"There has been a growing realization that the reason why I do not have clarity about knowing what to do is because over the last three years I have gradually become spiritually disconnected to the fundamental purpose of Freedomyou."
How I will Be Juicing
To reduce repetition in my daily fasting posts, I will lay out the basic method of juicing that will be used over the next 25 days. First, because I leave for work at 6AM every morning, I will be making all of the day’s fruit and veggie juice the evening before. As soon as I get home from work at 4:30PM, I will prepare a 20 oz (600ml) bottle of fruit juice and a 20 oz (600ml) bottle of veggie juice for tomorrow’s work day. Veggie juice tastes best straight from the juicer, so I will also make extra veggie juice to drink the rest of that evening. There is also a large bottle of Welshes grape juice in the fridge at work for that extra boost of energy during days involving increased manual labor.
With veggie juice, I switch out different kinds of greens but the base juice ingredients remain the same. When I say “veggie juice” in my posts, the ingredients will be: six small carrots, two medium apples, three celery stocks, a half a red pepper including seeds and one lemon with the outer skin thinly sliced off leaving the white pith. This will be the base for all of my veggie juices. If anything is added I will specify.
Generally, I do not buy organic unless it is on sale. Over the last 20 years I have transformed my health on mostly standard, non-organic produce. I shop about every three days. Most fruit like melons and pineapple, sweeten up when left on the counter. I suggest always straining juice to cut back on hunger, but here I do not practice what I preach. The reason is I have learned to handle a little hunger throughout the fast, and I like the small bowl movements that come from the trace amounts of fiber present in the juice.
My Physical Fasting Goals
Weight Loss and a Cut Body: During this fast, weight loss will happen all by itself without needing to think about it. What doesn’t happen by itself is spiritual growth, that is something that requires thought and prayer. Obsessing over weight loss only serves as a distraction from spiritual focus. So I’m not going to talk or think very much about my weight loss until closer the to the end of the fast. At 50 years old, I can be as vain as the next guy. I love the idea of getting my cuts and losing that ugly paunch that’s hiding the true ab within. I know from past fasts that I need to guard against obsessing about the melting pounds. So even though weight loss is a goal, as long as I stay on my fast, it’s not something I must think about to make happen.
Detoxification: Over the last year I have been body building hard, working my 165 pound frame among 200 pound giants. It didn’t take long for me to acquire the body building bug, which can be expressed in a single word, vanity. And for body builder’s vanity is measured by size. According to the big boys, the recipe for size is protein. I bought into the mentality and started increasing protein in my diet, resulting in a loss of mental clarity. I felt sluggish in the morning and most of the day, a sure sign of toxins. As is so often the case, mental and physical health gets sacrificed at the altar of vanity. Body builders may have big, cut muscles, but many of them are very unhealthy, and it shows as they get older. Detoxifying and reducing protein during this fast will restore mental alertness, and return me to a proper diet and healthy mentality.
Eczema: Throughout my childhood I had eczema so bad that the doctor said it was the worst case he had ever seen. Twenty years ago, while on my first 30 day juice fast, all of the red, itchy inflammation I have lived with for thirty years slowly disappeared leaving clear, healthy skin. It was miraculous! Funny though, when my diet goes off course my body gives me a reminder with two small eczema blotches that develop under each eye. Of all places it has to be on my face. The longer I go between fasts the worst they become, glowing red like my car maintenance light. As the fast progresses I’m excited to look in the mirror each morning and watch these ugly red blemishes disappear.
Spiritual Fasting Goals
What to Do With Freedomyou? I’m confused. And that’s always a bad sign. Right now I’m faced with some critical decisions in regards to the future of Freedomyou. The site has been in decline for about two years, there are a number of reasons for this. Primarily, the Freedomyou site needs to be completely rebuilt into a CMS (Content Management System) website. This will simplify the process of publishing articles, improve the site’s look and navigation, and recover Google listings in what has become a much more competitive market then when I went live eleven years ago.
Moving forward, I have two choices. One is to build my own site using Wordpress, the other is to pay out serious money to have a CMS site built. There are pros and cons to both choices and the effects of what I decide to do will be felt for years.
As I have been praying for answers, there has been a growing realization that the reason why I do not have clarity about knowing what to do is because over the last three years I have gradually become spiritually disconnected to the fundamental purpose of FreedomYou. I believe that when I become reconnected to that, I will not only have clarity in this one decision, but will have the wisdom to make the many decisions demanded of me over the next year. Should I change the logo? Should I split the content between two or three different sites? Should I focus more on writing about nutrition or spiritual articles? Should I try to broaden FreedomYou’s demographics to a more secular audience? These are all questions that will be answered when my vision is in alignment again with God’s.
How did I get so disconnected to the spiritual purpose of this work? Has that disconnection been the reason for Freedomyou’s decline? Over the next 25 days I want to find out, and will be searching within my own heart and seeking God for the answers. I sense there is going to be some demanding self-honesty ahead.
Next Article: Fasting: Day 1 – From One World To Another