Today is the one month mark of my Radical Decision, though I only posted about it on July 1. Anyway, on June 24, I saw the largest number EVER when I got on a scale, and decided to do something about it. One week later (July 1), I started juicing. It has gone VERY WELL! Today is the 24th day of my juice fast, a fast during which I have drunk LOTS of water, and the only nutrition I have had,  has come in the form of micronutrients (in the form of naturally extracted juices) from LOTS of vegetables, and LOTS of fruit.

How much weight have I lost in one week of eating fruits, vegetables, brown rice, and nuts, followed by 23 days of juicing?

Are you ready? Drum-roll please . . .  in the past month I have lost a grand total of  34.2  pounds!

I have not gone hungry. I have had quite a bit of energy. I feel well.

Now, so my mother will not worry, I plan to visit my doctor next week, and have him draw blood, to see how healthy (or unhealthy) I am. I did not tell him I would embark on this road. I really don’t think he would have encouraged me to do it. I did not have blood work done JUST before beginning this, but it has only been about 3 months, so he will certainly have some sort of a base line from which to compare. I think that my numbers should be substantially improved, maybe even to the point of not needing to take my medication for high cholesterol (I’ve been taking Crestor for about a year now). If all is well, and if I am still of the same mind, I would continue on for another 30 days, making this a 60 day juice fast. No promises, just yet.

Some say that a person who is trying to lose weight should NOT weigh daily. However, since we came back from our Branson vacation (where I did not have scales but I DID have a juicer), I have weighed myself daily, recording my daily weight on both a spreadsheet and on Walgreens’ site. I have also done AT LEAST a mile on the treadmill every single day since we returned from Branson. In Walgreens’ STEPS program, I get points for doing healthy things (which ultimately means CASH value toward purchases there).

Disclaimer: there is something in the previous paragraph that is not true. I have walked at least a mile on the treadmill every day, except for 2 days. Last Thursday night, Rose and I entered the smoky arena called 4th Street Bowl. Freeman Hospital, where she works, has “summer healthy lifestyle” activities in which their employees can participate. These activities are listed on a BINGO-like card. She will get certain points for completing her BINGO card. One of the activities was to go bowling. So, last Thursday evening we went bowling. My score was atrocious, but, we figured out the last time we went bowling was probably when Kim still lived in Joplin, so that must have been about 5 years ago. Anyway, I was unable to walk on the treadmill on Friday and Saturday. Somehow, I managed to sprain the big toe on my right while we were bowling. It was really tender. I got on the treadmill on Friday morning in an attempt, but when it sped up, I just was unable to keep going, so I stopped. I did not try at all on Saturday. By Sunday I was able to return to my routine. In this morning’s workout, I pushed it up one notch higher (in speed and elevation) than what I ever had.

Now, how does one sprain a big toe while bowling? I honestly do not know. It was the first time I had ever sprained the big toe on my right foot. Now I’ve sprained the big toe on my left foot LOTS OF TIMES, but that is a story for another day.

One other thing happened of small consequence for some of my manually capable friends, but which was HUGE for me! We are in the middle of remodeling a bathroom. Yesterday afternoon, a crew was coming to lay new flooring. I figured that I couldn’t mess up too much removing the toilet, so that they could do their job. I DID mess it up, but finally, got the job done. Realizing that I am pretty clumsy with manual jobs like that, when I went to the hardware store to get a new wax ring to re-seat the toilet, I asked them about a handy man. They gave me the name an number of man. Now it hasn’t been very many months when I needed to do something in the other bathroom, which required me to remove the toilet tank. I had NO SMALL PROBLEM getting it not to leak. Also, I know now that the correct way to do what I was attempting would have been to remove the entire toilet, without removing the tank. I didn’t know that at the time, so I just took everything apart. Knowing how difficult re-attaching the tank without leaks in the other bathroom was, I was scared. I DID want the toilet to be re-installed right away, so I thought I would resort to professional help, that is . . . until he quoted me the price. Now, there might be a remote possibility that some plumber could be reading these lines, but I thought that $90 was a pretty steep price. I didn’t tell the plumber that, but told him I might call him back. I watched several YouTube videos on how to accomplish the task at hand, and decided to try my hand at it. 

How did it go? SUCCESSFUL! The part that scared me the most was the seal between the tank and the base. No problem (I changed ALL the hardware, which is the way one is supposed to do it. On the previously mentioned attempt, I tried to change only the rubber gasket). Getting the base seated on the new wax ring was also a piece of cake. Only the water line gave me a little trouble. I discovered a pretty cool trick, using a Fluidmaster CLICK SEAL Toilet Water Supply Connector. Now I had heard that the connection to the toilet tank only needs to be hand tight, but it never seemed to work for me. The hose I was working with had been abused (someone [maybe David Fish?] had tried to tighten it up really tight multiple times in the past). Anyway, when I hooked THAT PART  of my job up, water leaked. A quick run to the store and I discovered this new hose. I picked it up, and thought, “This sounds too good to be true!” I got it home (Rose and Greg were out to eat–since I don’t eat, I got to try to finish my installation before the got back), hooked it up, it clicked (meaning that it was fully connected), I checked it, and it DOES NOT LEAK!

I DID call the plumber back to thank him for his willingness to come, and for his time, but that I had watched some videos on the right way to do the job, and accomplished it myself. He would not have been able to come until the morning anyway.

34.2 pounds in one month. Today is Day 24. I’ll be consuming juice made from spinach, celery, cucumber, apple and orange. Yummy!