Hi all!

I just watched two great films that I wanted to share. Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and Forks Over Knives. I highly recommend them both!

For anyone familiar with them, the first is a film about juice fasting. I plan to try a 21-day juice fast as soon as my juicer arrives. I'll be sure to post my progress as I go.

The second film is about the relationship between animal based protein and disease. I used to be a vegetarian, and have been vegan for the past several days now and hope to continue with a vegan diet after the fast. I'm hoping the juice fast will help reset my body and brain and detox my system in preparation for my new diet.

If you're able to pick up these movies, I encourage you to keep an open mind and give them a try. I learned so much and was so inspired!

My juicer should arrive by the end of the week. I was thinking I'd post a daily "journal" of sorts to share my experience in case anyone else decides to give it a go!

Are you doing this strictly for weight loss or to flush your body free?
So, what did you do first? Vegetarian, to vegan to juice fast , what is the diet after that?

I agree, I recently watched those as well! It is amazing what whole foods can do for our bodies!

I would love to move more towards a whole foods lifestyle myself!

I was a vegetarian years ago for personal reasons. Over time, I moved back into a carnivore diet and have seen my health deteriorate - weight gain, joint problems, injuries, gallstones (resulting in gallbladder removal) and, most recently, a severe food allergy (corn!)

After watching these films I decided to go back to my original instinct, taking it one step further and have gone to a vegan (also called a vegetable based whole foods diet) diet. I intend to maintain this for life.

Once my juicer arrives, I plan to do a 21-day juice fast. I expect to lose weight, but this wasn't my primary motivation. I'm doing it to cleanse my body, reset or "reboot" my system, and reverse the damage I've done over years and years of poor eating.

When the fast ends, I will continue eating vegan.

My brother did a semi-fast. He replaced 2 meals a day with home made fresh juice (and drank juice as snacks - essentially whenever he felt hungry) and ate one vegan meal per day. He lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks. He will be starting a true juice fast this week, but he hasn't felt hungry at all, and his energy is very high. He also feels more balanced in general, both physically and mentally.

PS - my daughter, who is 6, has never liked meat or dairy. She despises it - has since she was an infant! We have all nicknamed her "fruit bat" because she survives on raw fruits and veggies, and nuts. She also likes rice and pasta, but always plain - no sauce or butter or anything on it. Over the years we've forced dairy and meat on her (mainly yogurt, cheese, but she still detests meat in any form). But even that's a struggle.

She's perfectly healthy. Sleeps well every night, plays sports (ice skating and soccer), full of energy, healthy weight, strong and thriving with good iron levels and lots of muscle and strength (so she has enough protein). So we've decided to trust her instincts and allow her to eliminate meat and dairy and she's sooooo happy. She was dancing around the kitchen last night and enthusiastically ate a big bowl of vegan bean soup I made, lol. She proclaimed it the best soup she ever had! She said, "FINALLY, mama, you're listening to me that meat is gross and milk is blech! Makes me want to throw up!"

I liked both movies.

I've been raw vegan in the past (actually had an entire pregnancy that was raw vegan) and it wasn't good for me. I think for my body it's good to do a cleanse a few times a year, but because of my personal chemistry it's not sustainable. I do think that people would do well to try it though.

I love love LOVE my juicer. We have a lot of fun with it. And I'll tell you I made my mother get one and her numbers are BEAUTIFUL when she juices just once a day. She has leukemia and every time her numbers jump, I get her back to juicing and removing grains and sugar. Instantly there is a change in her energy level and bloodwork. Good stuff!

As always I think the best thing you can do is experiment and find what makes you feel strong and vibrant. It will look different for different people, and it will often change for every person now and again too....but it's worth finding out!

Let us know about the costs, if you wouldn't mind sharing that info.. I saw FS&ND with DH a while back and we already own a nice juicer, but we're so danged busy and cheap we don't think we could actually stay on something like that. Best of luck to you! I hope you see fabulous results ASAP

it's not bad if you can do it over the summer and have a farm share, or can get to good farmer's markets. You can actually SAVE money believe it or not. Unless you're doing a lot of fruit juicing (which I wouldn't recommend.)

I have a wonderful "lemonade" that I drink almost daily which is basically greens, more greens, some greens, a carrot, and apple and a lemon. Not horrifyingly expensive, tasty (my kids love it!) and fairly easy to do! But yeah....summertime is cheaper!

Oh, I lurve raw-vegan foods! I go to a couple different restaurants with a friend who's vegetarian. Mind, I'm supposedly meant to eat animal protein due to my physiology and blood type (O positive), however, I do love veggies, juicing, etc., and in our household we have organic and or grassfed beef, free range chicken, etc.---eggs, too.

I've always been curious about the blood type thing, so I just looked it up and turns out that my type, A, should be eating vegetarian, lol, so this vegan thing better suit me!