Trying To Find Balance

Well, I have completed my 9th day on the juice fast. I am feeling so much better. It is amazing! Here are the fresh veggies and fruit I am juicing:

• Apples
• Pears
• Fresh Ginger
• Spinach
• Kale
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Celery
• Lemons
• Romaine Hearts
• Collards Greens
• Parsley
• Beets
• Fennel Bulbs

I am not juicing all of these fruit and vegetables in one day. It is more like within a week.

I found some books at the library, which have been so helpful. Here is what I have been reading:

• The Ultimate Guide To the Daniel Fast by Kristen Feola
• Raw Basics by Jenny Ross
• Going Raw by Judita Wignall
• Ani's Raw Food Desserts by Ani Phyo
• Raw Food for Everyone by Alissa Cohen

I have also been reading a book that I have from my own personal library called Get Healthy by Don Colbert, MD. Here are a few pages from his book:

Most of America's health problems today are caused by dietary abuses. Elizabeth Frazao of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that poor eating habits are linked to more than half of the deaths in the United States.

Diet is a significant factor in the risk of coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer, and stroke-the three leading causes of death in the United States, and responsible for over half of all deaths in 1994. Diet also plays a major role in the development of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. These six health conditions incur considerable medical expenses, lost work, disability, and premature deaths-much of it unnecessary, since a significant proportion of these conditions is believed to be preventable through improved diets.

There are many ways we abuse our bodies through our poor eating habits, but here are a few of the major abusers in our diets:

• The average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar per year. That's the equivalent of about one to two teaspoons of sugar per hour.
• Processed foods are grossly deficient in nutrients and contain food additives, sweeteners, flavorings, coloring agents, preservatives, bleaching agents, emulsifiers, texturizers, humectants, acids, alkalis, buffers, and other chemicals. Such foods provide loads of calories with little nutrition.
• Our soil has been robbed of important minerals and nutrients; therefore, the food it produces is nutritionally poor.
• The Fat we eat, including saturated fats and hydrogenated fats overtax our bodies with thick, sludge like, yellow-brown material that encrusts the inside of arteries, forms plaque, fattens our bodies, elevates our cholesterol, forms stones in our gallbladders, weakens our immune system, and shortens our lives.
• Fast foods, fried foods, and eating far too much meat while denying our bodies healthful fruits and vegetables are ways in which we abuse our bodies through our diets.

It's easy to see why we're overfed and undernourished. We gorge ourselves with increasing amounts of food to respond to our bodies' cravings for nutrition. After we've eaten, our bodies, even though under a heavy burden of calories, still realize that they never received the nutrients they needed. So our brains send more signals, triggering hunger, which is interpreted by us as the need or desire for even more food. We end up spiraling down into a vicious cycle of overfeeding with empty food, craving more nutrition and overfeeding again with even more empty, processed, devitalized, sugary foods.

The end results is ever-expanding waistlines, thighs, and buttocks. We get fatter and fatter, forcing our bodies to groan under the burden of extra pounds. But in terms of actual nourishment, we give our bodies less and less.

We may be actually starving from a nutritional standpoint while at the same time becoming grossly obese. The end result of this merciless abuse of our bodies is disease and death. Sadly, we really are digging our graves with our forks and knives!

As a result of our overindulgence's we have an epidemic of heart disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, allergies, obesity, arthritis, osteoporosis, and a host of other painful and debilitating degenerative diseases.

After doing some more research I am leaning towards trying a raw foods diet after the juice fast. I really enjoy the fresh vegetables and fruit and I feel the benefits. You might like to view another documentary called Fork Over Knives. You can view it on Netflix or the trailer here.

Another good status is that I have lost 2 inches from my waist and 2 inches from my hips.