Juice Feast Day 19

Today I'm realizing that without a timeline goal, while that has enabled me to not feel pressured to go to a certain date, it also leaves me without a finish line and without a way to feel able to exit the fast with freedom and a clear sense of accomplishment.  It doesn't feel good.  I find myself unsure if I should push on to Day 21 just so I can say "I did a 3 week juice fast"--or just let go and have something to eat later on tonite or a smoothie in the morning.  I'm just not sure.  Mainly I am feeling like it is almost time for me to be done.

I have lost 15 pounds, which is wonderful.  I don't feel any other differences in my health or energy.  I am thankful to have had this break, gotten free of sugar, grains, dairy, and meat.  My goals for after-the-fast are to eat a lot of raw foods, and what isn't raw- stick with vegetarian or vegan choices.  We will see how all of this plays out.

The hardest part of this juice feast/fast is the time involved in managing the actual chores related to the juicing.  Shopping multiple times per week, putting away large amounts of produce (or not having enough space to put it all away, therefore having the kitchen table and counters constantly covered with a dozen pineapples and other produce), keeping on top of the kitchen cleaning to a greater and more pressing degree than usual, having both sinks full of produce soaking in cleaning solution for a half hour at a time, all of the time spent scrubbing, cutting, peeling, and then juicing.  THEN the cleanup time and mess.  Oh--and the pulp!  Can't forget the pulp!  I felt bad about throwing it away, so started using it to make homemade veggie broth, which is a great use for it.  BUT, that means I also have a large crock pot taking up space on the counter as well.  I have very, very little counter space to begin with, so this is a sizable inconvenience.

All-in-all, I would guess that juicing has been a minimum of 10 hours a week of extra work for me.  I still had to cook for the rest of the family.  It has interfered with school hours a couple of times, which I did not feel happy about either.

Last night really threw me off because we had a home improvement project that went wonky, and it resulted in our water having to be turned off for the entire evening until bedtime.  So I had no way to run the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, wash the produce, etc.  That threw everything into a tailspin.  I started out today with no morning juice, had to take the afternoon portion of school time to get the rest of the juicing done, etc.  Basically, it was a real pain in the rear and threw everything off.  Today I feel like the management of this process is more than I want to continue to juggle any more.  If I was sitting in a resort having someone else bring me yummy juices all day, I'm sure I could continue on for quite some time.  Doing it on my own....right now I'm not feeling it.