Today was awesome. I got up at 5:30 a.m. and actually showered AND washed my hair. I was at work by 6:35 and immediately juiced three Golden Delicious apples from Port Henry, NY that were handpicked by my almost-ninety-year-old Great Uncle Norm. On my visit home last month, he gave me a bag of McIntosh and GD apples and told me to wait a few weeks for the GD's at the bottom of the bag to ripen. Well they're ripe now and wow. My juicer filled a wide plastic cup to the brim with the apples' heavy, froth-covered sweetness. It was the color of liquid gold, and I drank it quickly.
I didn't consume anything else until 1:30, at which point I ravenously snacked on whole raw fruit (pineapple, strawberries, and mango) throughout the afternoon. I also ate an orange and half an avocado. For dinner I had a glowing green smoothie. That was at 6:00. It's 8:30 now, and I'm still feeling very full and satisfied.
I'm incorporating some raw fruits and veggies into this juice fast for three reasons.
1. I need to consume a large variety of foods in order to prevent vitamin deficiencies. If I just had apple juice every morning and my glowing green smoothie every night, and some other fruit and vegetable juice concoction during the day, I'd still miss a few necessary vitamins and minerals. I need the potassium in bananas, so I'll probably eat a few bananas each week. They can't be juiced. However, I can freeze them and blend them with juice in a blender to make a banana smoothie, which I'll do occasionally too. But that involves a juicer and a blender and with a 30 day fast, I have to be realistic. I'll just eat a couple bananas each week, and some avocados, since they can't be juiced either. Other veggies don't yield much juice, like broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans, so I will snack on those things raw when they're available, and try to mix it up a little each day. Maybe eat a carrot and celery stick here and there. I won't be eating any starchy vegetables like potatoes or squash because they can't be eaten raw, so those foods are out of the picture.
2. I don't want to be rude if I get invited to a social event where everyone's eating. I'll politely snack on some raw fruit or veggies if available, or even bring my own tray of veggie sticks or a fruit platter to share. That way I can enjoy the ritual of eating food with others, while avoiding awkward conversations about why I always carry a cup of juice around in my hands.
3. My juicer is kind of wasteful. It doesn't yield as much juice as high end juicers do, and like all juicers, it eliminates peels and fibrous strands from my produce, and I feel like I throw so much away. The Jack LaLanne juicer doesn't juice leafy vegetables very well either. If I could invest in a nice Breville, and spend $500-$1000, I'd be more apt to juice things like Kale and other leafy vegetables. They just don't do well in the Jack LaLanne juicer.
As for my energy level today, I felt zen-like and peaceful. It was sunny and warm, almost seventy degrees, which is rare for mid-October. I went on a drive with the three-year-old while her sisters were in school. While driving around and singing pop music together, with no particular destination in mind, I found a full service gas station charging $3.79/gallon, and I was on empty so I filled up and probably saved close to $3!
Moments later I found an email on my phone from the shipping company for my Boku Superfood powdered sea vegetable drink. The company said it was refunding my $47.50 for the Boku I ordered nearly three months ago because I'd sent a nasty email in September when my order was three weeks late. I love the stuff though, and will order again, but next time I'll use Amazon or any company besides the shipper in L.A. That distributor was just too unreliable and mistakenly sent me a shipping confirmation and put a hold on the money in my bank account long before they actually shipped it.
Later in our drive, I pulled over by the water and we watched a fisherman catch a very large fish and reel it in. It was exciting. Then on the way home, I dropped off a full bag of designer clothes to a very nice consignment shop in East Greenwich. (The three-year-old's mother gave me a huge box of designer clothes a couple weeks ago, things she said just won't fit her body after having three kids, and some of the clothes were too small for me, so she said I could consign them and split the money with her. Woo hoo!)
I have tomorrow off, and I'll be going to a blood lab to have some blood drawn for my thyroid. Luckily my doctor and the blood lab use a sliding scale for people who have no insurance, like me, so it will only cost a hundred bucks or so. I'm expecting the blood work to show that my levels are very low (since I went off my thyroid prescription about two months ago, a medication I'd been on for nearly five years). Once my low levels are confirmed, I'm going to try a natural thyroid supplement. Many are sold in my health food store. I'll do a little research before choosing which one to buy. And in a couple months I'll have my blood tested again. If my free T4 levels are normal, I'll be on to something. And I'll tell the world.
My hypothesis and hope is that a healthy diet combined with a natural thyroid supplement will raise my free T4 levels. Then after Thanksgiving and Christmas, when I've returned to eating unhealthy things, I'll have my blood taken again to see if the supplement works even without a healthy diet. It will be interesting to see. I might experiment with a couple kinds of supplements too, and devote some blog time to that and attract readers with thyroid conditions.
That's all for today. I haven't gone crazy yet. Not even close.
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