I think of my body as a side effect of my mind. ~Carrie Fisher

Hmmmmm....Isn't that what I have been saying? My fast is going okay. I juiced some carrot, beet, cucumber, ginger, apple juice this morning and drank that today, along with a lot of water. I am already thinking five days might be too long. But, we will see if I can do it. I know it will really reset my hunger and cravings so that will be an awesome thing. But, if I really feel like I have to eat some REAL food - like veggies or fruit - I will.

Benefits of Juice Fasting

Today is the first day of what I plan to be a 5-10 day juice fast. I did a fast at the end of last year, which I blogged about on my former blog fitbyfiftysuzannesfitnessjourney  I believe I lost 11 pounds in five days on that fast. But, the best thing was the way I felt after releasing all those toxins in my body. I have been extremely out of control on my eating, so I thought it was a good time to do another juice fast. I went to Whole Foods the afternoon to buy all my organic fruits and veggies for juicing - apples, kale, cucumbers, celery, carrots, ginger, beets,green peppers, and more. Today I had some Naked Juice and some green juice from Whole Foods with Wheat Grass in it to get me started - and it kicked my butt! I felt so nauseous and headachy. Then I looked up the effects of Wheat Grass on a toxic body (which mine totally is now!)- and I had all the effects. I am feeling a little better now - after a little nap. Tomorrow I will start juicing my own juice using a variety of recipes. One of the first juices I will be concocting is Apple, Beet, Cucumber, Ginger.

Here are some of the benefits of juice fasting:

In addition to promoting the excretion of toxins and decreasing congestive symptoms, juice fasts are believed to have the following benefits:

• Eliminates most food allergies and sensitivities.
• Enhances mental, physical, and spiritual well-being
• Mental clarity
• Glowing skin
• Prevents chronic diseases caused by poor diet and lifestyle
• Clears mucus discharge
• Weight loss
  

Additionally, juice is full of live enzymes, which is wonderful for your body. You can consumer more vegetables drinking freshly squeezed juice then you can by eating them normally. Drinking fresh vegetable juice helps you eat as many if not more vegetables as you would like.

Fasting also gives your digestive system a rest. Fresh fruit and vegetable juices require little digestion, and are quickly assimilated into your body. Since most of the energy normally involved in your assimilation, digestion, and elimination is freed up, you feel a sense of renewed energy after a juice fast.

Juice fasting helps break down toxic elements such as pesticides, drugs and other chemicals from stored fat, and releases diseased tissues and their cellular products into the circulation for elimination. Also, new cell growth during fasting is stimulated and accelerated, as the required proteins are re-synthesized from decomposed cells. Your blood-protein level remains constant and normal throughout your fast, as your body will use protein and other stored nutrients where needed. 
I know this juice fast will reset my body and my mind for the second half of 2011, which starts on Friday. Can you believe 2011 is half over already? More tomorrow on the fast. I am hoping tomorrow is better. I know it will be. The end result is going to be awesome!

How is your Energy today?

The more books I read and the more seminars I attend, and the more people I speak with I am even more convinced of the power of our minds and our energy. I see on the days when I am feeling great - when life is good and pleasurable - how things go right for me and people respond well too me. And, I also see that when I am down - feeling sorry for my self or angry at someone - that I feel awful and my day goes badly. I was watching the last episode of Oprah this weekend - TIVO'd it - and she was talking about energy and we are all responsible for our energy and that our energy not only affects us but radiates out into the Universe affecting those around us. I knew that was a truth - a Universal Law. It makes sense! Have you every been around someone who is just a bummer and their life is a mess or the angry person that is mad about everything - how do you feel when you are around that person? Not good, right? And, then on the other end of the spectrum there is that person whose energy is so joyous and pure you just want to be around them all the time. Since we are responsible for our own energy - how can we improve our energy? I made a list awhile ago of things that I could do to improve my energy and get to a higher vibration. Maybe some of these things might work for you too. Give one a try!

• walk in nature or just take a walk around the block and really look around
• get plenty of sleep (wake up by at least 6:30 and enjoy the morning)
• walk at the beach  
• garden
• read for pleasure - especially outdoors
•  play with my dog/walk my dog 
•  light candles in the evening or even in the day! 
•  take a hot bath
•  meditate
•  afternoon nap
• exercise and get those endorphins going!
•  go to the movies (a funny or upbeat one)
• do something with my sweetie
• paint 
• Yoga
• just doing nothing and not feeling guilty
• write in my journal
• do my gratitude journal
• spend time with a friend 
• go to Meditation Class
• Pilates 
• make a nice meal and eat with my sweetie in the dining room with candles
• sit in the courtyard and listen to the fountain in my backyard
• listening to the birds in the yard
•  call a friend to chat about positive things
•  try something new 
• eat a healthy lunch outdoors 

I think I am going to take Cleo for a walk now and then enjoy a healthy lunch outside in my courtyard patio! How about you?

Be Still and Know

Meditation seems to be the key to achieving a state of joy. I don't mean monk like meditation where you meditate all day - don't worry. But, just 15-30 minutes a day make a world of difference in my mood, how my day goes, and my state of BEing. Interestingly enough though, I often say I don't have time to meditate. What is that all about? I am thinking that it is my resistance to feeling worthy to be happy, to be thin, to be successful. Here are some steps on how to start meditating:

Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. There are many different meditation methods.
At the core of meditation is the goal to focus and eventually quiet your mind. As you progress, you will find that you can meditate anywhere and at any time, accessing an inner calm no matter what's going on around you. You will also find that you can better control your reactions to things as you become increasingly aware of your thoughts (letting go of anger, for example). But first, you have to learn to tame your mind.

1. Sit with a straight back. Don’t try to meditate lying down because you are likely to fall asleep. I do lie down sometimes though. Meditation brings relaxation and peace but at the same time this is a dynamic peace. Meditation is quite different than the relaxation of sleep. When we really meditate, we are fully alert and conscious. Our sense of awareness is heightened. Afterwards you’ll have a positive feeling for the world and a renewed sense of dynamism.
2. Don’t eat before meditating. After a heavy meal your body will be lethargic with digestion.
3. It is not necessary to mediate in the lotus posture. It is fine to meditate in a chair, as long as the back is straight.
4. It is helpful to take a shower before meditating.
5. Burning incense and having a candle are not necessary, but they can add a little extra inspiration.
6. It is good to meditate early in the morning. It is said the best time is 3am, although, I feel it is more important to be awake and not sleepy, I try to meditate at 6.30am.

So, if you aren't already meditating - try it. You just might like it!

The Real Cause of Inner Emptiness (And What to Do About It)

Here is an article by Margaret Paul, Ph.D. that I recently read. It goes right in line with the concept of Primary Foods and BEing in alignment with your source energy. Pretty Interesting!

Do you often feel empty inside? Do you believe that others should be filling you up? Discover the real cause of inner emptiness and what to do about it.
If you feel empty, you are not alone in feeling this way.
Many people feel empty inside, and most people who feel empty have some deep, false beliefs regarding why they feel empty. Below are some of these false beliefs.
I feel empty because:

• My partner is not giving me enough love and attention.
• I don't have a partner.
• I'm bored because my partner doesn't provide me with enough stimulation.
• My work is unsatisfying.
• I'm not successful enough.
• I don't have enough money.
• I have no one to play with on weekends.
• Nothing excites me. Life is boring.
• I don't get enough love, attention and approval from friends and relatives.
• I don't get enough sex.

None of these situations is a real cause of inner emptiness.
What do you usually do to try to fill the inner emptiness? Do you try to fill up with:

• Substances, such as food, sugar, alcohol, drugs or cigarettes?
• Processes and activities, such as TV, Internet, sex, computer games, work, shopping, spending, gambling, telephone or email?
• Attempting to get others' attention or approval with niceness, caretaking, over-talking, story-telling, anger or blame?

There are many substances, processes, behaviors and activities that people use addictively to try to fill the emptiness. These may work for the moment, but not for long. Soon, the emptiness is back and you are looking for someone or something to temporarily fill up the black hole.
The problem with all these behaviors is that they only address the symptom of inner emptiness -- not the cause.
The Cause Of Inner Emptiness
There is only one thing that truly fills the emptiness. Love. There is only one cause of inner emptiness: a lack of love.
But it is not a lack of someone else's love that causes your emptiness. Inner emptiness is caused by self-abandonment -- by not loving yourself.
Inner emptiness comes from a lack of connection with your spiritual source of love -- from not opening to the love-that-is-God and bringing that love to yourself through true thought and loving action in your own behalf.

When you abandon yourself by judging yourself, ignoring your feelings by staying in your head, numbing your feelings through substance and process addictions and making others responsible for your feelings and for loving you, you will feel empty. You are causing your own emptiness by your self-abandonment.
Your ego-wounded self is filled with false beliefs regarding who you are. Your wounded self may see you as inadequate, unlovable, not good enough, not important, selfish, bad, wrong. Your wounded self operates from core shame -- that you are intrinsically flawed.
These are programmed beliefs that have no basis in truth, but they may be running your life. When you believe that you are not good enough, then you turn to others and to addictions to try to feel okay -- to fill the emptiness that you are causing with your self-judgment/self-abandonment.
Filling Your Inner Emptiness: Learning To Love Yourself
The truth of who you are comes only from your personal source of spiritual guidance -- whatever that is for you. When you open to learning with a source of higher guidance about the truth of who you are, and about what is loving action toward yourself and others, you open to the love-that-is-God coming into your heart and filling your inner emptiness.
This occurs when you shift your attention -- from protecting against pain and avoiding responsibility for your feelings through your addictive and controlling behaviors -- to learning, with your higher guidance, about what is loving to yourself and others.
Today, choose the intent to learn with your higher guidance about truth and about loving yourself -- even if you don't believe that anything is there to answer you -- and see what happens. You might start to feel full of love inside!

The Law of Attraction and BElieving

That may sound like a lofty topic for a blog about getting healthy to be discussing, but this principle is the key to success in weight loss, and in everything else in life. You may say, "Sure, but why haven't you been able to lose weight over the last year while you have been on your journey?" And, the key is simple. My beliefs. Some of you may know me and know me to be a positive up beat person - most of the time anyway! But, it is the thoughts that go on in my head (mostly when I am alone) that have prevented me from achieving my goals. But, no more.! I will be ever so slightly tweaking my thoughts to be more positive in order to achieve  my desires - first the weight loss - then who knows the sky is the limit!  You see it doesn't matter what you are thinking about in a negative manner - it could have nothing to do with your desire, but if you are sad, or angry, guilty, discouraged, worried, disappointed, jealous, fearful or depressed (or whatever negative emotion) your desires won't come true. Simple because you are not in alignment with your source energy - your positive energy. With the way the world is today and the media's constant broadcasting of bad news about the economy, the wars, the Swine Flu, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, the predicted end of the world on May 21, 2011 blah, blah, blah it can be hard to stay in a state of joy - or even anything close to that. Especially for someone who is very intuitive and empathetic like me. I have the tendency to take on the vibe or energy of the people I am around - not good when dealing with energetically negative people. This is something I recently figured out and will be working on not being affected by the energy of those around me or the news, etc.- unless of course those around me are positive energetically. After focusing my efforts on what I ate, and how much exercise I did for the last year, I know now that the reality is that that doesn't matter. Not that you can eat 10,000 calories a day and not exercise and lose weight, but that you need to believe you can lose weight, and be in a positive state of mind. Because no matter how much you eat or exercise you won't lose weight unless you believe you can and you think you can, and for the most part think positive motivating, upbeat thoughts about everything in your life. So, no more negative energy for me!  Less pounds and more joy for me!  The good news is that all the students I have met in my Holistic Health Coaching program have been so positive, upbeat, caring and loving.  Plus, I have my Friday Ladies group - who are always a great source of positive energy and love. Just writing this I feel filled with joy! Awesome!