# 14 day juice fast diary/accountability thread



## scott9050

I am a new member from Virginia who has previously made it to day 8 on a juice fast some years ago but let that progress go.
I am someone who over the last 8 years has managed to pack on an extra 60 pounds and go from being pretty active to a couch potato with no energy.
It has not helped that my day job requires me to sit in front of a computer all day. I have managed to make excuses not to eat right, not to exercise and it has taken a large toll on my health and weight to the tune of 341 pounds as of this morning. 
I realized that the excuses had to stop when my daughter and her husband who is in the Navy had their first child, my grandson, a few weeks ago. I am writing this diary to keep myself accountable and to keep myself motivated during this two week effort to get onto the right track and stick with it.
My last food was approximately 14 hours ago and so far I feel pretty good. I am sure that this will change within the next 24 hours as my body begins to panic about its lack of food intake. My 14 day goal is to take my weight from a no so svelte 341 pounds on my 6'2" frame down to 315 or so. That will at least allow me to fit into my clothes much better. I will then decide the direction I want to go to keep the weight loss going. My goal is to by the end of the year to be at or under 280 pounds, a point at which I can re-access my goals and priorities. I know from past experience that this is going to be hard, but I have some of the motivation I need for this lifestyle change that is now at hand.
I am having my first juice of the morning, a concoction my wonderful wife helped me with last night after she was at work in the hospital all day on her feet. She may join me this weekend for a few days on a trial run as she has her own health issues to contend with. I don't know if anyone will read this, but I will update it daily as I adjust to a juice only diet for two weeks.


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## CountryMom22

scott9050, I wish you luck with this juice fast, although I personally don't think it's healthy.

I am assuming that these juices are not all fruit as the sugar content alone would not be good for you. 

I also worry about how this will effect your metabolism. Severe calorie restriction will cause your body to hold onto every calorie and store it as fat. When you go back to eating solid food, won't the weight come right back?

I have never done a juice diet, but do have a substantial amount of weight to lose too. So far I have lost 58 pounds by increasing my exercise and changing what I am eating.

This has taken me about 2 years as I have had 4 surgeries in that time and couldn't work out, not even walking, for 8-10 weeks after each surgery. 

I applaud your effort to lose weight for your new grandson ( congrats! by the way!) but any lasting change has to be done for YOU. Because YOU want it and are ready to commit.

Being accountable to someone is a great motivational tool. A good place to find weight loss tips, motivational stories and some awesome recipes is Bodybuilding.com.

Best of luck on your journey, I'll be rooting for you.

Oh yeah, welcome to the forum!

God Bless, Sue


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## Terri

Welcome to the forum!!!

Is there any active hobby that you enjoy? I garden for 15 minutes to an hour every morning, and it helps me keep my weight down. If there is an active hobby you enjoy, now is a great time to indulge it!

Tonights dinner will be a fish and vegetable stir fry, and the cabbage, the bok choi, the swiss chard, and the onion are from that garden!


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## Belfrybat

Good luck to you. I hope you vary your juices among all the colours of fruits and vegetables. 

I did a 20 day juice regimen a few years ago and lost 20 lbs. I followed Joe Cross's plan since I wanted to be sure to get enough nutrients. He now suggests if a person is doing a juice fast for over 10 days to supplement with a protein shake at least once a day. I did that anyway as I was concerned about the lack of protein in the shakes. 

I wasn't hungry at any time, but did have the "munchies" really badly on a few days. To prevent a complete meltdown I snacked on celery, cucumber and green peppers a couple of times. I just needed something to chew on.


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## scott9050

Day 1 went well, I had plenty of energy all day. Last night however I could not sleep at all and was tossing and turning looking at the clock every 30 minutes. I need that sleep this afternoon, I work my second job from midnight to noon. The juice fast I am doing is to give me the energy I need to get started on a regular exercise program. I work 70 hours a week and 12 days in a row with two days off afterword so finding the time to exercise is hard. I need that extra energy like I used to have to get there. 
Weight this morning was 4 pounds of water weight lost for a total weight of 337. I will be weighing myself every other day to track progress but don't want to obsess over the scale. Day two is going alright so far, I will update again tomorrow.


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## scott9050

Belfrybat said:


> Good luck to you. I hope you vary your juices among all the colours of fruits and vegetables.
> 
> I did a 20 day juice regimen a few years ago and lost 20 lbs. I followed Joe Cross's plan since I wanted to be sure to get enough nutrients. He now suggests if a person is doing a juice fast for over 10 days to supplement with a protein shake at least once a day. I did that anyway as I was concerned about the lack of protein in the shakes.
> 
> I wasn't hungry at any time, but did have the "munchies" really badly on a few days. To prevent a complete meltdown I snacked on celery, cucumber and green peppers a couple of times. I just needed something to chew on.


Strangely enough I have not had any crazy hunger pangs or cravings yet. I drank a large glass of juice and I am full. I will see if that holds out or if my body does a freak out at some point.


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## Belfrybat

How has it gone today? The 3rd day is always the worse for me on any kind of fast/ diet. Get past the 4th day and it's fairly smooth sailing ahead. 

The sleeplessness for the first couple of nights is normal, as is a bit of weakness, even lightheadedness for the first two - three days. Then the energy surge should kick in. You might even find yourself a bit nauseous at times the first few days. Just hang in there and drink plenty of liquids besides your juice meals.


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## doc-

Not telling anyone what to do think or do, BUT, some facts about physiology that need to be considered by those wishing to lose weight:

-exercise is good for you for many reasons, but you probably can't exercise enough to burn off fat. In an hour of _extremely_ vigorous exercise, you only burn up ~500cal. (A BigMac is 600 cal). A lb of fat is over 4000cal, so it takes over 8 hrs of very hard exercise to burn off one lousy lb of fat. And that fat would only be burned _after_ you used up _all_ your sugar reserves.

-the purpose of insulin is to trap fat in fat cells so it _can't_ be burned for energy. You make insulin in response to eating carbs, not fat. Eating 100cal, say, of carbs will have a different effect on you metabolism than eating 100 cal of fat. Eat the fat, not the carbs, if you're trying to lose fat. 

-you may lose weight on a low fat, low calorie diet, but that's because you're burning up muscle to keep your blood sugar level up. Juice is mostly carbs. If you are mobilizing fat stores for energy, you will show ketone bodies in your blood and urine. You can do a simple urine test with an appropriate urine dip-stick, available at your drug store, to see if that's happening. If you don't have ketones in your urine, you're not burning fat.

-proof of this: (a) Adkin's Diet really works. You eat meat (protein & fat) not plants (carbs) & (2) juvenile diabetics are usually discovered when a chubby young kid starts losing weight like crazy. They're found to have high blood sugar because they have stopped making insulin. Give them insulin and they get fat again. QED.


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## Belfrybat

Oh good grief! The OP asked for support, not criticism. A juice fast, if it's primarily green juice, is also low carb -- do the numbers. 

When I was on my juice fast (with a protein supplement) I "ate" about 75 grams of carb a day. And since juice fasts are short term they can be VERY beneficial in jumpstarting not only weight loss but appetite reduction and overall well being.


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## doc-

Belfrybat said:


> Oh good grief! The OP asked for support....
> 
> .


I posted because I feel sorry for those with weight problems. They are often driven by desperation and willing to follow any lame advice from charlatans that always fails because fad diets ignore the basic science delineated above. 

If you lost weight on a 75gm carb diet, you can be sure you lost muscle, not fat. BTW- you didn't "jump start" your diet, you just shifted your metabolism into "starvation mode,' making your metabolism more efficient at burning calories, actually making it harder to lose weight by further dieting.

But I don't like to argue religion, so feel free to ignore my advice. _Verbum __sapienti sufficit._


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## Terri

doc- said:


> If you lost weight on a 75gm carb diet, you can be sure you lost muscle, not fat.


How so? Wouldn't drinking the protein shake prevent the muscle loss? 
And wouldn't some fat be burned because she was eating fewer calories than she burned?


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## scott9050

I am not going to argue science, research or anything else because that is not what this thread is about. I often read conflicting research about everything under the sun from diet, food, coffee, eggs etc .so I will not acknowledge any more of that here as it is not going to influence the journey I have chosen for myself. I appreciate the concern though.

Day 2 into day three kicked me in the rear in multiple ways. I was wired during the day again on Friday, and the sleep that I had hoped to get before I went off to my second job failed to materialize.
I started to feel really ill between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I started to have cramps and pain in my chest and side around 3 A.M. Saturday morning and it was severe enough that I started to wonder if I was having a heart attack. A few hours later I passed some of the worst mess I have ever passed in my life, but I will not get into that because it would be TMI. I started to feel much better though tired Saturday morning and took a few Melatonin and went to bed. I pretty much slept like a baby, better than I have in many months.
My wife had to be on call at the hospital for 12 hours so I did not see her when I came home, but she believes I may have passed a gallstone. She has had her gallbladder out and suffered pretty much the same symptoms. I hope that is what it was but I will monitor to make sure.
I weighed myself because I know that this should be the end of the water/waste weight purge and the scale read back 329 for a loss so far of 12 pounds. I feel much better tonight than during the past three days, my mind has cleared and a few of my aches have not ached as much. I felt so bad yesterday that I nearly threw in the towel, but I am determined to see this thing to the end and get back on a healthy lifestyle track that has eluded me for 10 years. Day 4 feels like it is going to be a great day.


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## 258Pots

scott9050 said:


> I am not going to argue science, research or anything else because that is not what this thread is about. I often read conflicting research about everything under the sun from diet, food, coffee, eggs etc .so I will not acknowledge any more of that here as it is not going to influence the journey I have chosen for myself. I appreciate the concern though.


I did a 60 day juice fast really was shooting for 90 but I had to take a cross country trip and couldn't maintain it. Yea the naysayers are funny, they will tell you in all seriousness about how dangerous it is to drink natural fruit and vegetable juice. I've been told I was drinking a sugar bomb among other fantastic evils, my favorite recipe was kale, carrot, beet, ginger, lemon, apple. The only thing I would caution you is to do a search and understand what foods high in oxalic acid do to your mineral adsorption and Thyroid. Many of the veggies I was juicing I shouldn't have, at least not raw.


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## Belfrybat

doc- said:


> If you lost weight on a 75gm carb diet, you can be sure you lost muscle, not fat.
> But I don't like to argue religion, so feel free to ignore my advice. _Verbum __sapienti sufficit._


The Atkins diet you recommend is a LOT lower than 75 grams carb in the initial stages and works up to about 100 grams of carb in the later stages. I know because that is pretty much the way I usually eat -- 75 - 100 grams carb. Neither cause muscle loss. Actually, I've gained muscle in the last 4 years eating lowish carb -- 75 - 100 grams a day with adequate protein and fat.


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## scott9050

Atkins worked very well for me in the past, I should have stuck to it. It will probably be what I return to with more of an emphasis on getting my carbs from vegetables, no processed foods whatsoever and staying with lean meats, especially chicken. After 11 hours here at work I feel pretty good, 100% better than yesterday at this time.


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## scott9050

Day 4 ended with an old injury to my left foot acting up in a big way. Strangely, this morning the pain is almost completely gone. Day 5 has started well with a lot of energy, a clear mind and me accepting a promotion that was offered on Friday.
I will be weighing myself every 3-4 days from now on, I know that the weight loss from this will slow to a crawl for a while as it has with others. My clothes are getting looser, always a good sign.


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## Belfrybat

Good for you! And congrats on the promotion. I think you'll be surprised that the weight loss won't slow down as quickly as you think, especially if you don't overdo on fruit based juices.

I don't know if you've seen the movie, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead by Joe Cross. It's available on YouTube, HULU, Netflix, etc. It is a real eye-opener. Since that movie came out, Joe now suggests supplementing with protein shakes for a longer fast.


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## scott9050

Yes, I have seen both of the movies. There are some good video diaries on Youtube as well.
I will take the protein tip and look for one that is suitable after work today. I might also add coconut water to the mix.
Muscle mass is important to me, I used to be a power lifter pre-2000 before a car accident tore my shoulder up. My hunger is down to practically nothing today, I will have to remind myself to have juice this evening.


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## 258Pots

doc- said:


> I posted because I feel sorry for those with weight problems. They are often driven by desperation and willing to follow any lame advice from charlatans that always fails because fad diets ignore the basic science delineated above.
> 
> If you lost weight on a 75gm carb diet, you can be sure you lost muscle, not fat. BTW- you didn't "jump start" your diet, you just shifted your metabolism into "starvation mode,' making your metabolism more efficient at burning calories, actually making it harder to lose weight by further dieting.
> 
> But I don't like to argue religion, so feel free to ignore my advice. _Verbum __sapienti sufficit._


I find it amazing how he knows these things...:facepalm:

I wish I had the correct answer to every question...:sarcasm:

I went from 320 pounds to 195 in six months, I lost muscle, bone, organ, water, fat, brain, etc. etc. weight...


Humans require 5% to 7% of their diet be a protein source, don't supplement protein, it won't do anything other than tax your kidneys, don't listen to internet doctors, in fact don't listen to any doctors... Adding protein causes two issues, most proteins are either soy, egg or milk proteins, by the time they are processed they are useless and will just mess up what you are trying to do.


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## scott9050

Day 6 and I decided to weigh myself this morning.

I stepped on and the scale came back at 325. I made sure it was zeroed and weighed myself two more times, all at the same weight. In five full days I have gone from 341 to 325 for a 16 pound weight loss. I managed to fit into a work pants from my second job that were a good 1 1/2 inches from being able to be buttoned. I can't say how good that felt.
I feel better now than I probably have in about 9 years, and I do not say that lightly. My foot pain totally went away as fast as it came on and other aches and pains including in my knees which would throb constantly all day have subsided almost all together. 
I bought a strainer for my juices to get any bits out that may have passed through the juicer and it has improved my juice quality and made me a happier man. This is absolutely the best decision I could have made for my health.


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## toni48

I'm loving your posts. Congrads on the weight loss. Keep up the good work.


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## 258Pots

scott9050 said:


> Day 6 and I decided to weigh myself this morning.
> 
> I stepped on and the scale came back at 325. I made sure it was zeroed and weighed myself two more times, all at the same weight. In five full days I have gone from 341 to 325 for a 16 pound weight loss. I managed to fit into a work pants from my second job that were a good 1 1/2 inches from being able to be buttoned. I can't say how good that felt.
> I feel better now than I probably have in about 9 years, and I do not say that lightly. My foot pain totally went away as fast as it came on and other aches and pains including in my knees which would throb constantly all day have subsided almost all together.
> I bought a strainer for my juices to get any bits out that may have passed through the juicer and it has improved my juice quality and made me a happier man. This is absolutely the best decision I could have made for my health.



Be aware as you lose weight you may begin to burn some stored fats that may also have stored toxins in them. When I juiced I struggled with mental balance, since I suffer from depression it very important to me to regulate my mental control. It made things difficult, so if you experience any mental fatigue take some time and suss it out...


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## scott9050

Finally to the halfway point. Yesterday was more of a challenge, there was a party for someone who is leaving and I was offered Pizza and cake. I declined. I returned this morning to see 1/2 of a triple layer chocolate cake on the break room table. I moved it to the other side of the room as I did not even want to see it.
What was strange to me though is the cake was a store bought cake under a plastic lid, I could small it strongly the second I entered the room. Normally I would not have been able to.
I guess that the senses getting stronger is a fact after all.
I am hoping for another 5-7 pound loss in the next 7 days and am already planning the types of meals that I will be cooking once I end the 14 days. The thought had crossed my mind to go longer, but I want to start hitting the gym with my new found energy and need lean protein for that. This experience has been a great one for the most part so far though.


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## CountryMom22

Congrats on the weight loss! No matter how you try to lose it, it's still a hard thing to do.

The motivation that you get from seeing results and feeling good is amazing. I know how busy you are with work, but I was wondering if you have been doing any cardio during your juicing? Just curious.

Keep up the good work!


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## Solar Geek

Would you mind posting what you drink? Is is commercial prepared drink? Or do you cook vegetables and then cool and drink the broth?

I have tried juicing over and over and I just gag. No smoothie (mine or others) is doable for me. I did a juice/broth fast 3-5 days with all org. veggies cooked and then drank the broth, some tomato juice some fresh oj. 

But what are you doing and in what quantities and how often if you don't mind posting. 
*Everyone PLEASE BE NICE to him if he posts this info to answer me*.


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## toni48

I would like to know too.


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## Belfrybat

How's it going? Haven't heard from you in a few days. And I'm interested in what juices you've been making as well. 

Here's one I did yesterday and it turned out to be about the best I've made so far:

2 very large zucchini (overgrown from the garden)
6 carrots
1 apple (recipe called for two, but I limit fruit)
1 tsp ginger (didn't have any fresh)
1 Tbs. lemon juice

I was surprised how sweet it tasted. The next time I'll add 3 - 4 leaves of Swiss chard or kale as I like to get my leafy greens in.


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## reneedarley

I am so enjoying reading this diary and hepping all the way.:thumb: Personally I do not have weight or health problems - am not scientific about food, but realize I must not eat near as much as most people I know. Also I work physically hard - between 12 and 16 hours a day on the farm so I do realize how hard it must be to loose weight.
I have never eaten processed food and think that is one of the great evils in our society.
Your lesser weight will be so good for your joint pains. When I carry 50 pounds of animal food up a hill, I think, wow, some unfortunate people are carrying that around, often more, ALL DAY LONG. How can they do it?
In a year or so, when your grandchild is a toddler, the activity you will enjoy with him will be such a bonus for you both. And your beloved wife is getting a new man.
Congratulations and keep up the good work :banana:


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## scott9050

Sorry for the delayed response, life got in the way of the fast. My father in law had a series of blood clots in his leg and we had to pick up and travel 350 miles to the hospital for a few days. I had to break the fast but tried to eat healthy. I am back at work today and am only doing juice for the daytime and will finish this off with a healthy dinner. It ended before I wanted it to, but I feel too good with concentrated juice to stop altogether.
The health benefits carried through to when I had to eat real food and my unhealthy cravings are still gone. I have not and will not touch processed food.


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## Belfrybat

I'm sorry to hear about your FIL -- hope he is doing well now.

What kind of juices did you drink? And how much was your final weight loss. It looked like you were doing well in that regard before the premature end.


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## reneedarley

Glad you had time to answer. I hope your FIL is getting better. Your regime sounds positive. It may be impossible but a healthy breakfast is "healthier" than dinner


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## gibbsgirl

We were interested in trying this. We've got two juicers but I haven't had any luck so far making ng anything in them that my family went gaga for. Anyone got any to share?

I'd love to find a few that were good tasting to help with the motivation to make a go of this.


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## Belfrybat

The one I posted above a fabulous. I made it again but this time with 3 large leaves of kales and a cucumber. It cut the sweetness down a bit.


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## homebody

interesting info here. I want to get and use a nutribullet as I want the fiber in my diet and I assume the full feeling would last longer. I admire anyone who tries to get healthier and wish everyone success with their efforts.


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## rainbowshades

I mix up my smoothies but I like the following the best:

1 c frozen spinach
1 c frozen kale
1 carrot
1 celery
1 stalk of rhubarb
2 tbl yogurt (greek-honey)
1/4 c of Chia Tea
Add cold water or juice (1 pt jar) - more if needed.

Sometimes I add a soy protein powder (2 scoops) for extra protein; if I do - i put in a pinch of salt (takes the power taste away.

I put in in 32 oz cup to take to work and still have 20 oz to have for breakfast.


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## davidsam77

Natural juice is gives more strength. Daily consuming orange juice is helps to reduce the body weight.


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