All-Juiced 14th: Post-Mortem.

Day 45 (of 45) –Last day of the fast! At the end of July, I never thought I'd make it this far. Then, the days started rolling by, and here we are!! Gets me thinking...

Five things I will miss about the juice fast. Knowing exactly what I’m going to eat every day. Knowing that I’m just not able to have the foods that usually tempt me to eat poorly, or to overeat. Not having to wash a bunch of dishes after dinner (although I do still help my wife clean up after herself and the kids fairly regularly). Not being tempted to have thirds, or even seconds, since I don’t make more than one juice per meal. Seeing weight just fall off my body every time I step on the scale (present plateau excluded).

I just really, really love beets, y'all.

Five things I will NOT miss about the juice fast. Cleaning up the juicer after making meals. The sheer volume of water consumed over the course of a day, and having to get up and go to the bathroom every two hours at night as a result. Speaking of the bathroom – the effects that beets have on digestion (even though I absolutely love beets). Hitting a wall during workouts because my body doesn’t have as much fuel to burn as it does when I’m eating solids. All of the “experts” who think juicing is harmful, who ignore not just the dramatic weight loss but also the way my bloodwork has completely cleaned up as a result of juicing (and eating vegan).

Tell me I'm not the only one who remembers Sport Billy?

Sorry this post is arriving so late, but it’s been a Sport Billy kinda day for me. I’ve been absolutely filled with energy lately, and I wanted to get as much of it out of me as possible on this, the last Friday of my thirties. So I woke up at 6am on the dot, no snooze. Got dressed and headed out to the golf course for 18 holes, which is always a good morning. I shot a 95 and played BTBG (better than bogey golf) on the back 9. Then I went to the local juice bar and got my last few juices of this edition of the fast. Of course, I had to share my story with the people working there, one of whom remembered me from the last time I came there and she was working. She convinced me that a cashew nut blend was really a juice, although many people on one of my juice fast support boards thought it definitely was a smoothie. Whatever the case, it tasted pretty good.

The guy working there had coached people through the transition from a lengthy juice cleanse to eating solid foods again, so he gave me some tips on how to make sure I don’t throw my body into utter chaos in the next week or so. One of his tips was to eat lots of soft local fruits, like watermelon and honeydew melon. Which is a pretty lucky thing, since I happen to have some of those very fruits left over from juicing! I was going to have a fruit salad as my first meal anyway. I have no idea what my wife has planned for my birthday party tomorrow night, but I’m guessing I won’t be eating just fruit. Not that I’m going crazy with ten whole pizzas or anything, but I’m going to allow myself to have, for instance, a beer. You’ll definitely get to read about it Monday!

Rachel, the young lady who works there, likes to give high-fives, and I gave her about three because she was so pumped about my extreme success with my weight, health, bloodwork, etc. She even gave me a couple of free juices and wished me a happy birthday on the way out! All in all, a pretty neat visit, and not the last time I’m going there.

My last few juices for a little while, courtesy of SambaFRESH!

Came home a little hungry, but I had planned to give myself at least six hours’ worth of rest between meals, so I didn’t eat yet. Not only did I not eat, but I helped my wife get the kids in the car to go run errands and hit the road for a run! I went somewhere near 4 miles in total, but I don’t know for sure because my RunTracker ran out of juice somewhere in the middle of the run and didn’t record the whole thing. Oh well. My legs and knees know exactly how far it was, if the app doesn’t.

The whole ordeal took about 50 minutes to complete, which put me right at lunchtime when I came home. Drank my lunch juices: the Belo, the Samba, and half of a Turmeric/Filtered Water combo called Agua de Ouro. The first two are old faves; the third one was one of the two I got free for my general awesomeness (I guess), and is, ahem, an acquired taste. I’m a huge fan of turmeric, just with a bunch of other stuff. I know I’m going to love it in the cheese sauce I’m planning on making sometime next week!

I guarantee that I did NOT look like this mowing the lawn today.

But I wasn’t done! I had promised my wife that I would mow the lawn before I showered and sat down to relax and watch some of the PGA tournament online. I did two things I’ve never, ever done while mowing the lawn. One, I took a break from mowing our lawn to mow the neighbor’s front lawn. Before you think I’m some sort of good Samaritan, stop. She had mowed our lawn when we were in Florida, so I was just returning the favor. Besides, I was chock-full of energy, and the mower was chock-full of gas, so why not? Second, somewhere in the middle of mowing the backyard, I decided that my shirt was waaaaay too sweaty to continue to wear, so…I took it off. It has been a long, long time since I took my shirt off outside and felt anything approaching comfortable with it, but today was definitely one of those days. The air was cool enough for it to be a relief of sorts – a definite contrast to wearing a heavy, sweaty cotton shirt.

After I was done and showered, I decided to weigh myself, just for kicks. It doesn’t mean much, since it’s a post-workout, completely dehydrated weight, but…still.

It’s nice to see the scale move like that, even if I know that once I drink water and have my dinner juices I’ll be back up somewhere near my plateau weight of 196 and change. Low one-nineties, though! What a lovely little sight.

I’m looking forward to solid food again. I really am. I’m going to take the juice bar guy’s advice and eat melon all day tomorrow, until my party. Then I’m not going completely nuts at dinner. Sunday it’s fruit again for breakfast, a nice salad and zucchini noodles with a potato-based cheese sauce for lunch, followed by some sort of veggie burgers and fries for dinner. Planning out the week’s meals on a full stomach Sunday evening. Enjoy your weekend, because I know I will enjoy mine. We'll pick up with Harvey and Marilyn Diamond next week, I promise. Thanks so much for reading. See you Monday!