Seven-Day Juice Feast - Day 1

Every fall I do a seven day juice feast. It's called a juice feast because you drink as much juice as you need to to not be hungry. That's my kind of juice fast. People often ask me why I do it. Well, I do it not only for a physical cleaning out and resting of my body, but also for the spiritual reasons fasting affords. This is the third year I've done a juice feast. During my first year I mediated three hours a day with a Kundalini Yoga instructor. We started at 4am in her backyard and went til 7am. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was to start meditating under the starts and to continue through the sunrise. Last year I wished that I had incorporated more spiritual events into the feast. Business was tough and I was very tired emotionally. I did meditate a little, but mostly went about my day. The interesting thing is that I still had several deeply connective experiences and felt like I learned so many lessons. I journaled about it for my own personal use, but this year I thought I'd blog about it.

This year, these are my goals:

Watch the sunset everyday this week
Meditate every day this week
Drink only fresh juice and water for seven days

That's it. I'm a big fan of simple. Simple is often more and I like that I'll have so much time to just let life happen.

So with that explanation, here is a bit about my last meal and about how my first day of juice feasting is going:

Last night I had a simple meal of vegetables and fruit from the farmer's market. Roasted red potatoes with herbs and olive oil, sauteed zucchini and tomatoes with olive oil and salt and pepper, and yellow wax and green beans tossed with a bit of tamari and olive oil. For dessert I ate some grapes and some coconut (from the farmer's market, not locally grown, obviously). Afterward my boyfriend and I went on a nice long walk. It was the perfect way to welcome a spiritual week.

This morning I woke, ready to get some work done and then make some juice, but I got a call from my friend saying that we had a client in labor. Some of you know that in addition to owning Raw Melissa, I'm also a doula. I was thrilled. Welcoming a baby into the world is the perfect way to start a week like this. So I showered and made a bunch of juice and now I'm sitting here with our pregnant mama resting on a great big comfy bed, snuggled next to her hubby. Things are sure to get harder before that sweet babe is born so I'll be a lot more involved in helping our mama soon. How thankful I am to be a part of this.

So far today I've drunk a quart of blended crenshaw melon, one quart of tomato, carrot, cucumber and dill juice, and a glass of cantaloupe juice made from cantaloupe that my friend picked out of the garden, blended, and presented to me with a squeeze of lime. I'm feeling ok except for some low energy and an afternoon slump where I thought I was going to fall asleep where I stood. I just keep telling myself, "This is hard, but I'm doing it." The same phrase I'll suggest my laboring mama use in a couple hours.

Til tomorrow.

Always love,

Melissa