Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Juice Fast

I LOVE Juicing!!

Today is Day 9 of my 30 day Juice Fast. Feeling major progress. My tummy is flatter than it's been in years, and I feel a drastic reduction of inflammation in my body! Yay!

For the past 5 months, I tested EVERYTHING with iodine, and didn't eat anything that showed positive for starch. Now that I am juicing, I decided to put the iodine bottle away, and I am just jucing whatever I feel like including ginger root and lots of apples, even some beet root. I haven't noticed any ill effects from any juices yet!

I also fet great progress was made using Oxy Powder. I am not one to usually endorse pills/supplements, but I really like the Oxy Powder. When I first ordered it a few weeks ago, I was worried it might irritate my already irritated intestines, but now that I am inflammation free, it seems like a great compliment to my fasting. I believe it is really helping to clear out the junk that has been holding me back inside.

http://bettyrawker.com/2012/03/25/day-9-of-my-30-day-juice-fast/

I was in a major flare before turning to this juice fast. I am happy to report that juicing has totally relaxed by body and helped me out of the flare.

In the future I will turn to a couple of days of green juice should another flare return. Pills just seem to do more damage than good, and they aren't as effective for me anymore. I also plan to continue on a LSD/NSD diet of mostly raw fruit & veggies with some seafoods, nuts & seeds.

xoxo

Andrea, I have UC and there is no way I could eat the things that you have been eating. I cannot eat any nuts, raw fruits or vegetables. To avoid the colitis problems I recommend goggling "residue free diet". All those raw fruits and vegies are like trying to digest a Brillo pad. I am amazed that you can live on your juice diet without loosing too much weight. I wonder how long you can stick with it without getting sick. I don't want to sound negative, but after many years with UC, I learned to be careful what I eat.

Hi Donna,

Thanks for you input! Very kind of you to share you experiences. I will totally look into the residue free diet!

Oh, my life would be dreadful without my raw fruits, veggies & nuts. You now I soak/sprout all nuts for at least 8 - 12 hours before ingesting them, this helps to remove enzyme inhibitors and make them more easily digestible. Have you ever had sprouted nuts? I stay far away from cooked/roasted nuts, but love sprouted ones And when I ingest nuts, its usually in a pureed form, like a nut based salad dressing or nutmilk. Or I pulverize them into a raw brownie with dates & chocolate.

I am happy to report that I am on Day 13 of my fast, and feeling awesome. I have only lost 7 pounds total in 13 days, and could even spare a few more, so I am not worried about weight loss, instead I am happy to feel that my intestines are working overtime to get cleaned up, and I have seen a lot of gunk leave my system and go bye bye! My eyes are brighter white, my inflammation in my body/back AS is way down!, and my senses are very heightened.

Also, when you juice your fruits & veggies, the last thing that comes to mind is a brillo pad? Or have you ever experienced the amazing life changing "Vitamix" appliance, it purees my smoothies when I am not juicing, spinach literally disappears into smoothies with pears, blueberries, or grapefruit. It also makes wonderful hazelnut milk and sesame seed milk, which tastes divine with strawberries and dates blended in.

I still have certain horrible trigger foods that I completely avoid as they don't work well in my body, like tomatoes, oranges, dairy, and white sugar. But I think I am on the right starch free tract for my body. I now look back, and fault too much taste testing of raw desserts with ingredients like raw cacao & honey for inspiring me to need a juice fast. When I finish this fast, I will focus more on fruits & smoothies early in the day, salads/veggies with nuts & seeds for lunch, and fish with veggies for dinner. Pretty much what I was doing minus subbing raw cacao, honey, date, nutmilk shakes for meals too often ~ that I believe got me into trouble.

xoxo,
Andrea

Well, I made it on only juices & water for a total of 14 days! At the end of 2 weeks, I felt so awesome, and so incredibly hungry that I decided to slowly add back in smoothies, salads, nuts, seeds & some fish. I am still drinking lots of juice & green smoothies, and virtually pain free, and will no doubt continue to do juice fasts in the future. Likely at the change of each new season, or if I run into any more inflammation. My new motto truly is "Green Juice is Nature's Pain Medicine". Give the body what it needs and it will amaze you.

I have written a blog with all the details of my fast and my new eating plan: http://bettyrawker.com/2012/04/04/day-14-of-my-14-day-juice-fast/

I am also now a big believer in the guidelines of food combining. I have truly expereinced the amazing phenomenon that if you eat only fruits with fruits (certain veggies like celery, cucumbers, lettcue are also allowed with fruit), and wait a few hours before eating any proteins or fats (or starches) your tummy won't get bloated and "ferment" the fruit. I am now eating all sorts of fruit smoothies and juice in the morning. A nice big salad with veggies and protein (nuts or fish) at lunch, and then for dinner I have the option of juicing and more fruit smoothies OR eating veggies & fats OR veggies & proteins. This way of eating has led to my tummy flattening down and inturn my colitis is no longer present.

What I had been witnessing over the years previous was this painful bloating that made me look 10 months pregnant each night, with tons of burping and gas. This I now realize led to my gut being full of harmful gasses which in turn did more damage to my gut leading to more pain, less good bacteria, and more bloating, etc..... The last few nights I have enjoyed a dinner of fruits without any bloating!!!

Like tonight for dinner I had:
Fresh Juice: green apple, ginger, lemon, celery
Smoothie: mango, date, vanilla bean
Raw Energy Bar: apple pulp (left over from juicing), dates, bee pollen, vanilla bean, shredded coconut.
Glass of water Kefir.

And tonight I finally feel like a regular gal, instead of a beached whale lying in my bed. And since my juice fast I have not woken up with that dreadful frozen shoulder/upper back pain I had been plagued with every morning for the past 9 months. It's gone!

Tomorrow night I look forward to a dinner of bbq'd carrots & asparagus and white fish w/ lemon juice & dill, and maybe some fresh greens on the side, but NO sugars or fruit after enjoying that protein!

Here is a simple food combining chart: http://www.alderbrooke.com/chart.php

I am sure I still have lots to learn about eating for true health, but I honestly feel that after all these years of experimenting with gluten-free, dairy-free, corn-free, then soy-free, and white sugar-free, to grain-free... this new way of looking at diet which includes endless posibilities of veggies, greens, fruits, nuts, seeds, seafoods, and grass fed beef seems so dreamy and delicious compared to all the processed crap I had long given up, that I honestly don't feel restricted in the slightest.

Also, all of this food combining info really makes sense to me. If you think about the Paleo Diet and the hunter/gatherer, well they were most likely eating what were probably more commonly mono meals, rather than huge Sunday dinner spreads. Like I imagine they might eat lots of fruits and berries during the time they are ripe, and then eat fish or red meats when they were able to hunt them, but they weren't likely combining all these foods together in a shepherd's pie with dinner rolls/butter, coffee/cola, followed by apple pie & ice cream each night which in the modern world is creating a whole lotta IBS/IBD for a whole lotta people. Just like most animals I am aware of eat one food at a time, as I have yet to see any wild animal host a potluck complete with deviled eggs, potato salad and jello. I am not suggesting anyone go as extreme as to eat mono meals, but it does make sense that the body evolved to process foods indepently of each other, especially fruits and proteins. Oh, and to tie this into fasting, well it was also common for the hunter/gatherer to go without food for periods of time, (same is true for all other mammals) and this is why fasting from time to time is a natural healthy thing to do! It also gives the body a chance to clean house & detox.

Here is another great link to a blog about a guy with AS and his wife both living in Australia, and their amazing experiences with a 10 day juice and smoothie reboot done just recently. He was able to get down to ZERO pain also around Day 8 of his reboot and continue to stay that way! http://farmerkskitchen.com/ks-reboot/

Best of Luck & Health to Everyone!!
Andrea

Andrea, you have inspired me with the great results of your fast! I am trying to wrap my brain around starch free cooking for a family plus juicing enough for a fast. Honestly my biggest concern would be weight loss. I have very little left that I could healthily loose. Is this something to worry about??

I am so tired of the concrete factory in my gut. I am to the point where I would fly across the country if I could find a GI that actually knew something about glucoamylase deficiency. Reading on this forum again, it really makes me wonder if there could be some link with AS and the enzyme deficiency that my daughter has been diagnosed with. I am negative for the gene, but fit so many symptoms that I have read about here.

I have written about our happiness with juicing at our blog http://www.ourbackyardhomestead.com/2012/03/why-green-juice.html

Hey Samsplace 15,

I would love to hear about your experiences if you do a juice fast! I enjoyed reading your blog post - so true the feel good benefits of juice!!

In my 14 day juice fast I lost about 7 pounds total. I then lost another 2 pounds after the fast by eating smaller meals.

I think the best thing about the juice fast is it gives the gut & body time to heal and detox. I personally believe the AS nightmare starts in the gut - so juice fasting is a great way to continue to feed the body full of nutrients while giving the gut a chance to heal. If you are concered about losing too much weight, maybe you can incorporate smoothies into your fast? Friends of mine in Australia did a juice/smoothie fast over 10 days, and the one with AS took his pain level down to ZERO in just 10 days. (link to his sotry is in my previous post above)

Or you can try a shorter fast - but just beware that the first few days on a fast can dredge up all sorts of aches & pains as the body detoxifies, and then you usually feel amazing about a week into it, and I have read it is best to continue for 2 days of feeling amazing before eating again. Also, when breaking fast, it is very important to SLOWLY incorporate foods again, I did this by only drinking smoothies for the 15th day.

As far as starch free meals for you family - would your family be into drinking starch free smoothies with you each morning for breakfast? Chia seed pudding is another easy, filling and starch free breakfast. I just soak the chia seeds in homemade almond or hazelnut milk, sweeten with dates, and it's ready in 10 minutes to eat. Or strawberries & chia is amazing together.

Best of luck & health!!!
Andrea

Andrea,
I just finished watching the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". I am taking 7 mgs of prednisone like the man who is in the documentary. It makes me want to do the juice fast too. I feel alot better with the nsd but I am cheating too often and still hurting too much. I am thin, so I don't have weight to loose but part of mw wonders if I can get off my prednisone if I fasted for awhile and I would like to have less pain, even though my pain has gotten somewhat better it is still there everyday. Thanks for posting the link for the documentary , that is how I ended up watching it.I would recommend it for sure.

That is wonderful that you saw the documentary! I absolutely LOVE it, so inspiring & so true!!

I think that any amount of juice fasting brings a huge benefit to the body. Our bodies (and especially those of us with AS, leaky guts, IBD, etc) spend so much energy on digestion, that a juice fast gives the body a chance to focus on healing itself with the energy that normally gets used up by digestion and inflammatory responses in the gut.

I think going 7 - 14 days on fresh green juices is an incredible experience and will most likely knock out pain in anyone, but why not start small, and just replace a meal a day with a fresh juice or smoothie. Maybe go 24 hours once per week on just juices and smoothies...

If you are worried about weight loss, I would suggest adding nuts & dates to your smoothies. I am currently in love with a daily Brazil Nut "milk shake" with raw chocolate, peppermint oil and dates. (I puree the Brazil nuts with water in my Vitamix, strain the milk through, then blend with dates, cacao & peppermit oil. I then add in some raw cacao nibs which are the purest form of chocoalte and a bit bitter, but wonderful with this drink!) And that is not low-calorie my any means! If you add medjool dates to a mango smoothie, you can totally increase the calories too, and it is my ultimate favorite sweet treat.

I turned all of my co-workers onto green smoothies in the mornings, and it is such a lovely way to start the day!

Here is a link to all sorts of smoothie recipes: http://www.incrediblesmoothies.com/green-smoothie-recipes/

Let me know if you find any smoothie or juice recipes you like! And let me know if it makes any differnce in your daily pain levels!! ~ I sure hope it does

xoxo,
Andrea

Juice fasting is a good method for the fat burning and weight losing.
It has no any side effects for the health as compare to other methods of weight losing.

I too have UC and AS. my UC preceeded my AS. All my problems I feel come from the gut lining.

I had just done a 21 day juice fast three months ago but it included one meal a day. I am skinny and felt very depleted on it. It helped somewhat with my pain but I think my gut is so bad eating one meal a day still did me in. I just made sure the one meal was gluten free.

I have previously tried the starch free diet for three months and I felt awful on it. But i was not juicing, i was eating animal products way too much. my cholesterol went through the roof and I was eating a lot of sugar.

One of the previous posters stated that juicing is not good for her UC. I find it very beneficial personally for my gut. It's food that I have problems with.

I too just watched fat and almost dead. It was an inspiring movie and it inspired me to take a different approach.

I'm going to base my juicing reboot on the specific carbohydrate diet developed by Ellaine Gotschall. She is a biochemist who studied the effect of food on the gut. Many many people have healed their gut/intestines and put their UC/colitis in remission from the diet. Which is a lot of fruits and vegetables and meats. Many people are eating "bland" diets of grains and blaming veggies/fruits for their symptoms.

after the juicing reboot I'm going to follow the diet for a least one month to see what kind of progress I can make.