Day Two: I Will Survive!

Day two and I’m already over my vegetable grudge. That wasn’t so bad! My friend and fellow faster, Jacqueline, gave me a recipe called green juice which was featured in the film Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It consist of kale, apples, celery, cucumber, lemon and ginger. I was afraid to drink it at first, it is slime green after all, but hunger got the best of me.

After two swigs of the drink I was sold. I even got a kale-stache with no hard feelings. The apples give it sweetness while the lemon and ginger make it tart. It helped me to endure the deep muscle aches that I experienced over a seven hour period – the result of toxins fleeing my body. Yeaaaah!! I finally succumbed to two Advil to cope with the aches in the afternoon. After three child labors, you’d think I could handle a little detox. Thank God, by night, the aches completely subsided.

In the early evening hours I tried a vitamin C mix, consisting of grapefruit, orange, lime, and cranberry.

It was ubber tart and refreshing.

The zing of it gave me courage to watch my family eat puttanesca sauce over a bed of steaming penne pasta, without having a fit.

I chased the drink down with a tall glass of water and a hot cup of detox herbal tea. I’ve even started cutting out the teaspoons of honey. I have to pinch myself since last week I was consuming cups of sugary, creamy coffee, and this week I’m sipping on unsweetened herbal tea. Can ya’ll believe it?! I’m impressed by my tastebuds’ ability to switch over in such a short amount of time, or at least endure with minimal whining. Someone is making du’a (prayer) for me, I can tell! Keep doing it, pretty please.

Conversations with three of my fellow-fasters is helping tremendously. Whilst in the vegetable market today I got a call from my buddy Kim. I dropped everything to talk to her, even though it required letting my daughter stand up in the cart and do a booty-shake to the store’s background music. Just chatting about our journeys gives me energy to keep going. I was there looking for coconut water that my friend Jacqeuline recommended earlier. Hearing about her success and challenges gives me strength and pause to make du’a for her along with my other fellow fasters. Calls and texts from supportive friends is also a saving grace. I am convinced that embarking on this challenge with a team is key to enduring the rough and tumble first 48 hours.

As for my husband, he’s in a little hot water right now. He thinks juice fasting is so funny; the extent of his support system is in chugging down the vegetable juice I make for him nightly. Since he is not even feigning support, it is giving me a little bit of selfish joy to watch him try to camouflage his own gag reflex.

If he makes one more joke about putting fried chicken in the juicer I am going to…going to….umm….actually, I’m not going to do anything. This juice fasting has had a surprising sedative effect on my nervous system. I am calmer and more optimistic than ever.

Can ya’ll believe that just 24-hours ago I was personifying vegetables as villains? After day two I can say that, God willing, I will survive! I am even giddy about the next eight days. I’m relieved that something as simple as dietary changes is making such a dramatic, positive shift in my feelings of well-being and in my ability to concentrate and be mindful in my daily prayers.

I still have strong cravings. I won’t bore you with the details of how I wanted to snort a bag of tater chips. Even still, the siren call of snacky food and dairy products is loosening its grip on me just a little. I expect that in the coming days my defenses will be even stronger. After the fasting period, I have plans to continue my de-tox program with a free, personalized Reboot Your Life plan.

Stay tuned ya’ll for more on my Be a Big Girl inner-make over. If you are on the same track, please be in touch. I want to hear all about it.

Much Love,

Danette

Tags: be a big girl, collard greens, detox, green juice, healthy living, inner makeover, islam, juice fasting, juicer, muslim, reboot