Tuesday, February 9, 2010....Day 24

Day 24 of the Fruit Fast. Something came to me today regarding my salt issues. i was brought back to the time when i had serious sugar problems. Up until 2004, i was addicted to sweets. Especially cookies and fruit pies. Candy bars (especially mounds and almond joy) also were great weaknesses. By 2004, i was desperate to get freedom from sweets and i prayed to the Lord admitting my weakness and love for sweets and my inability to free myself from them. That was April 2004, i had begun the raw diet, but still felt strong pangs for sweets. In May of 2004 i was led to do a two week fast on just fresh squeezed OJ. All my friends and family thought i had lost it. But i felt led to do it. As a result of that fast, not only did i lose weight and feel tremendous, but i was over the sweet addiction for good. Since that time i have always had the majority of my intake be fruit whether or not i was 100% raw.

When i first did the fast, i had what some described as diabetic symptoms. i was drinking up to a gallon of OJ per day, 32-48oz at a time. i would guzzle the drink and the sugar rush would cause me to be really high and then suddenly crash. i would have to lay down and if i was driving sometimes pull over and close my eyes in the middle of the day. This is one of the things that caused concern from those closest to me. But i kept going anyways, trusting that i had been led this way. The sugar rushes only lasted about 3-4 days then my body seemed to adjust and the sugar in the OJ had no effect on me. So it appeared to be the serious deluge of the natural sugar in the orange that the Lord used to free me from my addiction to processed sugar.

This brings me to the salt cravings. Last year i was eating alot of whole celery. i ate it almost daily, especially as the salt cravings continued after my fourth month on fruit. It always seemed to ease the craving, but never totally eliminate it for too long. Then yesterday a thought hit me. Maybe i wasn't ingesting enough of the celery. To eat more than i ate last year would be nearly impossible. But, suppose i juiced it? By consuming it in juice form i could intake much, much more than by just eating it. So that just as a deluge of natural sugar from the OJ was used to deliver me from sugar addiction, perhaps a similar deluge of natural sodium from celery juice might deliver me from salt cravings. So today, i tried an experiment.

i juiced enough celery to make about 14oz of juice. Then i made a sauce out of it. i added an avocado, basil, cayenne and other non-salt seasonings. i wanted something sweet in it, my first choice is usually honey, but we had none so i used a very ripe banana. i poured half of this blended mixture on a non-sweet fruit salad of sweet pepper, cucumber and tomatoes (i added one chopped celery stick for good measure). It was not only delicious, but i got the sensation that i had just eaten something salty, though it didn't taste salty. i felt no inclination to crave anything salty at all. i was so excited! i bought four bunches of celery (my wife thinks i have lost it again, thats a good sign.)

So here was todays activities:

Breakfast: 32oz apple smoothie, Durian.

Dinner: Non-sweet fruit salad (1 sweet pepper, 1 english cucumber, 3 tomatoes, 1 stick celery) with avocado-banana-celery sauce (1 haas avocado, 14oz celery juice, 1 banana, organic non-salt seasoning, cayenne, basil). Durian.

Later: 32oz watermelon-oj juice.

Spiritual bread: Joshua 11-15, Acts 10-11

Exercise: 3 sets of 12 tricep presses, 3 sets of 12 incline pushups.

Grace and Peace be multiplied.