92-Day Juice Fast: Day 40! My Experience & Insights

I celebrated day 40 of my third 92-day juice fast a couple days ago and quite honestly I only know it because I’d set up a series of milestone celebration reminders on my calendar (thinking it would give me a much needed boost). But things have been so insanely busy lately that the last thing on my mind was to keep track of my juicing records.

I must say, this juice fast is zooming by with unexpected ease. I think the crazy schedule has a lot to do with it. I’ve heard of lovely juicing “resorts” where you check in and just lie around all day while your ready-made juices are delivered to you like clockwork. Sounds great – and I could definitely use a vacation – but honestly I’m not sure I’d last a day. Feels like all I’d have left to do is fantasize about food all day long. For me, having insane work days has proved quite helpful 😉 So no complaint there. The “take it easy and get as much rest as possible” thing seems like sound advice. And honestly there’s plenty of room for improvement in the sleeping department cuz I don’t seem to ever get enough! But it looks like – for me – the more hectic the easier.

In general through, regardless of schedule considerations, the nice thing is that juice fasting does get easier. It actually gets consistently easier with every new fast. And the detox symptoms tend to decrease as well (both in number and intensity). In fact, the most surprising thing for me has been that I’ve experienced the most challenging bouts of healing crisis after – not during – my extended juice fasts. This totally took me by surprise after I completed my first 92-day juice fast. I basically feel like I’ve been in a state of detox overdrive ever since, and my body’s most happy when I’m letting it do its toxin release work unhampered. Meaning, I’m actually having it easier while I’m on a juice fast in terms of my body acting out. Strange but true.

I’m not the type to systematically keep track of every little symptom, so I’m most aware of some of the more significant changes in the way my body has kept morphing through my three extended juice fasts. Weight and weight loss has been one of those more obvious signs. I’m not typically carrying a lot of extra pounds so it’s nothing too extreme to the eye but the major difference I’ve observed is the gradually increased speed with which weight loss has been occurring (meaning faster and more noticeably with every juice fast). And also the fact that instead of bouncing right back to my pre-fast weight or something close, I seem to continue losing weight after each fast with an increased metabolic rate to boot. Ironically, it’s common to hear folks claim that juice fasting slows down your metabolism and hence some people put on some extra pounds after they’ve completed a juice fast. Well, it hasn’t been the case for me. And I attribute that in great part to the fact that I take colon cleansing very seriously and make it an integral part of every single one of my juice fasts.

As far as detox symptoms are concerned, during my first juice fast I was prone to minor dizzy spells and I’d get easily lightheaded if I stood up too fast. Because these symptoms were initially fairly frequent and attention-grabbing, I became more aware of them and was anticipating them during my second 92-day juice fast. Surprisingly they happened way less and then faded away entirely in the last phase. This time around? Nada. No lightheadedness or anything of the sort. So, although I’ve discovered that typically detox isn’t a linear but cyclical animal, some things do progress in a kind of steady and linear fashion.

One of the most important things I’ve learned along the way, and one of the keys for success when it come to undertaking and completing an extended juice fast, is a switch of mindset when it comes to the less pleasant physical symptoms and/or emotional stir ups that invariably crop up along the way. It’s not easy because we live in a society where avoidance of symptoms has been equated with health, hence it’s understandably something most of us strive for, consciously or not. What I’ve come to realize is that absence of symptoms doesn’t always equal health, and that “physical ailments” can be regarded as a gift rather than a foe, meaning a message from our body that it’s busy at work bringing back into alignment something that had gotten out of balance, and that it’s actually on its way to optimum wellness.

This kind of acceptance is one of the rewards and “achievements” of juice fasting I’m most grateful for.