Sorry lovelies, this is just an iPhone photo.  Haven't been using the real deal DSLR for awhile because I've been so busy with the day job although today I got to combine the two.  Anywhoo, I'm on day 11 of my juice fast and it's going pretty well.  I am impressed at how much energy I have without coffee.  I consider myself to be quite the coffee fiend and could barely function early in the morning without it.  I'm faring well though, tons of energy, never groggy and I get a lot more sleep at night.  I think that was a huge part of my problem with my weight.  Beyond not eating right or working out, I was getting very little sleep (3 hours or less).  Not healthy!!  I'm all about healthy changes so now that I juice, I end up falling asleep way earlier...like at a normal time of night... and I get at least 7 hours of wonderful sleep and wake up feeling fresh.

I have to say, the positive changes far outweigh the fact that I miss food.  My skin is clearing up, my eyes are whiter, I have more energy, I feel better, no more chest pains, blood pressure back into normal range (I've been pre-hypertension for years), gut fat going down..and oh yeah.... 15 lbs shed off!!!   So worth it.  My doctor said that if I want to continue, I can do so for up to 60 days but not to beat myself up if I don't make it that far.  I'm gonna try for it but truth be told, I'll be happy with 30 days of fasting.  Only 15 more to go!!

When I first started the juice fast, the days seemed to drag and I was groggy and exhausted.  Now time is back to flying by and I have all this energy.  I actually started working out again to tighten everything up.  I never thought I'd say I like going to the gym...but I do... what the???  In the last year I went from 268 lbs to 242 from December 2011 to December 2012 and that was just cutting out fast food and soda and eating generally healthy foods.  It wasn't enough though because I was still cheating so I started this juice fast on January 2nd and I went from 242 lbs and today I'm down to 227 lbs!!  Feels like winning!

For those of you who asked, I have my juice 3-5 times a day depending on how hungry I am and I usually have glasses around 12oz.  The strainer of fruits and veggies was my breakfast this morning.  I juice all those veggies and I get pure micro nutrients that my body absorbs immediately and by juicing, I'm getting the nutrients from all these fruits and veggies.  I try to concentrate mostly on veggies though, specifically green veggies because it really detoxifies and gives me energy.  I could never sit and eat all these veggies and fruits whole in one sitting so it's like I'm getting turbocharged vitamins.  Love it!  The fact that my doctor gave me the go ahead to go up to 60 days on juice fast really motivates me even more because my health is improving so much from this.

The only downside is going to sleep early means I am running behind on posting to my blog and following everyone so if I haven't followed you back yet, I'm sorry. I promise I will and have the entire 3 day weekend to work on that!!!  Another lovely surprise was waking up to 1003 GFC followers, thanks guys!!

I hope you all are doing well.  I am about to work on the Aloha Friday Blog Hop code and then feed my son and get him all ready for bed and go work out.  Oh...did I mention, he got all A's and 2 B's on his report card today. So proud of you Alaka'i!!

Xo,