III
what i changed
FOURTEEN
we’ll see what happens (days 1–5)
On September 1, 2010, shortly after getting back from San Francisco, Mariann and I started our first ten-day juice fast. I documented the whole thing, daily, in a “vlog” on YouTube, and on the first day I said to Mariann, “I’m aiming for ten days. We’ll see what happens.”
What happened was that I indeed finished those ten days, as did Mariann. What happened was I lost eleven pounds in those ten days. What happened was I spent those ten days schooling myself on the healing power of vegetables and whole foods. What happened was Mariann wound up walking to her office with a huge rolling suitcase full to bursting with compostable food scraps, to drop off at the compost container in Union Square. What happened was I gave up coffee, cold. What happened was we committed to doing another juice fast the following month—for three days—and planned for another ten-day fast for the month after that.
Thus began the trajectory of the next three years of our lives. We juiced each month: ten days one month, three days the following, then ten, then three, and so on. We juiced in the sweltering summers when the pavement in Manhattan was literally steaming, and we juiced in the bitterly cold winters when the city was blanketed with an unrelenting deep snow. Within two years of starting my first juice fast, I was down nearly one hundred pounds, where I have remained—it is my new normal.
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But before it was normal, it was terrifying. I suppose the same thing can be said about anything life changing that you do for the first time—from driving to sex to moving out on your own to moving into middle age. Everything requires getting used to, and some things, more than others, have a steep learning curve. When your life is governed by your relationship to food—and most of ours are, at least to some extent—and then, kind of overnight, you completely change the way you consume, your world inevitably shifts. And when your life is defined by your size, as mine was, undergoing a drastic change such as losing nearly one hundred pounds dramatically affects the way you see the world, the way the world sees you, and just about everything in between.
Since I had first been turned on to juicing, thanks to the documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead by Joe Cross, my juicing commenced by largely following the program Joe recommended. When I first started, I drank five juices a day, beginning with a fruit juice such as apple/ginger or orange/grapefruit, with all the other juices throughout the day heavily revolving around greens, with some fruit (such as a couple of apples or pears) mixed in for a touch of sweetness. I was also having water with lemon in between juices.
The juices were large—each one filled up a giant mason jar—and inexplicably filling. My biggest fear of juicing, of course, was that I would be hungry. For my entire life, the idea of hunger had petrified me. Hunger meant weakness, scarcity, and longing. Hunger also allowed in the painful feelings that I so conveniently could abolish with food; when the going got rough, I got lunch. It petrified me to think that I would be experiencing hunger and not be able to treat it.
Years later, in 2013, during the months, weeks, and days just before my grandma died, a therapist I was seeing referred to my extreme emotional turmoil as “anticipatory grief.” In some ways, that period was worse than the actual grief that followed Grandma’s death. Perhaps the fear of hunger with which I was so obsessed before starting my juice fast could be called “anticipatory hunger.”
However, unlike my fear of the grief to come when Grandma was dying, my fear as I anticipated the hunger to come as I started my first juice fast was unfounded. In fact, and I know this sounds unlikely, it turned out that once I got used to juice fasting, I wasn’t very hungry at all. And so the anticipatory fear was a waste of energy.
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I remember in some detail my first ten-day juice fast—from September 1 through September 10, 2010, because I video documented it. So let me break it down for you.
day 1
The first juicer I used I found under a quarter inch of dust in the back of our very own kitchen cupboard. It was an antiquated Jack LaLanne model that Mariann had bought in the 1990s. I’m almost certain that the first juice I consumed included a healthy dose of that dust, since I coughed my way through it. Either that or my body was in shock at the introduction of fruits and vegetables.
Incidentally, the second juicer I got—only the following month—was another “lightly used” model, and the way I picked it up resembled a drug deal. A random Facebook “friend”—who I had never met before, and was only connected with in cyberland because of our shared interest in animal rights—offered it to me when my status update whined about my very privileged problem of my juices having “too much pulp and not enough liquid!!!” Turned out this Good Samaritan was in the middle of downsizing and was grateful to pass on her used machine to a juicer-in-need. We made the transfer at Grand Central Station on a Tuesday during the afternoon rush hour. I had agreed to pay for her train ticket back to Connecticut, so, when we spotted one another at the right place and time, she slipped me the machine and I covertly handed her a white envelope. Then we nodded and quickly went off on our own way, me with yet another antiquated juicer in hand, which I could barely lift—and which, it turned out, could barely produce juice.
When I look back on the early days of my juicing, one thought trumps all others: What the hell was I thinking?
On day one of my very first fast, my thoughts went something like this: “I’m hungry, my stomach hurts, and I’m a little nauseous—though I’m still determined to get through this.”
With my Jack LaLanne doing its very best, I started off the day with apple juice with some kale and ginger. “Can’t get enough ginger,” I said in my video log (now when I listen to it, I wonder if I actually hear a bit of sarcasm). At eleven A.M., I had a green juice with kale, spinach, parsley, cucumber, an apple, lemon, and, of course, loads of ginger. The greens’ taste was offset a bit by the apple, ginger, and lemon, but barely enough to make the juice palatable. Despite the juice’s bitterness, it tasted surprisingly decent, and I remember thinking that it would be even better with a shot of vodka.
At the same time, despite my own bitterness, I nonetheless felt I was flooding my body with nutrients, and somehow that seemed to compensate for the mildly bitter aftertaste of the juice-meal. Sadly, an hour later, I started to get hungry and almost crashed when I accidentally saw a picture of a plate of brownies on my Facebook feed (thankfully, prior to the juice fast, we had purged our fridge and cabinets of anything tempting, or edible for that matter). Instead of giving in to the momentary temptation (the very stocked corner bodega was only a half block away), I forced myself to shut the computer off and I kept going, knowing that my next juice was only an hour away.
“It’s always hard when you’re beginning something like this because you kind of always want to know how it’s going to turn out,” I said to the camera. I wish I had known how it would, in fact, turn out. Had I realized just what a life-altering role juice would play in my life—with results of my efforts showing just days into my first fast—I would have perhaps had a healthier attitude, so to speak. When I started juicing, I was skeptical. If I had only known how successful the endeavor would ultimately be, I wonder if I would have been a bit more of a trouper, at least while consuming the yuckier of the juices. During those early days, though I had high hopes, I thought there was no way that I would be able to predict even a fraction of the outcome—the outcome being that my decision to go on a juice fast would indeed change the course of my life.
Even from that first day, I recognized how lucky I was to be doing this with Mariann. Having someone to share it with was deeply helpful. I didn’t want to let myself down, and I didn’t want to let her down, either. And I knew she felt the same way. And we both knew that, if one of us slipped, the other was much more likely to as well. Sometimes doing something for someone you love—especially something t
hat is helping to make them healthier—is easier than doing it solely for yourself. Also, having someone else in the house who was abstaining from eating real food was a blessing. Anyone doing a juice fast needs to find some sort of support, even if it is online, and could use as much cooperation as possible from anyone in the house who isn’t joining in. The last thing anyone needs during a juice fast is a chocolate-mouthed spouse or kid tempting them with cake or fries. (Though I suppose a good retort would be to threaten them that if they don’t cut it out, they’ll be forced to sample the juices that have mustard greens—which I have found consistently taste like running shoes. Not that I’ve ever tasted my running shoes.)
In the middle of that first day, Mariann, who was at her office (I worked from home), called and said she was exhausted and kept nodding off at her desk. While my worst symptom was cravings, and Mariann’s was lethargy, my guess is that they were both attributable to the same cause—i.e., to the fact that we each had so much crap to detox. These days when we juice fast, though there is still some degree of tiredness and hunger, it’s not anything notable. Perhaps that’s because our bodies began to know what to expect, but it’s more likely a result of the fact that all the toxins we needed to detox that first time—toxins left over from a diet heavy in caffeine, sugar, processed foods—are no longer at the center of our nonjuicing diets, so the detox isn’t as big for us now. For people who consume animal products, the detox process would no doubt be even more intense and, likely, the symptoms of detox more harrowing. The crappier your diet—in other words, the further away it is from whole foods—the more painful the initial detox.
But cravings still occur, and I should know. It seems the Facebook images of brownies had seeped their way into my consciousness, because I started to see little brownies parading around in my mind’s eye like a group of protesters, begging for my attention. Old habits die hard, and cravings can destroy your best intentions. Even these days when I juice fast, I try hard to limit my access to triggering images, like pictures of my friends’ yummy dinners and desserts on social media (vegans love to post photos of their meals). The destroyer of many of my lifelong plans to fight food cravings, those dreaded TV commercials (I have a soft spot for the Pop-Tart ads, and don’t even put me in the same room as a waffle commercial), are not as much of an issue since my TV watching has mostly shifted to online, but for many of us there are still images of food everywhere we look. Regardless of whether I would actually give in to the cravings that visual imagery can provoke, it’s an additional complication and frustration that I can easily avoid.
I had read that it was important, especially for our first juice fast, for Mariann and me to get our bodies ready for it by spending a few days beforehand consuming whole foods and slowing or stopping the consumption of coffee, alcohol, sugar, and highly processed foods. We planned to do the same thing afterward, as we reacclimated ourselves to food. It would make the process that much more difficult if we were jumping into this juice fast with a hangover, for example, or a rabid coffee addiction. Mariann and I needed to give our bodies a few days on either end to make the process easier, and to allow ourselves a chance to adjust, physically and emotionally, to consuming only juice. Though I was by no means perfect in this, in the days leading up to day one, I made a conscious effort to up my intake of vegetables and to eat fewer sweets. (Admittedly, however, the final meal I had the night before day one was two slices of vegan cheesecake, my very favorite kind from Teany on the Lower East Side.) In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have eaten any junk food in those days leading up to day one, but until the juicer grumbled and spit for the first time on that first day, I simply wasn’t all in. Once I was, however, I was committed to giving this juicing thing a serious go.
day 2
On the positive side, I had a lot more energy than I thought I would, but on the negative, I was overwhelmed at the thought that I was only on day two and had eight more days to go. I was hungry, of course, but the hunger still wasn’t that bad, which completely amazed me.
My morning fruit juice was grapefruit, my absolute favorite. After that, I tried a more eclectic concoction of spinach, parsley, kale, cucumber, celery, ginger, peach, and apple.
As you may have guessed, since I was making all these juices, I was spending a lot of time slaving over the juicer (still the subpar Jack LaLanne at this point). One solution was that I tried to get the process of actually making the juice down to two or three times a day—in other words, I would make all of my and Mariann’s five juices for the day in two or three sessions of juicing. Many juicing aficionados constantly reiterate the importance of consuming the juice as soon as possible after it is made (the immediacy of consuming it also depends on the type of juicer you’re using), and though I tried my best to adhere to that rule, I also had to do what was realistic for me in my life—so I simply did the best I could. Creating the day’s juices in two or three sittings was much more realistic for me, allowing me not to spend all my time juicing and cleaning the juicer.
I admit that I quickly became one of those people for whom juicing takes over their lives. When I wasn’t drinking it, I was thinking about it; when I wasn’t thinking about it, I was making it; and when I wasn’t making it, I was drenching the entire kitchen counter and floor with water from cleaning the goddamn Jack LaLanne. It was big and clunky, and it didn’t fit under our small Manhattan faucet with much dignity. I wonder now if perhaps the reason I lost weight during that first juice fast had something to do with the workout I was getting simply from spending so much time doing the dishes.
The other thing I was spending was money. Juice fasts—which may be more accurately called “juice cleanses” or “juice feasts” (if you want to be annoying, since you are actually consuming lots of food)—are “expensive as hell,” as I said in my video log at the time, no doubt nervous at seeing how much produce I was going through already. At the time, I was wedded to doing it all organic, whenever possible. I tried not to think too much about the money—we had actually budgeted for the juice fast and, after all, it was reassuring to remember that we weren’t going out to eat, or ordering in takeout, at all. (During a few of my weaker moments, I wondered if fried bean curd from my favorite Chinese place would fit in the juicer.)
Still, it was pricey. I could already see at this point that making any kind of long-term commitment to juicing would likely make a pretty big dent in our food budget. In fact, after the initial few juice fasts, my “rule” about consuming only organic juices began to bend a bit. I consulted the “Dirty Dozen” list, which is a list the Environmental Working Group puts together that spells out the fruits and vegetables that contain the most pesticides and are the most important to consume organically. The list varies a bit from year to year; when I last checked, it included apples, celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, hot peppers, nectarines (imported), peaches, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, and sweet bell peppers—with kale, collard greens, and summer squash running close behind. Whenever I could, I continued to buy those items organic.
But for the other fruits and vegetables that weren’t on the list, I used a high-quality fruit and vegetable scrub and then didn’t worry so much about whether they were organic, which helped financially. It also helped in cutting down on the amount of time I was investing in juicing. We were going through a ton of produce, and even taking the time to go to the store and purchase it became exhausting. We were lucky in that we had a small, twenty-four-hour grocery store with ample produce a half block from our apartment. But organic produce was simply not always an option, and so my initial guidelines for all organic, all the time eventually began to bend.
As for physical reactions, I felt as though my lymph nodes—particularly the ones on the back of my head near the top of my neck—were a little swollen. (This has been true throughout my life; whenever I am under the weather, the two lymph nodes on the back of my head become gigantic—like two gumballs.) Mariann, on the other hand, experienc
ed a bit of heartburn in those first few days of juicing; I did not. That’s because her body goes there during detox. Detox tends to temporarily magnify the symptoms each of us has always experienced when our bodies go out of whack.
Maybe I sound like a masochist, voluntarily forcing my body to experience symptoms that, for most of my life, I have done my best to avoid. If you look at it as a short-term process, that may be true, but, in the long term, until I detoxed from the harmful foods I had been feeding it my whole life, I was not able to heal—not only physically, but mentally.
In fact, one of the most important things I eventually learned to look forward to when I juiced was the ability to give my brain a rest from thinking about food. This kind of “mental detox” was unexpected, but it evolved to become my cornerstone. It sounds counterintuitive to say that dedicating ten days to juicing—planning for it, making it, drinking it—allowed me room to focus on things that aren’t food related, since in some ways it is all about food. But for me, the formula of having five juices a day (which eventually evolved to become six) actually freed my brain from worrying about where my next meal (or coffee) was going to come from. It allowed me to focus on rebooting my system and starting fresh—free of the mental and physical triggers that normally caused me to simply run to the cabinet for the Oreos.
day 3
This was the worst day so far. I was way more wonky than on days one and two, and, while I was anticipating that it would get easier after day three, I not only made a juice that was truly repulsive (it happens—especially when you combine collard greens with celery, kale, and garlic), but I received some feedback from some Facebook friends who thought what I was doing was “extreme,” and I had to work to not let that get to me. I reminded myself, “Though it sounds really extreme, I think it’s a very natural part of healing your own body and your own self.”
Always Too Much and Never Enough Page 19