Last night I had a terrible time falling asleep. I tossed and turned most of the night because my stomach was hurting and I couldn’t sleep through the discomfort. I was wide awake around 4 AM and could not go back to sleep. The longer I lay in bed, the worse I felt, and I knew it wasn’t good. I finally woke my husband around 6:30 AM and told him that I was ILL. I could hardly get the words out to tell him what was wrong. He got up immediately and got me some soda crackers. He put one in my hand for me to eat, but I was shaking and it dropped to the floor. He fed me a couple of crackers, made some Calli, and brought me some water. When I stopped shaking and crying (I was scared something like this would happen and here it was, coming true), I was able to eat half of a whole wheat bagel, toasted. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement.

I was exhausted and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I finally roused myself at 9:30 AM, I could barely walk to the couch and lay down again. I felt weak and tired. I knew it was my own fault. For all of the “research” I had done, I neglected one very important point: when you’re hungry, drink juice! I just thought, “Three juices in one day is good enough, and I’m drinking enough water, so it’s okay.” I was dead wrong. You should not feel hungry while doing a juice fast. There will be an initial cleansing period of about 3 days where the toxins being stored in your digestive system make their way into your bloodstream, causing some individuals to feel tired, light-headed, flu-like, or experience headaches. These symptoms are from the toxins, not from lack of food. You should not feel that you are starving. On the contrary, your body should feel full and content with the amount of juice it’s consuming. I could have easily had four juices, maybe even five. You can’t eat too many vegetables. It was a hard lesson to learn, so early in the game.

I helped my husband make a juice around 10 AM and drank it. I continued to juice the rest of the day, having four in total. I think four juices was the magic number for me. I felt better by late afternoon. We headed to the grocery store to stock up on kale, parsley, beets, spinach, cucumbers, and zucchini. We got home and made our last juice around 6:30 PM.

I have resolved to continue the fast with a new determination to drink juice whenever I feel hungry. I don’t usually go more than a couple of hours without eating something, so I will adopt that same attitude with juice.