21 Day Juice Fast

My Centerpoint Church family in Colorado invited everyone in their congregation to participate in a 21-Day fast in order to seek the Lord and to simply hit the reset button of our lives. The pastors were doing a juice fast and some of the leadership were doing the Daniel fast, but it was up to us what we wanted to fast. Typically, I will fast Facebook and not food. I justify this choice by knowing getting rid of facebook will make me more present in my home and life, and less distracted all together. Seems noble right? Really it's not. I only choose the simplest thing to eliminate from my life; however I cheat on this one too. I found a loophole -I could push Facebook updates and pictures through my other social apps! Oh! Jesus break me of my loophole finding habits!

I do not lack the will to quit foods, I've had big wins in this area. One new year, I choose to give up sugar for the whole year, and I did. Another new year, I gave up alcohol for the entire year, and successfully completed that as well. So you see, I've got mad skills when it comes to willpower. I just really-really love food, and have a mini panic attack anytime I think about quitting it. Not to mention, I live with four guys who eat all the time, all day long, anything they want. Try living with that my friends.

When ringing in the New Year, I found myself desperate enough to try anything!  I developed an all over, unscratchable itch that covered my entire body. No rash, no bumps, no dry skin. My 24-hour allergy pill didn't work, nor did the high doses of Benedryl I was taking. The itching was a new symptom of my allergies and was seriously miserable on a thousand different levels. What's worse than puking? An itch that cannot be scratched. The good news: the doctor I found practices functional medicine which means I would not be placed on steroids and sent home. She told me my diet was the key to ending this and had me talk with the nutritionist, who told me the Whole 30 (minus quite a few foods) would work wonders.

Now, I wasn't mentally ready to do the Whole30. Holy Lord! There are so many rules and it had just as many what-not-to-dos. I felt like I had lost the battle before I even started day one.  Being cognizant of my personality and extending grace to my current lack of self-discipline, I decided the juice fast was a great way for me to start my journey to health. There is way less rules, and I got to make it work for my life and my circumstances.


Here's what I did:

Juice 

I bought tons of frozen and fresh fruit along with baby spinach. I made my shakes in the blender with literally any combination of fruits, spinach, splashes of aloe water, almond milk and/or 100% fruit/carrot juice. I looked up tons of recipes on Pinterest and used many of them.  I also bought a flat of Naked Juice from Costco to have when I failed to plan well. I made sure I had a shake/juice every morning before I took the kids to school. I'm not a breakfast eater but wanted to implement this healthy habit into my life. Beside the required breakfast shake, I allowed myself a shake whenever I felt hungry. It was easy; if I was hungry, I made a shake. I didn't use any protein powders because they flared up the itching, but I don't see why they wouldn't work for others.

Coffee

I already switched my coffee to decaf, so I didn't want to make this harder than I already had it. I only sweeten my coffee with honey and allowed myself non dairy creamer. I would've made my own creamer out of coconut milk, but anything canned flared up the itching so I couldn't. I made myself a pot of coffee in the morning and had a cup whenever I felt like it.

Soup

For dinner, I ate a bowl of soup. Any kind of soup I wanted. I took to pinterest again and loaded up with hundreds of recipes I could choose from. I ate chicken tortilla soup, tomato soup, butternut squash soup, beef stew, chicken stew, coq au vin, pot sticker soup, egg drop soup, green chili, roasted red pepper soup, sausage potato soup etc, etc... I used the crockpot the most, and would add fresh baked bread, rice/noodles, and/or salad for the guys.

Sushi Sunday

I added this in because I found myself getting super grouchy and feeling fatigued by the end of the week. There isn't anything in the sushi that I couldn't put in a bowl of soup. So on Sundays, instead of soup, I ate sushi. It was the little bit of umph I needed to head steadfastly into the coming week.


By the end of week one, the itching stopped completely. Thank you Jesus! What a relief! And even though I was hungry, I felt healthy. My Jesus time revealed some areas of pride that I needed to work on, and I got answers to so many questions I was asking the Lord. And the icing on the cake, I lost almost 15lbs.. I honestly didn't even think I'd lose a single pound nor did I anticipate it or expect it.  I haven't been able to budge the scale since my hysterectomy, and I sincerely thought is was impossible to ever lose weight again. As I read over my journal filled with answered questions, looked over my 'Answered Prayers' journal, and stared disbelievingly at the numbers on the scale, the Lord reminded me that He is a God of impossible! He is the God of miracles. He is the God of answers. He is the God of healing. And He is the God who can realign every crooked path; if we are willing.