It's the evening of the second day of my juice fast.  It really hasn't been too bad.  This morning was a little rough with some headaches and general fatigue, but by afternoon, and especially after I worked out I felt pretty good.  It is amazing the way even a short break from food will make you crave almost anything as if it were the most delicious food on earth.  I've allowed myself a bit of wine in the evening since it is fruit juice and I'm not doing this primarily for any supposed detox effects, but rather primarily for weight loss.  That's been nice.  

One thing I have learned: be sparing with beets.  They are really strong and overwhelming, and they tend to make your juice taste a little like dirt in my opinion.  I've also come to the conclusion that it's better to mix things up and only use the recipes you find online as a loose guide.  Yes it's best to get lots of greens and keep the fruits for the morning.  But it's better to drink some fruit juice that you enjoy in the evening than break your fast because you can't bear the thought of another spinach, broccoli, cabbage, and celery juice.  That said, here are a few of the recipes I've enjoyed most.

• 2 apples
• 1 wedge red cabbage
• 2 large carrots
• 1 thumb sized piece of ginger (or just a little under a tablespoon minced)
• 6 leaves of swiss chard or kale
• 1/4 lemon

Another good one for breakfast that is simple is:

• 3 carrots
• 2 apples
• 1" or 1 Tblspn minced ginger
• You can throw in other mild stuff like some celery to fill this one out a little

Finally my favorite so far:

• 1 orange
• 1 grapefruit
• 1 pear
• 1 apple
• 1 sweet potato/yam
• 4-6 celery stalks
• 6-8 strawberries

Tomorrow, 2/12/2012 I'm starting a juice fast that will go through lunch Saturday 2/11/2012 (the wife and I have our Valentine's date that night).  I bought a Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Pro Juice Extractor (kind of a cheapy, but I couldn't/didn't want to throw too much money into it until I'd had some experience) and a lot of fruits and veggies.  I made up and froze most of my juices for tomorrow this evening and sampled each one.  My least favorite is the mid-day one I made which is heavy on beets, but all of them were pretty good.  We'll see how it goes and I may journal here a bit.  A lot of people say you shouldn't store or freeze the juices, but you can't be a perfectionist about this stuff.  I have a job and a family.  I'm sure it will be fine.