Congratulations! You've made it to Friday! 

Reintroducing foods after a three day cleanse is not as worrisome as it may be during a 10, 30 or 60 days cleanse. (Yes, some people do such cleanses!) As our hunger has subsided, our digestive system has taken a small break from its job for the past day or two. Introducing whole foods (to eat!) will awaken this process easily and quickly. 

I'd suggest starting your morning with fruit, as mentioned yesterday. As with day 1, Monday, I'd like you to avoid animal products, caffeine, sugar and any processed food. Stick to any whole plant foods in moderate portions without mixing too many food groups together. Simplicity and light eating is the goal for today. By containing your choices to the above guidelines you'll have a smooth transition into eating food. 

I will advise you to approach today with curiosity. You're starting today from a blank slate and it would be a great time to form new habits. As we know from our usual eating style, hunger is often taken very seriously and dealt with quickly. However, after three days without eating we can see that hunger is programmed somewhat by the amount of food, the type of food, and how often we eat. We can learn to be less hungry and have consistent energy by eating whole plant foods, getting the nutrients we need, spacing our meals out evenly with a morning and afternoon snack (maybe juice?) and not eating too much at any one sitting.  Another great tip to allow your body time for detox and complete digestion each day is to make sure your last meal of the day and your breakfast are at least 12 hours apart. It takes 8 hour to fully digest a meal. Giving your body 4 extra hours each day after your last digested meal to focus solely on cleansing and detoxing will have many benefits for your long term health. If you usually eat breakfast at 7:30am, make sure you stopped eating the night before at 7:30pm.

A whole foods, plant based diet focusing on nutrient dense foods, with limited or no animal products is the best diet for optimal health and disease prevention.  I wish you luck today and your days beyond. If you have any questions about adding more whole foods into your diet please feel free to contact me. 

I thank you for joining us on this journey. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts! I've left a comment section open below this post. If anyone is inclined to leave a personal testimonial of the cleanse to be published at fulloflife.ca in the future, please do so below. I would be very grateful!! Should you wish to leave any comments or feedback with me privately, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. 

I wish you all happy, healthy, energized days,
All the best, 

Andréa  

Congratulations on getting to your last day of juicing!

A note if you're struggling: If you're struggling and debating going back to food today, I'd like to give you one last push to continue. You've gotten over what is normally the most challenging two days, physically and mentally. Ask yourself where your desires to stop are coming from- your body or mind. If it's your body, simply prepare more juice so you're taking in more calories. This is not a deprivation diet- quiet the opposite. We're trying to nourish the body with nutrients so give yourself more fruit juice if you're looking for energy. If it's your mind, I can tell you that it's only one more day and it's amazing the tricks the mind can play on us. Keep an awareness of where the mind is going today. Observe but don't react. You can definitely do this. 

Preparing for Friday: As we come to our last day of juicing, we'll approach bringing food back into our diet on Friday. Our guidelines for Friday will mimic our guidelines for Monday- clean eating with no animal products, caffeine, sugar, alcohol or processed foods. The best option to ease back into eating is to consume mainly fresh and raw fruits and vegetables on Friday- most importantly, fruit for breakfast.  Eating whole fruit for breakfast will allow your body to adjust to food and reactivate the digestion that has partially shut down during this cleanse. Fruit is easy to digest and contains fiber, both are benefits in moving out waste and toxins that have been released during our cleanse. With fruit for breakfast (a cantaloupe or watermelon and a spoon?) after a few hours, a salad with chickpeas or grains would fit well, followed by a light whole foods based dinner. Remember to drink lots of water on Friday too to help with elimination. Choose your food carefully and take note about how each meal and food group make you feel. If you suspect there may be a certain food that disagrees with you, on one of the following days after Friday, eat it independently from any other food (30min before a meal or 2 hrs after) and observe how your body reacts. 

As we look into the future, a diet with minimal animal products and refined foods, with an emphasis on whole plant foods will create optimal long term health for most, if not all people. Daily juicing is also an extremely beneficial habit, as is juicing for just one day every couple of weeks, or participating in a 3 day cleanse monthly or every couple months.

Studies show that:

• Western diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and autoimmune disease are caused by our Western diet- mainly through the consumption of animal products, processed foods and lack of whole plant based foods.
  
• nutrition is the symphony of nutrients working together- not isolated nutrients as with supplements. Nutrition is about the package of food and whole, plant based foods come in wonderful packages with optimal ratios of all nutrients. Our body knows exactly what to do with whole plant based foods.
  
• there are no antioxidants or fiber in animal foods. Animal food packages come with saturated fat, cholesterol, concentrated calories and very limited micronutrients.
  
• acidity in the body leads to disease. Animal products, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and many processed foods are acidic whereas plant based foods are alkaline forming. 
  
• every element of health, including mental health, is affected by what we eat. Eating whole, natural plant foods including fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, grains, mushrooms and herbs will leave you with a lower BMI, a healthy mind, consistent energy with fewer highs and lows, and significant prevention against heart disease (the #1 cause of death), cancer, diabetes, stroke and dementia in later life.

Remember to take time out today on your last day of juicing to relax and rest when needed. To push yourself during a cleanse is to limit the amount of cleansing your body can do. Be kind and gentle to yourself and thank yourself for taking 5 days out of your life for health promotion and reconnecting with whole foods.

Until tomorrow,

Andréa

Hello All!

Day two of juicing is upon us! How is everyone doing? You may find that you're having varying experiences. Some people may have headaches (my caffeine headache skipped a day and appeared yesterday which was challenging), be tired or cranky, other may feel starving, with cravings, and others will be just fine. The rule of thumb is that the farther your diet is to an ideal plant strong diet the more detox symptoms you will have, and the closer it is to whole, plant based unprocessed foods on a day-to-day basis, the easier the cleanse will be. In fact, some people may feel nothing other than a little hunger, and with 6 juices, perhaps not even hunger! Remember, any symptoms that you feel now will be contributing to the energy and clarity you'll soon have. Even at this point, you've done your body a world of good by eating whole plant based foods and juices for the past two days. Studies show that the benefits of whole plant foods are visible in the body within an hour. These foods heal and clean. So keep it up! 

As for you ladies! I've been feeling a sense of power from you- each of you with your own reasons of why you're choosing to do a cleanse, but each of you taking the time to honour yourself, put your health at the forefront, and take time in your busy days to nurture yourself, as you would a loved-one. Taking time in our day to truly love and nurture ourselves is an important part of finding peace in our world. We're so often looking outward to our busy lives, work, kids, relationships, etc, but looking inward with awareness is what really promotes growth and life satisfaction. So I commend each of you for taking this time out to do something for you! A cleanse can be a transformative journey, so I hope you're making the most of it! :)

Hope you have a good Wednesday and that headaches disappear and 

Tomorrow we begin three days in a row of consuming nothing but pure, fresh, unaltered vegetable and fruit juices. 

Some tips for newbie juicers:

• prepare your fruit and vegetables before you starts juicing- that means washing, cutting produce into the right size for your juicing tube, peeling non-organic apples and cucumbers (minimizing exposure to pesticides), peeling citrus fruits, etc.  Having them prepared before each juice makes the juicing process go a lot smoother. 
• prepare your juicer and a compost bag- one tip for a centrifuge juicer is to take away your pulp collection part of the juicer and replace it by tying a plastic bag in its place around the pulp elimination spout, loosely but securely. This allows you to collect more pulp before having to empty it, and also makes clean-up easier.
• empty the pulp before its full- keep an eye on the pulp and empty it as often as necessary. If you allow it to get too full it will back up and restrict your juice from flowing, and sometime mix in with the juice. It's messy and inefficient so keep an eye on the pulp collection!
• rinse the juicer now and then if you're making large quantities at one time (a day's worth, for example). Sometimes juicers get a little blocked up and you can end up with pulp in your juice. You want as little pulp as you can manage in each juice so as not to activate your digestive system. 
• clean your juicer right after you use it- to make clean up easiest, clean your juicer immediately. That way none of the pulp has dried, your mesh strainer can be cleaned easily and your juicer is ready to go for your next juice.

Remember to review the juicing guidelines for more tips, and the Day 1 post for juice recipes. 


As you  begin juicing tomorrow you may find yourself hungry. Juice through the hunger. Your body is getting what it needs and the hunger is not for lack of nutrients, it's simply from expectation and habit. Though you'll only be taking in about 1000 calories on average, so much of our daily energy goes into digestion and by consuming juice, you'll free up this energy, in turn using fewer calories during these days. Though we'll have limited calories, many people report feeling more energized and alert during cleanses. The hunger will pass. And remember, when hungry, drink juice! Don't restrict your juice intake!

At any time that you find this hard, just remember that whatever feels bad now feels twice as good when you get to the other side. Your body is going to have all the nutrients it needs to go on a cleaning spree and your job is to be patient and kind. Have a nap if that's what you want, go to sleep at 8:30pm, or switch your intense workout for a walk in the park- this is time for you and your body. Be selfish. Your body will thank you.

Good luck and have fun! And don't forget, I'd love to hear how you're doing so leave a comment on the message board and say hello if you haven't already! 

Happy Juicing! 
Andréa 

Good morning, and happy Monday! 

I hope you've got a little extra bounce in your step this morning as you embark on a week of exploration from body cleansing, to mind cleansing, to juice concocting. The wonderful thing about a cleanse is that it gives you permission to be a little selfish, to look after yourself first and foremost, to go to sleep early, and to listen to your body more closely than usual. This week is for you, so take advantage of that! 

Today we begin to lighten up our diet by eating whole plant foods, and avoiding all animal products, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and other acid forming foods. Many people eat in a way that promotes an acidic environment in their body. The foods we're avoiding today are mainly those foods which, after the metabolic process, leave free radicals and acidity in the body. This promotes oxidization of the cells, leads to imbalances in the body, and leads to the breakdown of healthy cells- a process we can limit by eating foods packed with anti-oxidants and fiber such as fruits and vegetables. Animal products have virtually no anti-oxidants (other than what may be left over from the plant foods they've eaten and metabolized) or fiber. 

With our day of clean eating today, you'll no doubt also be preparing for your juice fast (feast!) tomorrow. 

I've just posted a note on 'Juicing Guidelines' below. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday remember to drink all the juice you want . This is a pure juice cleanse, consuming only the nutrients, chlorophyll and H2O found in the cells of fresh fruits and vegetables. We will not be eating anything during these three days. A typical day may include 2 cups of juice for each breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and evening snack. On top of this, drink at least a few glasses of water and/or herbal tea through the day. As a note on juice preparation- I will be prepping my juices the evening before or the morning of each day. I make 6 at a time, a process which takes about 1 hour minimum. To make it a little faster you could make 2 or 3 juices in one flavour and thus have less variation to your juices. In this case I'd change the juices each day to get a wide range of nutrients from different produce. 

Here are some juice ideas to get you started. 

Green Juice 1                                        Green Juice 2                                   Green Juice 3
6 leaves of kale                                                      1 head of romaine lettuce                            1/2 bunch parsley 
1/2 cucumber                                                        1 pear                                                                    5 leaves kale
4 green apples                                                       1 green apple                                                     5 stalks of celery
1 peeled lemon                                                      1 peeled lemon                                                  2 green apples
1/2 inch of peeled ginger                                  1/2 cucumber                                                   1 peeled lemon 

Carrot Juice                                          Beet Juice                                          Orange Juice 
1o large carrots                                                      2 small beets                                                      3 oranges
1 peeled lemon                                                       4 carrots                                                              1 cucumber 
                                                                                      1 peeled lemon                                                   1 apple
                                                                                      2 apples
                                                                                     1/2 inch ginger
                                                                                      

*UPDATE! Here are some more recipes. These amounts should make about 16oz on the dot as I've used them for juices that I sell. Guaranteed to be delicious! ;) 

1.                                                              2.                                                          3.                                              
1 sm head romaine                                                1 sm head celery                                               1 head romaine 
1/2 cucumber                                                         6 leaves kale                                                        6 leaves kale
2 sm beets                                                                 3 apples                                                                 1/3 bunch parsley
2 apples                                                                                                                                                        1/2 cucumber
1/2 lemon                                                                                                                                                   4 apples
                                                                                                                                                                         1 lemon 

Juicing should be fun and flexible. Make your own combinations and buy any fruits and vegetables that look fresh and delicious! There are tons of juice combinations out there so don't get caught up with recipes or ratios. You'll learn quickly that kale is a little strong, and so is ginger. Or that apple and lemon will round out any juice well. Or that sometimes pure watermelon juice is exactly what you're craving.
                
The fruit juices will satisfy your sweet tooth and give you more calories, but the vegetable juices will get to the root of detoxification and cleansing while providing the most nutrient. There is a time and place for both fruit based, and vegetable based juices, however, I'd stick with a minimum of three green vegetable juices and then go from there with your own desires and tastes. 

I hope this finds you well on this Monday morning!

I'll leave the comment section open below this for extra juice recipes that you'd like to share. I'll also post a couple more of my favourites this afternoon as I've been working on a few new recipes (see above!). 

All the best,
Andréa

If this is your first time juicing, I'd like to welcome you to this exciting and health promoting world! 

The benefits of juice cleansing include:

• fueling your body with large quantities of readily available nutrients 
• allowing your digestive organs to rest while your body begins to clean accumulated toxins from your cells
• bringing your body to an alkaline state which is health promoting, as opposed to an acidic body which is health demoting- animal foods, sugar, caffeine and alcohol are examples of acid forming foods
• reconnecting your taste buds to the flavour of natural foods and your body with natural hunger cues 

While on a juice cleanse, some people may consume as much as 15-20lbs of vegetables per day. It is your choice whether you choose organic or conventional fruits and veggies for your cleanse, though I recommend organic foods to lessen your exposure to extra toxins and gain the maximum nutrients from each vegetable/fruit. Studies show that conventionally grown produce has significantly reduced life force and nutrients.

Juice any time you like, whenever you feel the need for more energy. Weight loss is not the ultimate goal of this cleanse so you don't want to limit yourself. I would typically drink six 2 cup (16oz) servings per day of juice as well as plenty of water and herbal teas. 

Juice mainly low sugar vegetables with high amounts of nutrients such as greens (kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, parsley, chard, bok choy, cucumber, celery, cabbages). Add carrots, beets, apples and other sweet fruit, and some flavouring of lemon, lime, ginger, cranberries or herbs. Once a day you may wish to have something sweet such as a pineapple or cantaloupe based juice, or a pure carrot or apple juice. Listen to your body, but know that fruits, are higher in sugar and lower in nutrients whereas greens are the lowest in sugar with the greatest amount of nutrients. 

Wash your vegetables well and peel citrus fruits before you juice them. If you're using organic produce, don't worry about peeling your vegetables and fruit (other than citrus). With conventional produce, I would peel apples and cucumber before using them. If you can, try to buy organic greens as these vegetables are some of the most contaminated with pesticides. Depending on the size of your juicer, you may have to cut up your vegetables first. However, don't worry about cutting away seeds such as in an apple- even these have nutrients. 

Drink your juice slowly. The nutrients from your juice will be absorbed into your blood stream at a similar rate to alcohol. Take your time with your juice to allow for steady absorption. Though fresh vegetable and fruit juice needs almost no internal digestion, digestion begins in the mouth, so drink slowly and savour the juice.

Have fun and experiment with many vegetables, fruit and flavourings. I like to add lemon, ginger and an apple to most of my juices. Many people add cilantro or mint for a distinguishable flavour. Fresh cranberries also add a strong flavour, and some people choose to juice a clove or two of peeled garlic with some vegetable juices. 

Consume your juice fresh or make ahead and store it in the fridge for up to 24 hours. I would recommend storing your juice in a tightly sealed container such as a mason jar. Fill the jar right to the very top limiting the amount of air that is in the jar before putting the lid on. Oxygen will contribute to the oxidation of nutrients while an air-tight container will keep your juice fresher and slow down the deterioration of nutrients.  

By now you may be asking yourself some questions about our upcoming cleanse and details about Monday.

I'd like you to adjust your diet on Monday by avoiding some commonly toxic and acid producing foods, and adding in lots of raw fruits and vegetables and whole foods.
 
On Monday you should avoid:

• caffeine
  
• all animal based foods (meat, fish, milk, cheese, butter, eggs)
• any processed, prepared or manipulated foods
• alcohol
• sugar 
• salt 

Eat as much as you want of any style:

• fruit (preferably raw and organic)
• vegetables (preferably raw and organic)
• raw nuts (not roasted with extra seasoning or oil)
• beans and legumes
• whole grains (quinoa, brown or wild rice, oatmeal, couscous, etc)

Foods without any additives which are as close to their natural state as possible is the focus for Monday. On Monday, take some time to consider what additives and alterations your usual daily foods undergo. Are they cooked, pasteurized, contain isolated nutrients, preservatives? How much raw food to you generally consume? How many chemicals are listed in the ingredients of your processed foods? Even 'natural' strawberry flavour contains 40 chemicals!  

Remember, the best sources of nutrients are from whole, unprocessed plant foods. Nutrients come in a beautiful package of whole foods and within these packages is a delicate balance of micro and macro nutrients which are recognizable and in appropriate ratios for our bodies. Within whole plant foods we find enzymes to help with digestion, amino acids for building proteins, vitamins and minerals to preforms metabolic functions, and fiber and antioxidants to cleanse and maintain our health.

It's the synergistic quality of whole foods which is the basis of nutrition. By consuming a wide array of  whole plant food packages on a daily basis we hold the key to preventative and lasting health.  

Below are two sample menus for Monday. Feel free to choose other foods, but stick to foods as close to their original package from the earth as possible.
 

Welcome to your cleanse! 

Taking some time out for clean eating and cleansing reconnects you with whole foods and natural tastes.  A diet based on whole plant foods should be the cornerstone of our diet to stay healthy in body and mind, prevent against disease, and find joy and compassion in our lives. 

Our 5 day cleanse, including 3 days of juicing, will begin a state of natural healing in your body. A rest from digestion for 3 days will free up energy to begin cleansing and removing toxins. During this time fresh vegetable and fruit juices will supercharge you with nutrients, enzymes and phytonutrients to aid in the detoxifying and healing of your body.  

During you cleanse it will be important to:

• spend time shopping, planning and juicing daily 
  
• drink juice as you are hungry 
• drink filtered water and herbal teas 
  
• get lots of rest and limit intense exercising 
  
• listen to your body and be kind to yourself 

During this cleanse you can expect to:

• reconnect with natural hunger cues
• 'de-puff' and lose a couple of pounds  
  
• become more energized as the cleanse continues 
  
• feel significantly clearer mentally by day 5
• experience withdrawal symptoms from caffeine on day 1 and 2 if you are a coffee/tea drinker 
  

We are all choosing to take 5 days to clean our bodies and focus our mind on our needs. Please feel free to introduce yourself to other cleanse members in the message board in the first post, below.  Responding to each other's questions, offering personal insight and supporting each other will make this cleanse more valuable. I will be answering questions and responding to your thoughts as we go. For personal comments or questions, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

Peace, love and health,
Andréa 

The power of a group is much greater than the power of one. 

Please leave your questions, comments and thoughts here and check back regularly for replies.  This message board is meant for you to give and receive support. I will respond to any questions that may arise, however, insight and experience from participants is always encouraged!