Watermelon Cleanse

Hello Everyone,  I am starting a watermelon cleanse on Monday, that's in four days.  I intend to do 3 days of watermelon juice, possibly more, if it feels right.  Then I will start back eating a vegan diet after the cleanse.  The reason I am doing this is because I am having pain in the joints of my hands, my knees and in my lower back.  I have decided that I must change the way I've been eating.

To be honest, my diet hasn't been that great since I made the move to Portugal.  I feel a need to really cleanse and detox.  I have been vegan before, in fact it is documented here on this blog.  I am hoping it will alleviate some of the symptoms I have been having.  I wanted to write about my experiment here to share the details with you of what I notice, or don't notice during this cleanse.

Here is the recipe for making watermelon juice easily.

WATERMELON JUICE

1/4 of a watermelon cut into pieces, leaving some of the white part on the fruit you are juicing. This white part contains Citruline which is good for the heart and blood vessels.  It also contains high levels of vitamin C and lycopene.

Place the pieces into a blender.  If you have a vitamix you can use the plunger they have  to make the watermelon start blending.  If you have a regular blender you may need a little pure water in the bottom of the blender to be able to start the juice.  Blend it for about 30 seconds, longer if you don't have a vitamix.  Once it is all well blended that is your juice.  Drink it whenever you feel like during the day and if you start to really get hungry you can eat some watermelon.  Do this for as little as 24 hours and as long as 5 days.  When we did this cleanse before, we had decided to do a 24 hour cleanse, but, funnily enough, we weren't hungry and we were enjoying it so much that we decided to do 72 hours and it was easy and delicious.

Follow this link to find out more about the health benefits of watermelon
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=31#nutritionalprofile