Mudra for Meditation of Change
Mudra for Patience

I followed that with personal prayer - I'm a Christian.  Then I did a few yoga asanas - the tadasana and trikosana sequences, and the Five Tibetans.

And then, oh yum, the "Morning Drink": pinapple-papaya-strawberry, with flax oil; see post of March 11 .  Serure's recipe includes acidophilus, but I don't do that.  I've had trouble with acidophilus in the past, and Tom and I get our pro-biotics from our ferments.  I'll be adding kim-chee juice to my lunch for that purpose.

On the itinerary for today:

Mid-morning drink: Apple-pear-ginger (see photo above of juicer and ingredients)
Playing music - songs and guitar - my blessing of a job
A lovely walk
Lunch: Carrot-beet-apple juice
Make broth for dinner for three nights ...

Relaxing with my current read, Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now (lots of good focus on stillness there ...), writing in my journal ...
"Afternoon Snack Drink" if I have time ...
Evening show with my band 6:00 - 8:30; I'll be sipping my broth through the show for dinner.  Not ideal, but a fair accommodation.
Back home: dessert drink, warm bath with essential oils, maybe journal, go to bed.

More photos of my juicer:

Later, Jenni

I'm an Amazon Associate now ...

Since I recommend books on my site, I've become an Amazon Associate.  This means that I'll get paid up to %15 on the price of a book, .mp3 or other item purchased by someone clicking through my site.  Like a billboard, sort of.


Here's my disclaimer:  Although I do not personally collect, use, store, or disclose data collected from visitors, Amazon.com, a third party, may serve content and advertisements, collect information directly from visitors, and place or recognize cookies on visitors’ browsers.  


I believe that placing of cookies happens when you click onto their site.


So, I don't know exactly what this will look like or how it will work yet, but keep in touch with me about how it works for you.

Later, Jenni

Groceries

Hello, Transformational Specialists!

In 3 Days to Vitality, Pamela Serure suggests that you get all of the groceries and other items you need prior to the beginning of the juice fast, so today was shopping day.  She says to put all the produce out in bowls so that you can see all the great stuff you'll consume (no deprivation around here.)

How's this for pretty:

Using recipes from the book for each meal of the juice fast as my grocery list, I purchased as much organic produce as I could.  I got the organics at Whole Foods (the brand new one on Park Lane in Dallas - it's a beauty) and the conventional at Fiesta Mart.

Here's what I'll be consuming for the next three days:

Organic:  Pineapple, apples, pears, carrots, cabbage, celery, parsley, kale, spinach, cucumber, potatoes, green onion, butternut squash, fresh thyme, raspberries, blueberries (frozen.)

Conventional:  Papaya, ginger, grapes, beets, spinach, garlic, lime, strawberries.

I'll also be using flax oil in my breakfast juice, spring water for broth and drinking, and natural fragrance oils (orange, lavender, and sandlewood) for my baths.

A good point to remember is that this is a cleansing fast, so avoid exposure to chemicals and toxins for the next three days, and be careful immediately after the fast too in case you're vulnerable.  I remember seeing a news magazine story about a family that tried to sue a large chemical fertilizer company for the damage done to a man's health from exposure to the spray during normal use - it seems the man had been fasting and was vulnerable.  Hmm.  That stuck in my mind.

Later, Jenni

Celebrate Water

I'm so happy to have clean, safe drinking water every day that I want to celebrate with presents.
So, I donated to www.waterforpeople.org, and I made this slide show for you.

Please consider joining me in support of Water for People's goals while you enjoy the life-giving water that is so important to our weight-loss plan, transformational specialists.

Enjoy this slideshow of beautiful Tom Peal water photos, too, with soundtrack by Dallas' own Kevin Sullivan and The Hammerknockers.

Pre-Fast Day One

Hello, Transformational Specialists!

We're right on schedule with our weight-loss plans, and it's time for the exciting preparation for cleansing with the juice fast.  If you've obtained the book 3 Days to Vitality by Pamela Serure, I'm sure you've gotten lots of great ideas about how to use this week's activities to make positive changes in your life.

Eating is only a part of our lives - we can make it into as big a deal as we want.  Eating, sleeping, shitting - that's the mundane stuff, right?  The basic housekeeping of your brilliant body.  Unlike one-celled creatures, we have developed to seek, secure, and prepare nourishment for our complex omnivorous systems.  Because it is our dreamy nature to do so, we've built a lot of history and culture to support that task.  But let's let go of all of that baggage for now - the good and the bad - and put eating in it's proper place.  Under our control.  I mean under the control of our higher, un-fettered, divine, wise, adult self.  Believe me, you'll enjoy all the great and beautiful things about food and cuisine even more after you gain control of it.  This is only one week in your whole beautiful life!

Just to make sure we're on the same page about this, dear readers, I'll quote Serure directly from chapter 9, The Prefast:

To help your body adjust to the changes in your diet and ease you into this program gently, it is essential that you follow a prefast for at least two or three days before your three day fast begins ...

A proper prefast will ease your body through the transition from solid foods to juice, and it will do this with a minimum amount of discomfort and shock to the system.  A prefast will also ease your mind and contribute to your emotional and spiritual state of readiness by getting you focused on the many changes that are soon to come ... 

If, for whatever reason, you cannot meet this minimum requirement, do not proceed with the program at this time ...

Note the grown-up gravity in that last statement.

So here's what we're going to let go of in the next three days, in preparation for the juice fast:


sugar (you and I have already done that, right?)
caffeine (I've eased down to green tea - no more for this week)
oils (starting today for me)
wheat (I've already given up white flour, but whole wheat abstinence will start today ...)
alcohol (I will be remembering every day ...)
meat (starting today ...  I also add eggs to this list)
dairy products (that means yogurt abstinence for me, because I've cut out cheese and milk)

Maybe you've lost some weight during the pre-pre fast - I lost three pounds.  Remember - I believe in slow weight loss, so I used my discipline to eat only good food, cut out sugars and other problems, re-dedicate myself to healthy exercise and other routines, and be mindful of and shave off portion sizes.

Waking up in the morning with an empty belly is such a reward.  I just feel better all day.  I hope you have shared this outcome with me through March!

Serure leaves the nature of our prefast in our hands, with guidance.  She instructs us to eat vegetables, dairy-free soups, salads and fruits.  We are to eat vegetables and fruits at different times, at least two hours apart.  Fruits (excluding high-acid fruits) are recommended for each breakfast of the prefast.  Likewise, she suggests raw vegetables for lunch and steamed vegetables for dinner (seasoned with fat-free tamari.)  She also provides a discussion of mono-diets, for those who are interested.

A minimum of eight 8-ounce glasses of water is recommended per day, and Serure instructs us to abstain from carbonated water or other beverages, even naturally carbonated, because carbonation is hard on the stomach and we want to make things easy for our stomach.

I have some of my own ideas about healthy eating, so here's my prefast plan:

Breakfast: fresh fruit
Mid-morning or noon: steel-cut oats with a tablespoon of walnuts and stevia
Lunch:  cooked, raw, and fermented vegetables (including dense veggies like potatoes, in small portions)
Dinner: miso soup with seaweed and fermented veggies
Non-caffeine tea and lots of water through the day; fresh fruit at any time that is distanced from meals by at least two hours and not too late at night.

I do not skimp on portions - I eat as much as I want.  Considering everything in my diet for three days except the oatmeal, walnuts and potatoes is water-based and non-dense, I think that's appropriate as long as I reject compulsive or fearful eating.  I also avoid artificial sweeteners, candy, gum, etc.  They're not food.

Stay positive!  Write to me about your excitement!  I'm so happy we're doing this together.  I plan to post every day this week, if possible.

Later, Jenni

Tuning the Lute: Rituals to practice now and during the fast

There is hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.

We are lutes, no more, no less.  If the soundbox

is stuffed full of anything, no music.

If the brain and the belly are burning clearn

with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.

The fog clears, and new energy makes you

run up the steps in front of you.

Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.

Emptier, write secrets with the reed pen.

When you're full of food and drink, an ugly metal

statue sits where your spirit should.  When you fast, 

good habits gather like friends who want to help.

Fasting is Solomon's ring.  Don't give it

to some illusion and lose your power,

but even if you have, if you've lost all will and control,

they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing

out of the ground, pennants flying above them.

A table descends to your tents,

Jesus' table.

Expect to see it when you fast, this table

spread with other fod, better than the broth of cabbages.

- Rumi, enlightened Sufi scholar and teacher, 1207 -1273

From 3Days to Vitality, Pamela Serure, 1997

I'll start my pre-fast on Sunday, March 28, in preparation for my juice fast beginning March 31.


In Part Two of Serure's book, the chapter headings are:

- Establishing Some New Rituals

- Exercises for a Spiritual Journey

- Setting the Stage

- The Prefast 

Those of you who are following 3Days to Vitality and have read it know that Serure's program is as much about cleansing mind and spirit as flushing toxins out of the body.  While I have picked over her suggestions and have happily substituted some of my own practices, I have found her approach generally sound.  Since I've already written about how I see mind, body and spirit connected, you may see why her approach is logical to me.

Serure recommends that the faster take a vacation from routine practices for the three days of the fast, taking off time from work if possible, and start preparing for that vacation well in advance (as one would for any vacation.)  While the three days of pre-fast beginning on Sunday prepare my body for the juice fast on Wednesday, I will spend some time each day preparing my mind and spirit for the benefits of the fast.  I'm sure you know that fasting has a long history in spiritual traditions and most religions; I plan to take advantage of my hard work in every way possible.  Just as I have musical, career, and physical strength goals, I also have spiritual goals that take work.

Serure's discussion of ritual is interesting - growing up Southern Baptist, I was not taught any rituals past saying thanks for food (which I highly recommend) and everything that goes on in a church service, including those in conjunction with weddings and funerals.  Also, my protestant heritage predisposes me to wariness regarding what may be seen as pagan-inspired ritual, repetitive prayers, etc.

But considering the rituals many of us engage in without thinking about it (everything from a first fart in the morning to cursing terrible drivers to getting a drink just because I'm in a bar to birthday cake to starting sentences with "I'm sorry but ..."), there's a lot to be said for personalized, mindful repetition of an action that feeds us spiritually.

Serure's suggestions are both spiritual and physical in nature:  skin-brushing, conscious bathing, meditation, "the ritual of sacred silence," enemas.

I don't do enemas, though her discussion is somewhat compelling.

I'll be re-reading all of this - she ain't my guru, but she's got lots of value to think on and use.

Later, Jenni

 

 

Onward through the sunshine ...

Readers, I'll be on vacation for a week, so no more posts for awhile (hence all the posts today.)  I will also not be able to publish comments, but please keep them coming.

I walk beside you in your health journey wherever you are and wherever I am.  Enjoy feeling good! Use your strength and lightness!  Trust yourself!

Later, Jenni