The Juice Fast

Saturday Nov. 30th, 2013

At 6:00 p.m. we arrived at our new home, Juicy Oasis, and immediately fell in love. The team is absolutely amazing, and are some of the nicest, most energetic and inspiring people I have ever met.

Our room was absolutely amazing and for the first time in 10 months we didn’t have to shower with flip-flops! Yeah that is correct, we are living the life of ultimate luxury over here.

Oh, did I mention, we have robes and slippers.

Yup. I would say we have finally figured out this budget travel thing and this trip is on the up and up!

We settled into our room and started off our fast with an incredible juice and then a few hours later had a warm butternut squash soup that was absolutely wonderful.

The Week in Review 

We worked on a few projects over our two week time at Juicy. The season is winding down so the first week we only had a few crafty projects like maintaining bicycles and painting wooden crates to create a library.

The second week we were given the opportunity to shoot a testimonial video and do some photography to update the website. Of course I was thrilled at the excuse to run around taking loads of photos and James does his Baz Luhrmann thing, so we were in absolute heaven.

During our first week at Juicy, we participated 100 percent in the ‘guest experience.’ We did the juice fast and participated in the majority of all activities, which basically means a packed full schedule. Every day starts with ashtanga yoga, some “power greens,” and a 1-2 hour walk.

 

Then the first juice is served at 10:30 a.m.

Afterward we would usually have a competitive volleyball or throwball game followed by yoga again from 12-1:30 p.m.

Another juice is served at 1:30 p.m.

Then Tim the trainer would kick our butts in the afternoon with fitness, and the yoga teacher Kenny would balance us back to zen with another yoga practice.

Every evening we would enjoy juice on the deck at 4:30 and then watch a food documentary from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

This was always my absolute favorite time of day, a time to chill out and let the body reap the benefits of the day and let the mind take on the challenge of the information presented in the documentaries. Everyday at the conclusion of the documentaries we were served a delicious soup instead of a fourth juice since it is a bit cold in Portugal during the winter.

Every night after soup a fun relaxing movie is played in the cinema, but James and I usually would opt to hang in the sauna instead. We would spend the evening jumping between the freezing cold pool and steaming sauna until we were completely wiped and called it quits.

After our sauna sessions, sometimes we would curl up inside the cocoons in the spa, which are extremely dangerous as they swallow you up and make it impossible to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

 The first week of detoxing:

The first few days were absolutely fine. The beds at Juicy Oasis are the comfiest marshmallow fluffy clouds I have slept on in my life, I had two pillows and its quiet and peaceful. It’s absolute luxury and we slept so well I don’t think we would have cared if we were drinking mud.

James had some intense headaches the first couple of days, but I think eating vegan (for me) and vegetarian (for him) the past two and a half months completely helped avoid detox symptoms. I felt great the entire process. Thanks to this incredible place, one week of juicing was just too easy!

The juices were amazing. They are all delicious and I would voluntarily drink them any day of any week of my life.

Being a dietitian, I have to have an opinion on any “extreme” diet anything, so of course I was curious to develop one on this program. Well, I have to say after a week, I completely agree with the entire operation here. They supplement juices with spirulina, wheatgrass, avocado and the best fruits and vegetables you can imagine. They are doing it right. And our bodies felt incredible.

We started spending more time in the gym, kickboxing, lifting weights, attending kick-ass fun fitness and beautiful yoga classes. Throughout the week we had more energy than we have had on this entire trip.

By the fifth day our stomachs were grumbling and it was becoming really difficult for me to write a bunch of nutrition articles on food without getting starving. But otherwise I was full of energy and I can say I felt better than I have on this entire trip. Honestly, we looked pretty beat up and worn out when we arrived here. Now we feel wide awake, excited, energetic and have a bit more mental clarity and excitement. This juice thing works. And dang does it work well.

Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013

Saturdays are the day of transition.

People from the previous week depart and a new group of juicers arrive. It is also the only day when you see food around Juicy Oasis. This made it the hardest day of the detox for me. James decided he had gotten what he needed out of the juicing experience and was ready to rekindle his relationship with food, so he went ahead and ordered up a fantastic warm goat cheese salad and a bucketful of homemade hummus. While I tried to resist, he ended up with about-to-be-wasted hummus and I had to Ben and Jerrys it out of the bowl. Hey, its a liquid…kind of?

The second week James and I did all of the juices, but supplemented them with a few meals a day. I planned on juicing for another week as I felt like another seven days of it would put me in the perfect position to tackle the next seven months of travel.

Sunday, Dec. 9, 2013

On Sunday we ran around shooting photos all day and made use of the facilities and gym as much we could.

We went on the morning walk and enjoyed the documentary, caught up on photo editing and started to edit the testimonial video. We spent the evening watching ‘Love Actually.’ Since one of the main actresses was a guest at the retreat the previous week, it only felt supportive of us to view the movie! It was a fun recap to an amazingly rejuvenating and restorative first week at Juicy Oasis.

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2013

We did the one and a half hour walk on Tuesday morning and then continued to work on some projects for the manager. We took a break and squeezed in a good three games of volleyball before I shot some photos of fitness and rebounding classes. We ended up spending the afternoon working on photos and videos, and then finished off the day in the sauna.

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013

I spent the day working on photos, blogs, and writing nutrition articles. Writing nutrition articles about cookies, quinoa and chocolate while on a juice fast is quite possibly the worst idea ever (well besides the whole lens thing). So, you can probably guess as to what happened next; I caved in and enjoyed some yummy dark chocolate.

We ended up working out in the gym, relaxing in the sauna and reading an entire book next to the fireplace before calling it a day.

Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013 

Thursday morning we were up shooting testimonial videos and again writing articles and doing PR work. We squeezed in an hour of volleyball before working on painting and sanding some wooden crates for the library. The rest of the evening was pretty typical: juice, sauna, soup, read, snooze.

Friday, Dec. 13, 2013

The last day of the juice fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Minus my little chocolate and hazelnut slip up, two weeks of juicing was about to conclude within the next 24 hours.

We worked on videos and photos all day while trying to tie up all the loose ends on our media projects. Of course, we did manage to run around and enjoy our last day of luxury!

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013

We woke up on our last day at Juicy and decided it was only appropriate to start the weekend off the same as we did the previous week: a freaking freezing plunge into the lake (it’s about 35 degrees out there).

We warmed up in the sauna and then enjoyed the first meal in 2 weeks!!!!! Nothing else, but hummus of course!

We handed over our photos and videos and said goodbye to our favorite home.

Thank you Juicy Oasis for recharging our exhausted batteries!!!! I’m really not sure we could’ve carried on for another half a year plus without having done this!!!!

Thank you for everything Kate, Amy, Jason, Tim and Kenny. You guys are incredible and we can’t thank you enough.

Thanks to you, we are definitely ready for the next part of our adventure.

 

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