One of our family rituals at bedtime, much enjoyed by the kids, is asking each other what was the best bit of our day. Today, for me it was entertaining two school mums and their boys and cooking up a feast, which of course I couldn’t eat. I enjoy cooking and today it didn’t bother me at all that I couldn’t participate in the eating. I happily prepared salmon with pesto, chipolata sausages, roast vegetables: crispy roast potatoes with thyme, butternut squash with a sprinkle of brown sugar, and multicoloured carrots with a honey glaze, sautéed leeks, and stem broccoli. Then I thoroughly enjoyed watching 4 kids and 2 adults eat, while I had my watermelon and kale juice. Not too bad, after all.

I almost caved at a crisp. The kids had a pick-and-mix tea with fish-finger pittas, crisps and vegetables with humous and salsa dips. Savoury is definitely my Achilles heel. It’s nigh on impossible to get a juice that tastes like roast dinner, chip shop chips and mushy peas, onion soup or butternut squash risotto.

I soon realised I was overdue my afternoon snack juice. A litre of green juice later and the cravings weren’t so bad. Some days are just harder than others, and 60 days seems such a long time. The 4th April to be specific!

My valentines gifts were thoughtful and practical: a hot water bottle with a thick woolly cover (I’ve burnt myself twice with my current one), thick wool bed socks and woollen mittens. You see, the symptoms of Raynaud’s Syndrome, if that’s what I have, include cold hands and feet.

Valentines day dinner for 1 was steak and triple cooked chips followed by chocolate cheesecake. Juice for 1 was a red juice followed by a pear and cinnamon dessert. All yum!

Ten days of juice and 10lbs lighter! Probably because I’m spending far more time in the loo. With 3 litres of juice a day, plus water and herbal tea I’m literally peeing the weight off.

The kids are enjoying the juicing and regularly ask me to make them one. Today’s was carrot and apple which tasted delicious and both boys downed it in seconds.

It’s still not any easier being around food. Today, the twins had mackerel in tomato sauce on toast for lunch, one of my prior-life favourites, and I baked an apple and sultana puff pastry pie for tea and the kids all had seconds.

I love food shopping and Joe Cross makes it so easy to shop for juicing. Each block of five days has a shopping list as well as a daily plan and then instructions for making each juice. I visited the fruit and veg market first and the stall holder seemed quite surprised when I asked for 5 bags of celery, 20 carrots, a bowl of sweet potatoes, 9 cucumbers, 30 apples and a kilo of cherries. £18 seemed very reasonable for the huge bag of produce I walked away with. I’m now rather selfishly taking up three of the four shelves in our fridge!

It dawned on me today that drinking juice has many similarities to the effects of prozac, the much celebrated late 80s answer to depression. Prozac numbed my emotions so that they plateaued, and juice has done the same to my stomach. I didn’t much like the inability to feel emotions and soon ditched prozac in favour of cognitive therapy, but I’m quite happy for my stomach to feel permanently at ease. Perhaps my happy demeanour today was also the effect of juice?

My husband came home this evening with a question one of his colleagues asked over dinner, “so what are her bowel movements like?” (Not as politely put, of course.)

Well the answer has to do with fibre. Juicing extracts the insoluble fibre from the fruit and veg, leaving the soluble fibre. Insoluble fibre speeds up the movement of food through the gut, and it adds bulk to the stool. The juice that is separated from the insoluble fibre parts of the fruits and vegetables allows easier assimilation and absorption of the vitamins, minerals and other important phytonutrients across my digestive tract. Insoluble fibre slows down the absorption of many micronutrients.

By juicing, I’m essentially fast tracking my nutrient intake. As well, the soluble fibre I am ingesting is like a sponge, it absorbs water and provides bulking matter. It slows the transit of food through the gut and helps fill me up.

So, the answer is, I go less regularly but bowel movements have felt quite normal as long as I drink enough. What isn’t normal is the colour of stools which are much darker, perhaps because of the concentration of soluble fibre.

I was also asked today about how I am managing without any protein. What I hadn’t fully appreciated is that many fruits and vegetables contain quite a bit of protein, including kale, watercress, greens, cos lettuce, turnip greens and fruits such as peaches, kiwis, papayas, bananas, cherries. Fresh greens don’t have as much protein as meats, but I’m juicing them in far greater quantities compared to what I’d manage if I were eating them raw. I wouldn’t be able to manage, for example, 8 kale leaves, a handful of cos, 2 cucumbers, 2 peaches, 4 sticks of celery, 2 inches of ginger in one sitting, but I can in a juice.

Trying not to get overly excited just yet, but this morning there was a drastic improvement in the skin on my hands. Overnight, the inflammation had died down a little and the cuts have started to heal.

My hand eczema has been rotten for nearly 6 weeks now. But today was the worst in a long time. The deep cuts on my knuckles just got deeper and increasingly sore as the day wore on. I use gloves to wash up, but anytime my hands are exposed to water, the pain makes me cringe. I’ve been using Savlon and Tea Tree Oil as an antiseptic/antibacterial base, and Palmer’s coconut hand cream (free from all nasties) to form a protective water proof layer, but none of this is helping today.

The struggle with my purse is almost laughable. It begins with a fight with the outer zipper, then a struggle with the inner coin zip, but I go to war with the card slots. The fight to get out a credit card or loyalty card, or worse both, has me entertained for up to 30 seconds at a time per card! It’s why I tend to use the self-serve checkouts as the checkout assistants begin to get bored and shoppers behind me, restless. Being a bit slow on the adjustment here, it’s only just occurred to me to change my purse for something simpler!

I was really hoping that I’d notice an improvement in my skin after 8 days….

One note to self: never supplement organic cider vinegar for lemons (on the avoid list for histamine stimulation). The result is ‘absolutely disgusting’. My son summed it up perfectly. I downed a litre of the ruined juice. Never again!

I can’t believe it!

The reward: 3 wonderful hours of the Strictly Come Dancing Live Show to celebrate with my daughter and mum-in-law, who has been a pillar of strength and support during my operations and throughout my recovery.

And what a fantastic show! We were entertained from the minute it started to the minute it ended. The costumes were enviably stunning and I just couldn’t get enough of the sparkle. The colours were as vibrant as my juices and the joy and energy of the dancers infectious. The band and live singers, outstanding. In response, the audience got louder and louder. Such a joy to watch. I haven’t smiled for as long in one go for a long while.

The only challenge was being surrounded by fast food outlets and restaurants. Agh!

I don’t feel hunger, but I do miss the social aspects of preparing food, cooking it, sharing a meal with my family, and particularly eating out. For over half a year I have not really eaten out as a low histamine diet knocks that one on the head, and most days of the week I have to eat different meals from my family, as they don’t want to eat the food I have had to eat. I don’t blame them! It’s miserable. Thank goodness for social media and The Histamine Support Groups.

One rather wonderful little place worth a mention is 222, a vegan restaurant in West Kensington. Ben Asamani, the owner and internationally-renown chef, has kindly cooked me two delicious dishes to order, which I shared with my parents to celebrate being mesh-free and as a last meal before beginning this fast. I look forward to my next visit being a welcome back to the world of eating celebration!

The upshot is that drinking juice all day feels like just another of many food and drink restrictions I endure, but I now hold tight to the hope that I can heal my gut, regain my histamine enzymes, and reduce my chronic inflammatory response. Maybe then I can rejoin my family and friends in the social aspects of cooking and eating.

A slightly mad experiment, may be, but it feels a whole lot safer and healthier than the idea of sticking plastic in human beings!

Having a family to feed and being on a juicing fast is the biggest test of will power. And it’s beginning to feel isolating and lonely at times, with temptation put in my way every day.

My Dad and Mum, who have fasted on and off since my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer 10 years ago, have always supported each other when they juice so they don’t have to watch everyone else eat. Very glad to have them supporting and encouraging me. Keeping busy is definitely the answer.

My mother-in-law Gill kindly helped me prepare tomorrow’s juices ahead of time this morning so I can have an evening off tonight. Tomorrow is the Strictly Come Dancing Live Show and us girls: Gill, my daughter and I are off to see it at the O2!

Peach Pear Delight tonight – woop, woop! Checkout my Instagram pics!

My instant gut reaction to celeriac was spot on. Downing the rest of the celeriac juice yesterday was such a bad idea. I blew up like a balloon just before bed and thought I was going to pop most of the night. In the morning I had the most unladylike wind rush I’ve ever experienced and thankfully that brought considerable relief. So glad to be back on the staple red and green juices. Cereriac is now off the menu for me.

I had my weekly physio this morning. I’ve been working on my leg and hand strength for just over 12 weeks now. Given that I woke from the operation with no feeling at all in my left leg due to the extensiveness of the surgery, I’ve come a long way in 14 weeks. This week was a huge step forward. Could this be the juice stepping up my recovery?!

The kids are very happy to have Grandma come to stay and particularly welcome was her suggestion to cook cakes with the boys this morning. Bit more torture for me, but everyone else enjoyed them!

My treat for dessert was a parsnip, pear and ginger juice, which was surprisingly palatable given I try a roast parsnip at every roast dinner just to see if I like them any better, but decide pretty quickly that I don’t!

The menu for days 6-10 starts tomorrow. I’m now 7lbs lighter and feeling good as long as I drink regularly. The eczema on my hands is up and down so no improvement there yet, but we’ll see what the next five days bring. Hoorah, I did it!

Another day, another juice.

Lack of sleep is a great way for another day of juicing to pass in a bit of a blur. Yet another sleepless night with visits from both boys, which ended with making hot water bottles in the early hours and cuddles until dawn.

Today was the first day I craved for fruit which wasn’t on the menu. While passing through our local market I spied dark juicy-looking cherries by the box full and lychees by the kilo. My mum-in-law treated me to both! I might not be able to eat them, but I can certainly juice them. As oranges are currently off the menu as all citrus fruits are high histamine, I will supplement them with my off-piste stash.

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Celeriac appeared on my dessert menu for the first time today. It is such an odd vegetable, gnarled and earthy looking, yet deliciously sweet when juiced and the perfect accompaniment to a pear or two. The taste was extremely pleasant initially, but after a few more sips I began to find it too sickly sweet and I needed to down the remains of the glass. Fancy that – being too sweet. I’ve only ever felt sick after eating too much chocolate before!

This was supposed to be the hardest day, but so far I’ve experienced very few side effects, and surprisingly little hunger. It’s been a much harder day looking after the twins, one of whom does exactly the opposite of everything I ask of him at the moment, yet behaves perfectly for his nursery teachers! Keeping him and his brother safe while crossing roads on scooters, has my cortisol at permanently high levels. I’d normally have them strapped in the buggy, but because the double buggy is so heavy to push, and I’m still wary of heavy weights after my recent surgery, I really have no choice.

What was worse was serving them up a delicious-looking dinner of home cooked cottage pie and veg which both said was disgusting (without tasting it), which soon resorted into “I don’t like you Mummy”, and then spitting with the food, which then promptly ended up in the recycling. This was much to my daughter’s disgust later on, as it is one of her favourite meals.

Having histamine intolerance means I’m supposed to keep stress levels at the absolutely minimum in order to reduce histamine, which is released in abundance when you are stressed. A bit of a joke in my household, but thankfully I’ve been given the okay to return to the gym now, so looking forward to some calm in pilates and yoga again.

For anyone with similar histamine issues, I’ve been adapting Joe Cross’s recipes to avoid high histamine or histamine stimulating foods, but as the days pass I may start introducing foods I’ve been avoiding to see whether they still impact on me.

For those interested in taking on the juice challenges, here are a few of the side effects and symptoms you should be aware of:

Flatulence & bloating – initially this can worsen during a Reboot for some people, the sudden increase in fruits and vegetables from the many complex sugars, fiber, phytonutrients and enzymes but this will soon pass and your stomach will feel flatter than ever. If symptoms persist or you have IBS you can consume fermented fluids such as kombucha tea, coconut water kefir or take a probiotic. 

Diarrhoea – this can occur due to a tendency towards IBS, rapid increase in fiber (eating + juicing phase), rapid increase in fruits and vegetables and an all liquid diet (juice only). Fermented drinks can also assist in easing this symptom.

Constipation – once we have made drastic fibre and dietary changes our digestive may suffer and slow down due to the increase in fibre (during the eating phase) combined with lack of water or due to a reduction in the fibre consumed during the juice only phase. Drink more water, more exercise and juice/eat more dark green leafy vegetables.

Headaches – this can be caused from lack of water and/or calories, caffeine withdrawal, sugar withdrawal or blood sugar irregularities. Hydrate with more water, juice, teas and broth.

Skin breakouts and reactions – since the skin is the largest eliminative organ as we make big changes to our diet our skin may initially suffer. It is important to sweat it out and drink more water.

Fatigue – this can be due to a reduction in calories, lack of hydration as you may not feel like drinking more water when you’ve already drank juice, withdrawal from certain substances such as caffeine, sugar etc. as the body is readjusting to these big dietary changes your energy will soon soar.

Aches and Pains – this is common! There are many theories as to why this happens but we know for sure calorie restriction, electrolyte changes, dehydration and blood sugar changes can cause this. Drink extra coconut water and other electrolyte & magnesium rich juices.

Brain fatigue or brain fog – this is commonly caused from a reduction in calories, sugar and/or caffeine. It is important to rehydrate and consume more juice.

Strong cravings – this can be caused by the avoidance of all your normal foods, sugar irregularities, body wanting to reinstate lost calories ASAP, long standing nutritional deficiencies, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances. More juice, broth, water, electrolytes!

More information can be found at Raw Generation.