Juice feasting has been our life for the last twenty days, and we have just one more day to go to complete our twenty-one day fast! Canteloupe juice has become one of the star juices, a delightful surprise and favorite that we often enjoy between green juices, which is usually our Monster Green Juice, recipe below. Canteloupe juice is luscious, delicious, beautiful, and goes down so easily. The aroma of ripening canteloupe fills the whole upstairs of our condo, enticing us, and making us look forward to another treat.

Ron Lagerquist, The Juice Nut, writes that "canteloupes are considered the most nutritious of all fruit." Some of its benefits are: "anti-cataracts, antioxidant, boosts immune system, detoxification, prevents skin cancer (melanoma), protection from colon cancer, protects from macular degeneration, reduces risk of cancer, reduces thickening of arteries". That's quite a list! We're so grateful that something that tastes so good can be so good for us. If you don't have a juicer, blend canteloupe for a delicious smoothie.

Ingredients: Makes one quart
I ripe Canteloupe
Wash to remove any dirt, cut in half, slice into segments, remove rind, and juice.
Use the seeds too, if your juicer can handle them.

This summer it's happened at last: I'm finally living the dream I've had for many years, and this dream is fasting! This is the manifestation of an intuitive knowing that fasting is what I need. And, that I want to continue with periodic fasting as an ongoing part of my life.

Three years ago Rex and I tried to do a long fast and it morphed into a seven day Juicy Feast where we had juice and blended drinks. Those seven days formed the cusp of entering into a new approach to health. This time our goal of 21 days will be realized and it feels tremendously good that we've come this far, a personal victory for us both!

We decided that this fast was going to be a gift we give to ourselves: the gift of time, money (the amount of produce does add up), renewed health, experiencing something totally new, and sharing in an adventure. We gave ourselves permission to break the fast if it felt like the right thing to do, because a longer fast is something we've never done before. The process has bonded us and created new reference points. It has a feeling of entering into a new paradigm. This is all very exciting, and the potential for regeneration feels enormous!

At the onset, we psychologically prepared and planned for the fast. We made a list of all the pros and cons we could think of, like being hungry, detoxifying, or fear. The pros outweighed the cons by so much it was eye-opening. We said, okay, let's do it, and blocked out three weeks of time on our calender so we wouldn't have too much going on.

A week before the big day came we wrote down our goals: to cleanse, detoxify, rejuvenate, expand our consciousness, youth, alkalize, shed the mucoid plaque (which has contributed to a condition of malabsorption for me), continue with our herbal program using Dr. Robert Morse's God's Herbs formulas, improve our skin and digestion, flood the body with an abundance of nutrients, hydrate, increase energy, loose belly fat, and to just feel great.

What we found is there's a big difference between going on a fast versus thinking about it, or reading about it. Everything changes once the fast commences. The body begins to shift within hours, and continues to change day by day. Time and space-sense shifts, consciousness shifts, emotions come up and pass, cravings appear and disappear, old behavioral patterns are revealed and can be looked at honestly with love and released, and detoxification symptoms rise and fall. Hunger continues to come and go, and thankfully the juice satisfies us. If we go out we make sure that we've had juice before leaving the house, and carry water with us.

While Rex has held down the fort financially, my job has been to make juice. We each have about 4 quarts a day (plus water), so that's two gallons of juice to prepare! This takes time and a lot of produce! Our juicer, a Hurom, is great, but it's not speedy like a Breville. Then there's the time spent shopping, cleaning the produce, preparing it for juicing, and the actual making of the juice.

Benefits have come: Our goals have been realized! Plus, our joints are looser, food cravings have greatly diminished, and thinking about eating and associating food with places and activities has dropped down. Then there's the aspect of attaining new levels of self-discipline to reach a goal, despite comfort zones that are being challenged at times. We've followed through, a big one for us, and we didn't put the fast off because we thought it might be too hard. Fine lines and wrinkles are lessening, eyes look brighter, and that stubborn belly fat that I've had for years and just couldn't loose is 90% gone.

After 10-14 days, juice became our food—it wasn't just something we drank. This was an unexpected change. We now think of solid food as "tasty treats". The other day I made some wheat grass juice from home grown wheat grass, then sucked on a slice of orange, which tasted utterly amazing, but there wasn't any desire to eat the orange. Old food memories, like the marinade my father made for Sunday barbecues visited me for several days, as well as English muffins slathered with butter. It's said that these things get stored in our fat cells, so it makes sense that when the fat is melting off, food memories surface.

The great thing about juicing is that there are so many options for making nutrient-packed juices. Our guideline has been that any food that we're attracted to, buy it and juice it. Overall it's been a wonderful experience, with rewards that will continue for many months. We've been changed, and just how completely we don't really know yet. As the days pass we'll see more of the impact that this fast has had upon us. One thing we already know is that we need to fast more, and there's a desire to do so. If you decide to go on a fast, even for a day, we'll be cheering you on! Do write to us and share your stories.

We'll leave you with some of the juice recipes we've been enjoying. Fruits are cleansers, and veggies and greens are mineral-rich builders. To enjoy some unusual flavors in your veggie juices, add in some culinary herbs like fresh basil, rosemary or dill, or a little garlic, hot peppers or cayenne (in very tiny amounts), or a little bit of green onion greens, or a sprinkle of your favorite spices. When drinking this much juice, it's important to use organic produce whenever possible.

Monster Green Juice
1-2 heads romaine, depending on size
1 head celery
1 cucumber
1 bunch chard
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch spinach (alternate with kale, or beet greens, or dandelion greens, etc.)
1 cup sunflower sprouts, optional
2 apples
1-2 lemons

Carrot-Celery-Tomato Spicy Juice
8-10 carrots, depending on size
1 bunch spinach
1 head celery
3-4 tomatoes, depending on size
Small amount of green onion greens
1 inch piece ginger root
This is like a delicious soup broth. One time we carefully warmed it to 110 degrees, and it was very filling, satisfying, and nurturing.

Wheatgrass Juice
1-2 small flats of wheatgrass purchased from store, or grow your own.
Juice, or cut into one inch pieces, put into blender with 1/2 cup water, and blend on highest speed. Strain.

Spinach-Apple-Ginger-Lime
2-3 bunches spinach, depending on size
2-3 apples
1 whole lime (use peel, well washed)
1 inch piece of ginger root

Green-Apple Juice
1 head romaine
1 head celery
3 apples
1 lemon

Watermelon
1/4 watermelon (the rind is great to use)
Juice, or put into Vitamix or blender, blend on highest speed, and strain to remove seeds.

Apple-Berry
3-4 apples
1 pint strawberries
1 pint blueberries

Citrus Fruit Blend
6 oranges
1/3 pineapple
1 mango (peel skin and remove pit)

If you want to read more about our juice feast, join me on my Facebook page, Janet Doane, to read other stories connected with this journey!