Practice makes perfect

Last Tuesday I woke up ready for another day of juice and broth and started well with my lemon water and Green Machine.

But mid-morning my husband told me that the chef of the restaurant next door was cooking us lobster paella for lunch, in the evening we were invited to a dinner of BBQ rabbit with friends, and on the following day we were going away with those same friends to our house in the mountains for a couple of days.  There's no electricity in our mountain house, so no juicer.

So, I gave it some thought and decided that I was happy enough to have achieved my personal objective of consuming just juices and broth for a period of 24 hours.  Now was not the right time to continue. I had successfully completed my one day juice cleanse, and I would do it again.  And one day maybe I will complete the full 3 day juice fast/5 day reset.

Many years ago, I successfully achieved 30 days no sugar and no alcohol.  But not on my first attempt, oh no - it took a lot of "practices" - some of those practices lasted a week or longer, some of them lasted less than a day!  But I kept "practicing" and when the time was right, when I'd practiced enough, finally I achieved it.  And it was easy!  At the outset, I gave myself leeway... I looked at my calendar, and saw that in the middle of the 30 days I had a christening to attend, and said to myself, "On that day, maybe I will have a slice of christening cake and a glass of champagne.  And if I do, it will be ok"  And actually, when that day came, I didn't succumb to either cake or champagne, and it was easy!  So easy that I continued way beyond the 30 days.  It was another rest and reset experience.

So for now, I continue practicing..... for the last week I have continued drinking hardly any alcohol, I continue drinking at least one green, red or orange juice every day, I continue being mindful of what and when I eat, and I continue planning my next one day juice cleanse and thinking about when I might go for 2 or 3 days.....

I've thought about upgrading my little Philips juicer to a cold-press one, so I can make batches of juices in advance, thinking that might make the longer cleanse easier.  But I love this little machine because it's so easy to use and so easy to clean, so I've decided to stick with it for now.

So when is my next juice day?  I've decided to once again take the advice of Milica Vladova - to harness the power of the moon, and fast on the Ekadasi day - because it's easier - and I'm all about making it easier :)

Ekadasi is a Sanskrit word, which means 'the eleventh' - the eleventh day of a fortnight belonging to a lunar month - so generally, there are two Ekadasi days in each month. Apparently, because atmospheric pressure is lowest on Ekadasi days, this is the best/easiest time to fast.

Here in Spain, the next Ekadashi day begins just before 7pm today, Wednesday 15 July and ends just after 8 pm tomorrow, Thursday 16 July.  So these will be my fasting hours.  Which means my next task today is to prepare my veg broth.

In conclusion, here are my top tips for a successful juice cleanse

1) Choose your days carefully

2) Communicate to those around you what you plan to do and why (eg it's for primarily for health reasons, to boost immunity - really important with all this virus madness around us now)

3) PREPARE - make sure you have your juice ingredients and most important of all, make sure your broth is ready.  The veg broth is what really gets you through this :)

4) Enjoy it!  Celebrate your successes, and keep practicing :)

Day 2

Monday morning, I woke up *still feeling full* from the day before!!  Sunday's quinoa salad lunch had been so filling that I hardly touched my Ginger Bunny or broth that evening, and I didn't get around to drinking my lemon juice in water until 11 am on Monday.

At 1pm I made myself a Green Machine, and at 3pm whilst everyone else was enjoying lunch of trampo, tuna, garbanzos, hard boiled eggs, gambas etc, washed down with cava.... I very happily sipped my veg broth.

No plate for me, just unlimited veg broth :). 
My glass full of veg broth, everyone else's full of cava!

In the afternoon, my friend came round and asked me to accompany her to IKEA.  Decided I needed energy to face that! - so took with me what was left of yesterday's Ginger Bunny and a bottle of water.

Come supper time, I decided it was time to try out a HeartBeet for a change

HeartBeet in the blender

But that night our supper table was laden with freshly caught tuna, some baked and some seared on the grill, grilled vegetables and an enormous salad.  (My lovely neighbour Benito always makes me a fabulous salad platter whenever we eat together.) 

So I couldn't resist...... just a mouthful!

To accompany my HeartBeet, a slice of grilled courgette, some white asparagus, a tiny piece of oven baked tuna and a mouthful of seared tuna

Did I feel bad about this little plate of solid food during my juice fast?  NOT AT ALL!  At this point, I'd completed my personal target of 24 hours on just broth and juice, and that tuna and veg were just awesome :)

I went to bed happy, and ready to continue into Day 3.

If you're interested to know more about Emm's Rest & Reset, check out her facebook page or join her Rest & Reset group to see all the recipes, the schedule and the shopping lists.

The start

Having made 4 and a half litres of veg broth on Saturday, I decided to start drinking it that evening, whilst all around me were drinking wine, beer, gin tonic and hierbas.  No-one batted an eyelid because they are used to seeing me drinking cold brew tea with meals anyway :)

Supper was pamboli.  My intention was to eat only vegetables - a delicious Ottolenghi steamed aubergine dish that I had also made during the day, and some leftover trampo.  But I succumbed to a slice of bread (very good bread - pan de xeixa from Agromart) to mop up the veg juices, a bite of spicy botifarron and a mouthful of our neighbour's home canned tuna as well.

Ottolenghi steamed aubergines

I started Sunday morning with lemon juice in room temperature water.  That's quite normal for me too.  About an hour later when I got peckish, I was going to make a Green Machine with avocado and banana, but when I opened up the beautiful avocado, I decided it was too good to blend, and ate half of it with a teaspoon instead.  I also had some fresh pineapple left over from lunchtime the day before, so I ate that too. 

A little bit later, my husband announced that he was going to the bar across the road for a plate of frito mallorqin. "Ok!" I said, "I'm going to make myself a green juice" :)

My regular green juice which I drink on most days, is spinach, celery, cucumber and apple.  Today I put some chia seeds in it too, to help my belly feel full.  And a knob of ginger because I like the spicy taste.

Whilst I was making the juice, some friends called..."We're in the bar with your husband, come over!". So I took my green juice with me :)

In the bar with my husband, my friends, and my green juice!

Next I prepared the roasted veg for the quinoa salad.  

It was nearly lunchtime, and my husband said "Let's make Martinis and jump in the neighbours' pool before lunch!". I had to remind him, sorry, no martini for me today :).

After the swim I finished making the quinoa salad and ate it for lunch.  

Sooooo delicious!  Today I have realised, if you're going to do a detox or juice fast, it definitely helps if it's designed by a great chef!  This experience has reminded me of many years ago when I enjoyed a weekend at Champneys :)

Lunch was so filling that I couldn't possibly have eaten anything else, or drunk anything more than water, in the afternoon or early evening.  As dinner time approached, my husband suggested "Let's go out for a big juicy steak!". Once again I had to remind him - no steak for me today :). So I popped next door to my neighbour and said "Do you want to have supper with us tonight? I'm not eating and Biel wants someone to have dinner with!"

So off we went the three of us to one of our favourite local restaurants...the men had their steak, chips, pepper sauce and red wine, and I took with me a Ginger Bunny and some veg broth!

Day one done :)

If you're interested to know more about Emm's Rest & Reset, check out her facebook page or join her Rest & Reset group to see all the recipes, the schedule and the shopping lists.

When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears

A few weeks ago, I saw that Emm was offering to guide anyone who wanted to join through a 5-day juice and plant based meals Rest & Reset.  "Ooh that looks interesting!" I thought.  Emm had published the schedule and the juice recipes, it looked do-able, so I got all enthusiastic and started to prepare myself to start the next day.....then I realised that I had gotten a little too enthusiastic - the start date was actually the following week!

So I practiced making the 3 different juices anyway - 1 green, 1 red, 1 orange, and they were all very nice, even if a little more complicated and a lot bigger than the 4-ingredient juices that I normally make myself.

But then over the course of that week, I didn't manage to gear myself up to start the programme with the rest of the group - but I watched with interest....... and decided that 3 days of only juice, broth and water might be a stretch for me, so I would set myself the starting goal of just one day.  But I still didn't feel ready to say which day it would be! 

In preparation however, last Saturday I decided to make the veg broth.  Coincidentally, I was also reading on my kindle that day a book called Complete Body Cleansing by Milica Vladova.  Milica also advises that if you are going to do a 3 day juice cleanse, you should try to do it during the full moon phase because it will be easier and it is best for the last day of the detox to be during the Full Moon.  I also saw somewhere, I can't remember where now, that it doesn't matter too much if you're a day either side of the full moon. 

It was Saturday 4th July, the full moon was Sunday 5th July.  I had the veg broth ready and all the ingredients I needed for Day 1 of Emm's programme.  "That's it!" I thought, "I'd better start now!"