Phil801 – Geek Blog

Yesterday was my 2nd day of Juice Fasting and my first day of doing it at work. I am used to drinking around 8 – 10 cans of Mountain Dew each day and hadn’t had one since Saturday night, I had a killer headache. Since I needed to be able to function at work, I had one can of Mt. Dew in the mid-morning – that killed my headache.

Throughout the day I had 3 quarts of juice, 1 each of carrot, orange and apple. Several times throughout the day I had hunger pains and a little bit of light headedness, but nothing too major.

The killer part was at night, we had a big family Christmas dinner last night with tons of my favorite food, it sucked! I stood around watching everyone eat while I drank a gallon of apple juice. Then, the desserts came out. My brother and I went in a different room and talked some things over for a while and when we came back, they were cleaning up thank goodness! I managed to make it through the whole day without eating but man, it was tough! Several times I started talking myself into eating, even going so far as to tell Adria maybe I should do it another time. She pointed out that there would never be a ‘good time’ and that if I was going to do it, I should just Man Up and Shut Up and get it done. Well, she didn’t say it quite like that

In the comments on yesterday’s post (click here if you want to see the discussion), Gary asks if a juice fast is a healthy thing to do, here’s my answer. I was drinking almost a 12 pack of Mt. Dew a day and usually consuming a very large lunch, often fast food, often greasy and I was eating a large dinner with lots of snacks and junk in between. THAT is clearly not a healthy way to live. I’m not a health nut or anything, and I don’t intend to become one, I’m just recognizing that to be healthy I need to basically let my body ‘reboot’.

When I say reboot, I mean let it clear EVERYTHING out – that includes dumping all the stored toxins and junk in my organs and everywhere else. It means letting my digestive system shutdown, letting my stomach shrink dramatically and getting over all my addictions. Will going on a Juice Fast make me un-healthy? Well, like I said I certainly wasn’t eating healthy before. Now I’m drinking only vegetable and fruit juices, I’m loading my body with vitamins and minerals – TONS more than I used to. Sure, it’s different and my body is reacting to it, but it’s healthy.

Here are a couple links that talk about Juice Fasting, the authors of these sites talk about reasons and benefits for it that are beyond what I’m after and that I think are a bit weird. I’m linking to these because they also have a lot of research and personal stories and background that cover what I’m doing.

AllergyScape

JuiceFasting.org

Tonight I’m going to try a juice that I’ve never had but is supposed to be and sounds very good – Cantaloupe juice.

I’m also going to try out this juice recipe (Jordy, who commented that he too likes celery juice, ought to like this one):

Cucumber~Celery Cooler

1 apple, sliced
4 medium carrots, greens removed
1 stalk celery
1/2 lemon, peeled (optional)
1/4 medium cucumber, peeled

Yesterday I started a 40 day Juice Fast.  I’m putting myself through this suffering for a couple reasons.  1) To reset my metabolism, I plan to lose 30 pounds in the next 3 months (that’ll put me at 199) and this will not only put me on a diet but will help me burn calories better.  2) To get healthier – cleansing helps your body dump loads of toxins and gives the digestive system a chance to shut down and repair itself.  It also allows your body to go into an extensive repair mode while it’s not dedicating resources to digestion.  3) To end several addictions i.e. Soda, caffeine, sugar, etc.  By sending my body into a food shock, it will be much easier to drop these things.  By cleansing toxins and yeast from my body, most of the stimulus for those drugs will be removed.  4) To prove I have the will power to do it :)  This is going to be tough, getting through it will be a major accomplishment.  Here’s to not dropping out!

I’m doing a slightly modified plan.  For the first 20 days I’ll consume nothing but pulpless juice and water.  For the following 20 days, I’ll consume whole, raw vegetables and fruites and brown rice.  After 40 days I’ll begin introducing other foods.

Go ahead and tell me I’m crazy – I know this is a nutty thing to do I’ve always thought that about people doing this.  But, the more I looked into it and read about it, the more it made sense.  I’ll be journaling the process here daily.  I guess number 5 is that it gives me something to blog about everyday

Yesterday was pretty easy, until night time.  I drank only juice all day but at night I started having major blood sugar levels.  In order to keep myself from passing out, I had a plain baked potato (insides only) – that settled things down with my blood sugar.  I sampled lots of different juices yesterday and found a few I liked, carrot juice, celery juice and cucumber juice are pretty good.  Mixed together they taste like crap though

I’m so frustrated right now.  It seems I’ve almost completely lost my ability to focus – something I heavily rely on to work.  I wish I could figure out what the hec the deal is so I could fix it!  I can’t figure out if it’s from not being able to sleep, ever, from stress and worry about kids (although the major stress on that is abating), or from something else.

When I sit down to work my mind just won’t settle down, that’s when it decides to remind me of two dozen things I need to check, half a dozen things I need to write and 3 dozen things my wife wants me to take care of.  I’m used to having a singular focus when I sit down to work, usually nothing is able to distract me and THAT becomes a problem.  Now it’s completely flipped on its head.

I’m desperately trying to figure out something that will bring it back – checking off a few things that need doing, blasting heavy music at my neural paths, sleep deprivation – NOTHING is working!

I’m going off the rails on a crazy train.

Has this ever happened to you?  Any ideas on how to fix it?!?!

Over on the UtahPreppers blog (where I’m one of the authors), ekim asks the question “Why do you prep?“  This is my response to it.

I’ve been a survivalist/prepper all my life.  I grew up spending all my time in the woods across the street and working on ranches.  It’s really in my blood, my father and his fathers several generations back were all mountain men/survivalists.  I’m one of those who are completely comfortable spending days in the woods without ever seeing another person, and I’m completely confident in my ability to survive with just the clothes on my back.

But, why do I prep?  There are lots of reasons: 1) I’ve been told by the leaders of my Church to store 3 months of regular food, 2 weeks of water, 1 year of basic essentials and as much fuel, clothing and shelter needs as possible.  2) I firmly believe that the time will come (soon, I believe) when the comforts and ease of life that we enjoy will cease to exist.  This may be through an economic crash, war on America, or several other things – but I expect that it will happen.  3) The world doesn’t have to end for food storage and prepping to be useful.  Losing a job for an extended period of time, needing to save money (on food) for a bit, a general food scare (like the recent china/milk scare, you don’t have to worry about food that has been stored) or any number of other things.

As many of you know, my family has been through a really rough year.  Previous to that we were stringing ourselves along doing a startup.  Our food storage was key to getting us through that time and in recent months we have worked hard to replenish it through bottling, freezing and stocking food.

I sincerely think that the point of food storage is so much more than actually having stuff to eat for a year.

Very little in life gives me the sense of accomplishment, security and peace that I feel when I walk into my storage room, stand in the middle and just look. I swear there is more food in there than some grocery stores. Or the feeling I get each morning when I walk into the garage and I see over 250 gallons of water sitting, waiting in their respective containers. Or the feeling I get when I open one of the storage closets and see over 100 bags of cereal or chips (depending on which one I look in). Or when I open one of my chest freezers and see all the meat, vegetables and other food stored there.  Or when I look in my ammo locker and see ammo can after ammo can waiting for use.

I feel accomplishment because I have fulfilled the one of the requests of my Church. Storing this much food is a major task (as some of you know) and completing that task brings a wonderful sense of accomplishment (of course the other thing that happens is that we’ve learned new habits and we’re never really “DONE”).

I feel a sense of security and peace because I know that if I loose my job, if I’m injured, if something else happens – I can feed and provide for my family. I don’t think people consciously stress about that, but they definitely do sub-consciously – every time there is a hiccup or some risk to financial security, I think that most adults concern themselves with how to feed the family – except those who have a year (or more) worth of food.

My storage areas are a place of sanctuary, a symbol of safety. When I stand in the middle of my storage room, I’m surrounded by physical evidence of my commitment and a symbol of safety.

The time may never come when I actually need my storage (again) and that is perfectly fine. My storage is a lifestyle in many ways including having different shopping habits than most people. We live off what we have and go shopping for fresh food and to replenish what we’ve used – we can easily skip a month of food shopping to use that money elsewhere. If I never have to rely on it again, that is fine with me – the value of it is so much more that physical nourishment, it is spiritual and emotional nourishment.

It serves another purpose as well, I have friends and relatives that have hit on hard times and can’t afford food. When we hear of this, we gladly open our storage to them and freely give them what they need.

When my wife and I die, our storage will still be viable and will surely help our 8 children with their own storage. Our legacy of storing will live on in our children’s basements. We’ve taught them well, they know the need to store and know the value of it. Most importantly, we’ve involved them in our inventories, purchasing and stocking shelves – it is part of their lives as well – when they are grown they will not have to learn the basic concepts of storing, they will have long since learned them.

Finally, when things get really bad for our country, our family won’t be involved in the rush to the empty store to try to find security for our family. We’ll be packing and heading for the hills – or bunkering in as the case may be – and have a long head start on those wandering in shock trying to acquire more than a candy bar to eat.

Are you a prepper? Have you stored food and other needful things against unseen calamities?

So, it’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged.  Sorry about that, it’s complicated.

Honestly, things got to the point that I was emotionally drained and what ended up happening was that my blog was dragging me all the way back to day 1 with Serenity constantly.  I burned out on life online and pretty much burned out on life.  Getting through this has been the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do, and it’s still going.  As much as I love blogging, I had to huddle in a corner for a while to protect my sanity and try to regroup.  I miss the interaction with all the great people who read my blog so I’m going to try to get back into it.  Here’s a catch-up on several things:

About two months ago my 3 year old son, Taran, got really sick and spent 2 weeks in the hospital.  He had appendicitis, a telescoping bowell and  extreme colitis.  He underwent 3 surgeries, he had his appendix removed and then had to get cut wide open for exploratory surgery because they couldn’t figure out what was going on.  He’s home now and is pretty much fully recovered.

About 2 weeks after he got home, Serenity got really sick again.  She was running a fever of over 104 constantly and was hospitalized for 2 weeks.  She is home now as well and is still on an IV but gets to take a break from chemo.  There are more details on both of them over on Serenity’s blog.

So, in the last 6 weeks, Adria  has spent 4 weeks in the hospital with kids with me being virtually a single Dad of 7 kids – I didn’t like that very much :)  Things have been do-able but really crazy.

I’ve been working as a contractor on a few different projects while needing to maintain flexibility.  Life has been an interesting trip lately and we’re literally just along for the ride – no idea where we’re going right now.  Life with Leukemia is a long frustrating thing, but we’re glad we still have our little girl to experience it with.

I’m planning to start blogging regularly again and maybe turn into a social butterfly again – well probably just a social moth for now.   Here are a couple other blogs I’m writing on these days: GeeksNGuns and UtahPreppers - check them out!