Blog # 8 - Revisiting and Reaffirming

First let me apologize for the blog hiatus. I took a little break for my birthday; not from the juice, but from the blog. The juice cleanse is still going strong. March 18^th marks day 56! Total weight loss for me is 49.5 lbs and for Ismael its 35.6 lbs. Ismael is down to 20% BMI and I’m around 28%. We are seriously kicking butt and taking names over here. OK, on to the blog…

So I decided to re-read all the blogs the other day and upon revisiting the first blog, I remembered that this cleanse was about more than just weight loss or even good health and nutrition. This cleanse was meant be all-inclusive, mind, body and soul. I got so much interest in the blog that it kind of took on a life of its own and I got more involved with the educational/instructional/inspirational part of it, I started to lose sight of what I set out to do in the first place. But at the same time I realized that helping and encouraging others is a natural byproduct of what we’re doing and has come to be a welcome part of what I enjoy about it. Any time you undertake a journey to do something good for yourself, people will be interested. And when they see it working, they will want to do it too. And that’s awesome! So this week’s blog is a hybrid of technical and personal. The technical: a discussion of our exercise regime and how important exercise has been for us throughout this cleanse and as we embark on our new eating lifestyle. The personal: where I am on the goals I set for myself when we started this cleanse. Sound like fun? Here we go!

Working It Out:

No matter how much I say otherwise, people still think we are doing a quick-fix, fad diet. That is not what we are doing. First of all juicing for 60 days is more than just a notion. No one we started out with has been able to keep this up the same way that we have. This is not a “quick”, “easy” anything. Second, and most importantly, this is a cleanse (not a diet) meant to be an introduction to an entirely new lifestyle. If you are going to go back to what you were doing before after putting your body through this shock for 60 days, this is not for you. Third, you must work out. We are seeing the results we are seeing and staying healthy because we exercise at least 6 days per week. You can’t just juice it up and then lay around. You gotta put that extra energy and all those good nutrients coursing through your veins to work. We work out for at least an hour per day. Our workouts generally consist of one of the following:

• A strength class with weightlifting and interval training followed by an abs, back and core class
• A cardio class such as tabata, kickboxing or spin followed by an abs, back and core class.
• 15-20 minutes on the treadmill going at least 6mph (that’s a 10 minute mile on average) followed by another 40-45 minutes of weight training in circuits, no resting in between. Follow that up with 10 minutes of abs, back and core exercises.
• A 35-55 minute run outside aiming to do between 3 to 5 miles.

This is what we do every day to supplement the juice and get ourselves in the right mode to continue this healthy lifestyle when the juicing is over and we start to eat again. 

What Our Diet Will Consist Of:

Our eating will be mainly plant-based, whole foods. We will supplement occasionally with meat, dairy, grains, starches, legumes. We will cut out processed foods altogether (nothing that comes in a box or bag). We will limit our alcohol intake to weekends only. We are using the basic paleo diet tenet which is we will try not to eat anything that has to be cooked in order for it to be edible or non-toxic. When we do, it will be in limited quantities and it will be the healthiest alternative we can find. Whole grains, pastured, grass-fed, non-GMO will be some of our buzz words. We will use alternatives to things like sugar, butter and oils. We will make our own sauces, dips and dressings. We will not be eating out because what restaurant serves the kind of food we eat? Besides, that way we know and can control what goes into our food. This is going to mean tons of cooking, meal planning and coming up with a lot of fun and creative ideas for our new menu, particularly to keep our 2-year old (almost 3) son happy.

Checking in with Myself:

Here’s what I wrote in my first blog:

This New Year’s Eve we made a pact to make 2013 about self-preservation, about getting refocused on what really matters: each other. To kick it off, we are committing to a lifestyle change that we hope will help us regain our focus on being all-around healthy people again. This will start off with establishing goals for ourselves for the year and beyond.  The goals will be mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, whatever we want.  We will then start a 60-day juice cleanse.  Sixty days is a long time to juice!!! We will be tested on a lot of levels, mainly on Friday pizza night and Saturday Patron/Chivas Regal night. But it’s also about turning off the TV and talking to each other more.  Picking up the books we said we want to read together.  Taking our son outside to ride his bike even though it’s 30 degrees outside.  Getting our home and our minds organized.  Not being wasteful, not being lazy. Seeing and reveling in how far we can push our bodies and minds. And making time for our personal goals as well.

Well this was a tall order for 60 days no doubt, particularly while subsiding on juice and going to the gym almost every night. But still I don’t want to make excuses. Some of these goals were met and others were not. We have definitely committed to the exercise and diet routine and are prepared to keep the momentum going even after the cleanse. And we have had an opportunity to reconnect with each other and reflect on our life together and made some decisions about where to go from here. However, we didn’t spend as much time as I had hoped we would focusing on our spiritual and emotional goals. Still I think we are on the right track. Although we may not have found resolution when it comes to certain matters in our lives, we have started the process by identifying them and committing to change. I realized that the end of the juice cleanse does not mark the end of this change in our life. It marks the beginning.

Yesterday (3-21-13) was Day 60 of the cleanse and even though we have committed to going to the end of the month, we are technically done as far as our initial plan. We took a moment to reflect on this experience. It’s been amazing in a lot of ways. It’s shown us how disciplined we can be which is something neither one of us thought we had in us. When we go back to eating we now know we can live without coffee, alcohol, Friday night pizza, or sweets. We have battled temptation and learned behavior for 60 days now. We have removed all the toxins from our systems and our bodies truly are a temple right now. A temple that we don’t want to poison anymore. But we know change doesn’t happen overnight. We are unlearning 30+ years of bad eating habits.

We watched a movie the other night called “Lbs”. It’s about a New Yorker who is overweight and has a heart attack right before his sister’s wedding. She has to cancel her wedding because he is the hospital and when he gets out he commits to better health. It lasts about a week before he’s back at his favorite local pizzeria where he has his own table. After multiple failed attempts he moves out to the country where he hides out for a year focusing on losing weight. Even out in the country, he battles with himself. Any time something bad happens he runs to the local bbq joint. Eventually he loses 100 pounds and comes back to NYC where he faces all the same demons. He gives in one night and eats a big pile of burgers, fries and onion rings and then proceeds to throw it all up and then resumes his healthy eating and exercise regime again the next day. But it makes him realize he is fighting a lifelong war. Losing the weight was just one battle. It didn’t change who he was. It didn’t make him a stronger person, or better able to deal with his problems. In the end, even after losing 100 lbs, he joins Overeaters Anonymous.

I realized that we are going to have the same battle that man had. Now that we can eat again (well we can starting March 30^th), remembering what is important to us and the promises we made to each other and the plans we have for our life together and everything we’ve done to get to this point, will be key to continuing this journey. Neither one of us is where we want to be physically/emotionally/spiritually right now. But we are closer than we were 60 days ago and in another 60 days we hope to be even closer. And the hope is that one day we won’t have to think about what we are putting in our mouths because we will have trained our bodies and minds to eat things that are good for us, and to eat them in moderation. That we will have gained the strength and the peace of mind to face our battles head on and not resort to the refuge of food or any other vice like anger or sadness or selfishness. This is so much about accepting life’s changes and difficulties and realizing the only thing we are in control of is our reaction to them. All you can do is try to set up the best situation you can for yourself. Make the best decisions you can, try your hardest, commit to yourself and the people you love to do always do your best, and prepare yourself for the inevitable change that will come and be prepared to accept it and try to turn it in to something positive.

And so with that we commit to a lifetime of good health; body, mind and spirit. And better still, we commit to doing it together.

This will be likely be the last juicing-related blog. After this will be the fun stuff. The new eating regime, recipes, pictures, new ideas and continued transformation of our bodies. I’ll be sure to include the occasional sappy blog like this one as a reminder that this is not an easy journey that we are on. But we hope what we are doing will make the rest of our years on this earth happier, healthier, more productive and just more in general. And we hope to be part of tradition in our family that can be passed down through the generations that we are family that takes of ourselves as well as each other.

Thank you again to everyone who has kept up with reading the blog and who has spread the word to others. We hope that this blog gets bigger and bigger and bigger and reaches more and more people. And we hope that it can change someone’s life. My mother started juicing with us while she was visiting and we sent her a juicer and recipe book so she can keep it up on her own. She has done so and my hope is that she can eventually get off all the medications she is on and live a long and happy life and see all her beautiful grandchildren grow into adults even more amazing than they already are. I wish that for all of you!