On Friday, I was so tired that I forgot to include the list of changes to that point:

• My ears and sinuses cleared. I don’t know if allergens cleared from my environment or from my diet, but my head is a lot clearer. I didn’t even realize that my ears were stuffy until they weren’t!
• My hands and feet are not swollen when I wake. My feet still hurt after being on them the whole time at work; however, when I wake, they are pain-free as are my hands.
• My knees hurt less. After my shift on Thursday, I right knee was complaining…loudly. However, it did not wake me from my sleep (which is has done under similar circumstances in the past) even though I took no pain relievers.
• My lips are super chapped. I mean like not since I took Acutane have they been this chapped.
• My mouth was relentlessly dry and had a wretched taste. Wretch. ed.
• I sleep more soundly. I don’t know if that’s the fatigue or the lack of chemical stimulants. Whatever it is, I don’t care. I’m sleeping great!
• I’ve lost five pounds.

At first, I thought I’d do a 30-day reboot. When I learned a little more, I discovered that 30 days was just way too long; so, I thought I’d do 15 days. Turns out, that was a bit too long, as well.

My stomach is, let’s use the word: persnickety. Too much liquid of any kind makes it feel nauseated. To get the number of calories I needed per day, I needed to drink more juice than my stomach was happy to handle. As a result, I was ingesting less than 600 calories per day. That’s not nearly enough.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we must listen to our bodies. On Saturday afternoon, after five days of juice fasting, my blood pressure became really low – around 92/64. That was low enough to make my vision black out when I stood. Now, don’t freak out. Relax your nerves. This has happened to me before. In fact, when I was young, I took medication for it – postural hypotension. My blood simply runs a little thicker than most and results in low BP sometimes. (That’s what Dr. Frank said, anyway.)  Whatever. The end result was that I nearly pitched head over keister down my hallway on Saturday. So, Saturday night, I listened to my body and ate.

And, man, did I go hog wild! I had steamed kale, a romaine salad with walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette, a sweet potato and an orange! I salted the kale; but, the salt and the vinaigrette were the only additives I used.

I felt better.

So, I’m going to continue juicing; but, on a more moderate scale. I typically eat six times a day. I will juice for at least two of those and will continue to eat my fruits and veggies for the other meals. I also plan to add some legumes and tree nuts for added protein.

I know that this juice reboot has worked for a lot of people and I would even say that it worked for me, in spite of my cutting short the 100% juicing portion. My primary reasons for juicing were to: 1. decrease the pain in my hands and feet, 2. decrease the pain in my knees, and 3. lose 10 pounds. Well, the first two goals were achieved in five days and I’m halfway to the third one. I’m calling this a success!

Juice on! (in moderation, for me)