Overcoming Plateaus, Juice Fasting

I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English Learn to speak English like a native you. Speak English like a native you. Speak English fluently. You speak English powerfully. You speak English confidently, strongly. When you join my VIP program and power English course at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com, that's where you get all my courses. I also have a business English course. I also have a pronunciation course. If you're not sure, start with power English and add the VIP program too. Day one of a juice fast. I'm doing a juice fast today. Juice fast, as you probably know, if you don't know, a juice fast is when you only drink fresh vegetable and fruit juice all day. Nothing else, no other calories, so no food, basically, only fresh juice. That's it. Of course, it's not really a fast. The true definition of a fast, a fast we're using as a noun, okay? Using it as a noun, not as an adjective. You know the normal meaning of fast. But a fast, using it as a verb or using it as a noun, it means to not eat. Basically, it means no food, fasting. There are different kinds of fast. Now a true fast, a real fast, means no food, no calories from food for a specific period of time, right? The two main kinds of normal fast, you might call a water fast, and that's where you're drinking only water throughout the day. Maybe with some salt and potassium added, you know, some salts, makes it a little easier but adds zero calories. It's still a true fast, zero calories. And then the other form is a dry fast. A dry fast is the kind of fast where nothing goes in your mouth, not even water. So like in Islam, when they do Ramadan fast, that's a dry fast. We call that a dry fast, just so we understand what we're talking about. We'll say dry fast, that's the kind of dry fast, right? They take nothing by mouth, nothing, no water even, okay? And I guess you could call it a wet fast, but most people just call it a water fast, is when you take only water. And you can find, you know, of course fasting is a powerful and ancient, very, very, very old practice in all the major religions have different fasts or fasting. Certainly in the past the tradition, the traditional practices in Christianity, Sanatana Dharma, Buddhism and Islam all included fasting of different kinds at different times, different schedules. Nowadays in modern religion, yes, they're still fasting, obviously, but you know, some groups are, you know, do more fasting or more strict about it and some, not so much anymore. Like the Protestant groups in the United States, for example, Protestant Christians, I never hear them talk about fasting at all. But I know in Orthodox Christianity, fasting is still a part of Orthodox Christianity, it's obviously still a part of Islam, it's definitely a part of Sanatana Dharma and Buddhism as well. So it's an old, old, old practice with countless benefits, so many benefits, spiritual, physical, mental and emotional. I've done shows in the past about it. Now, there are other kinds of fasts, what people will call fasts, that are not really fast, they're kind of fast. Juice fasting is in that category. Juice fasting, you are definitely taking calories, you're drinking only, you know, freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices. So there's no solid food, you're not chewing anything. That's not strictly really a fast because you're definitely getting calories, but the calories are very, very low. It's hard to get a lot of calories from fresh squeezed fruit and vegetables, you would have to drink a ton of it to get a lot of calories, you're getting some. What you are getting, however, not so many calories, but you get a ton, a huge amount of nutrition, lots and lots and lots of minerals, vitamins and then a whole bunch of what are called micronutrients, small nutrients, all kinds of beneficial nutrition, as we all know, from fruits and vegetables. The advantage of doing it juicing is that by eliminating the fiber, by just squeezing the juice, it's super, super, super easy for your body to get that nutrition. Your body does not need to digest much, so it's super easy for your body to digest that fresh juice, take out all that great nutrition without much work, without much effort. Your body doesn't need to use much energy. This is one of the general benefits of fasting, you know, real fasting, water or dry. You're doing no digestion, right, because you're taking no calories, which gives your body a rest. Your body actually uses a lot of energy to digest food, it takes a lot of effort and energy for your body to do that. So when you stop doing that for some period of time, your body can use that energy to heal, and that's exactly what it does. So many people have healed difficult diseases or problems in their body by fasting, by regularly fasting. Obviously not just one day, you've got to do it a lot if you have a serious health problem. So there's that, great benefits. So juice fasting gives you a lot of the benefits of fasting, but it's a little easier because you are definitely taking in nutrition, but it's very easy to use nutrition. And you're getting some calories, right, from the fruit sugars and the veggie sugars, so that keeps your metabolism, your body energy a bit higher. If you ever try a dry fast or a water fast, one thing you will notice, at least the first several days, you're going to feel very, very tired. It takes a while for your body to adjust to start burning fat efficiently, and you know, those first few days of a water fast or a dry fast can be very hard. You feel just no energy at all, really fatigued. You just want to lay around and do nothing. A lot of people do that. I feel that way. But with a juice fast, I don't feel that way. I'm on day one, so I started, I guess technically I started last night. I'm almost at 24 hours, I'm probably at about 20 hours right now of juice fasting, and I feel good. You know, I've had a couple points where my energy dropped, but I just drink more juice, and it's enough, it's just enough to kind of lift up my energy a bit. So I'm feeling pretty good on day one. Pretty good. Now juice fasting has a lot of similar benefits to water fasting and dry fasting, but it's just a little more mild. So are there spiritual benefits to juice fasting? I think so. It definitely clears your mind. People, if you dry fast, if you do water fasting or juice fasting, one thing you'll notice is that pretty quickly your mind just gets clearer. I don't know how to explain it. It's almost like your vision improves a little, your taste gets sharper and improves, your hearing can improve, and your mind, your thinking just becomes more calm and more clear. During a fast. Maybe not the first day, it depends, but definitely if you do it for two, three, four days, you eventually will notice your mind gets very, very clear. So you can see why people for thousands of years would combine fasting with prayer and meditation, right? Because of this quality of it, it makes your mind more clear. It also tends to calm your emotions down when after you fasted, especially again after a few days, you'll find there's just, you know, you become calmer with a more clear mind. So then you combine that with also praying a lot, also meditating a lot. That's a great combination, spiritually and mentally and emotionally. However, I must say, right now, my motivation at the moment for this fast is physical. Those are extra benefits which I'm happy about that I enjoy, but the main thing I'm trying to do is lose weight, meaning I want to burn extra fat as quickly as I can and feel good. And honestly, too, just give myself, my body, some extra nutrition because I have not eaten well in the last year being here in America and certainly not many fruits and veggies. And as you know, I've talked about I've gained a bunch of weight. I found that with just watching my diet and exercising more, I dropped some weight, and then I kind of got stuck. I kind of been stuck at like 192 pounds, 190, 192. It goes up and down a bit, but I'm struggling to get under 190. I can't remember what that is in kilograms right now, sorry. So, you know what? I decided, well, I know fasting will do it, fasting will do it. I thought about just doing a water fast, but because it makes me so tired, and for the first couple days, it makes me tired and grumpy. It's kind of in a bad mood, you know. So with my kids, I don't want to be that way. So I thought, well, you know what? I could do a juice fast because a juice fast usually much less tiredness, much less grumpiness, more energy, giving your body lots of great nutrition. So I decided I'm going to do a juice fast. Part of this, too, was being inspired by my great fitness hero, Jacqueline. And in Jacqueline's book, which I've been reading, I'm talking to you about, he has a whole chapter on juicing, both Jacqueline and Paul Bragg, two of my old school, we call it, meaning they're not new, they're not fashionable. They were around for a long, long time. These two guys were some of the original health food kind of gurus, I guess you could call them in America. Paul Bragg came first, and then he actually taught Jacqueline and inspired Jacqueline. And both those guys were big, big, big, big, big advocates for, in other words, they liked and they talked about and they encouraged juicing, fruit and vegetable juicing. And they did that, you know, this is like 100 years ago, Paul Bragg was doing it. Right, so because, and why is that? Because we all know fruits and vegetables are good for us. But a lot of us, including me, find it hard to just eat a huge amount of fruits and vegetables during the day. I would struggle to eat 10 vegetables and fruits, 10 different vegetables and fruits in a day. That would be extremely difficult for me to get eight servings, you know, like three apples and then two oranges and then, you know, like, big salads and, I mean, I can do it, but it takes a lot of effort and not particularly enjoyable for me. And all that fiber I find is a little hard to digest when you're eating the whole plant. It can make you kind of give you kind of gas for some people. It did me when I tried doing it that way. But with juice, man, I can easily juice, I don't know, six, seven, eight fruits and veggies, make a big juice, put it in a pitcher, right, in a container, a glass container, put it in the fridge and then just drink on that all day. And I end up with eight, nine, ten servings of fruit and veggies that's very easy to digest. No gas, no issues with stomach, you know, you digest it super fast, just soak it up. So you're getting all the same or almost all the same nutrition, minerals, micronutrients, vitamins. And it's just so much easier to do, you know, it's just concentrated nutrition. So that's what I've been doing, but the juice I did today was, let's see, I did three apples, I think, three apples, like four carrots, some kale, just dark green, you know, a little like spinach, can be a bit bitter and strong by itself. But you juice it with this other stuff that's more sweet and it's fine. So kale, a lemon, a cucumber, a big cucumber, a little bit of ginger, oh, and maybe like a small handful of grapes. So that was my juice for today. And I think I splashed a little orange juice in there too. So not bad. I mean, that's a ton of nutrition. And I finished it. I've drank it all down today. My kids drank a little, but I've drank it all down and actually I'm kind of getting hungry again. So I'm probably going to go in and juice some more so you can see I'm just getting a massive amount of fruits and veggies during this juice fast because it's all I'm taking in. It's like a flood of good nutrition. Now, obviously, I can't do it forever because I'm getting no protein at all, but as a fast, as a way to clean and cleanse your body, as a way to heal your body, as a way to clear your mind, as a way to lose weight quickly, but in a healthy way. It's great. Highly recommended. So day one. I'm not sure how long I'm going to go with it. We'll see. We'll see. Connected to this just for the fun of it because I've been reading Jack Elaine's book. I did a search. I got curious like about his wife, Elaine. And, you know, she also, she joined him in all his health crusades and writing. She wrote several books with him. So I just kind of curious if she's still alive. I wonder if she's still alive. She was a bit younger than him. So I just looked her up and what do you know, she's alive. She just turned 99. She just recently had her 99th birthday. Even more cool. She's in good. She's looking good at 99. She's doing a podcast on YouTube, passing it on, I think is the name of the podcast, passing it on. But if you just do a search on YouTube for Elaine LaLaine. That's her name. So Elaine, her first name. E-L-A-I-N-E Elaine. And the last name is LaLaine. L-A-L-A-N-N-E Elaine LaLaine. She does a podcast where, not surprisingly, she talks about health and fitness. She talks a lot about her husband and all the things he taught. Of course, he taught her and now she's continuing to teach his principles and his ideas of health and fitness. And she's 99. It looks really good for 99. I mean, quite good mentally and physically. In fact, I just saved a bunch of her videos because tonight I want to go watch them. I didn't really have a chance to watch them very much. I just briefly looked at one just to see how she looked at 99 and looking pretty good and doing a podcast at 99. So thumbs up to her. I'll let you know maybe the next time I do a podcast, how I liked her podcast and what she's talking about. Really good. This is the power of living that lifestyle that they lived. Of course, they did it for a long time. Really great. So Elaine LaLaine podcast. She's 99 years old and still has a pretty good health and fitness, still sharp mentally, still mobile, can move around, has a good quality of life. In other words, a good quality of life still at age 99. Really, really good. So that was the inspiration for my Juice Fast. The other thing I did just to help motivate myself a little, give myself a little extra encouragement, was I went back and watched an old documentary. It's 15 years old now, but I remember watching it maybe when it came out 15 years ago. It's called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. And it's also about juice fasting. That's why I watched it. It was made by this Australian guy named Joe Cross. So at the time, this guy was fat, not super obese, but he was fat. He had this skin disease that was causing him a lot of problems. He was eating badly and I think he was in his 40s. And he just decided I've got to do something. So he decided to do a 60 day, 6-0, that's two months, juice fast, only fruit and vegetable juice for two months. Now, he was fat enough, he could do it because he had plenty of fat to burn. And so he makes a documentary, he makes a video during the 60 days. So he travels, he comes to America, he spends like one month in New York fasting, meets with a bunch of doctors to make sure he's healthy, he can do it, it's not hurting him, blah, blah, blah. And then the second month he travels around America, kind of talking to people, interviewing people about their health and what they eat, and of course showing how unhealthy most Americans are and how horrible the food is. He meets another guy when he's traveling around this truck driver who has the same skin disease. This truck driver is obese, like a really big, huge guy, super unhealthy. And he convinces that guy to do a juice fast and the guy ends up losing a bunch of weight and doing well. Now, sadly, the second guy, I ended up reading that he ended up gaining a lot of the weight back later. So, you know, there's kind of two things you've got to deal with if you're trying to lose fat, and one is you've got to lose the fat, but obviously the second one is you have to maintain it, you can't just bounce back up and gain it all back again, right? You can't go back to eating garbage and being lazy. But I find, with losing weight, especially as you get older, it can be quite tough and it's really easy to kind of get stuck, like I feel like I've been stuck at 190 pounds or so, 190, 192, and I get a little frustrated and you might start kind of generally going back down again slowly, but it can hurt your motivation, you know, when you're getting stuck and you feel like you're not improving at all. And, you know, I know that to be patient, but I know that from my past, that if I fast, that I can lose it, I can probably lose it pretty quickly, and that feels good. And to do it with juice fasting, I know that I'm still giving my body good nutrition. So, we'll see. I'm not sure how many days I'm going to do, but I'll keep going as long as I'm feeling good and as long as I'm losing some weight. So, this brings me to a point about adjusting. So, on one hand, we want to keep grinding, grinding, grinding. You do. You need to grind. You need to grind. You've got to keep going, keep going, keep going, right? Don't quit, don't quit. But it's also true. We definitely need to adjust if what we're doing is not getting the results we want. You've got to give it some time. I don't mean instantly. But after a while, if you feel like you're getting stuck, you know, like with your English, you're stuck at a plateau. Well, it's totally normal, first of all, so don't get stressed about it. And, you know, you can just keep going, keep grinding, doing what you're doing for a few more weeks. But then if you get to the point where you feel like, you know, still doing this and just really feel like I'm not getting better at all. I really feel like I'm kind of stuck, then what you need to do is adjust. Just change what you're doing a bit. Okay, don't quit. Don't stop. Keep going with the effortless English method, but you might just adjust a bit. Maybe you focus on the mini stories more, get more repetition in the mini stories, which are easier, but which give you the most repetition and will really help your fluency the most. Or maybe you take the opposite approach. Maybe you focus more on the main lessons, which are more difficult, packed with more difficult vocabulary. If you feel like that might be better. So maybe you do repeat those more often. Maybe you add in more reading if you want to really work on that vocab and start reading some books, add in some, you know, novels that are not too tough, but that will give you a nice challenge. Maybe you add shadowing, which I've recommended many times, where you feel like, okay, you know what, I've been doing this. I focused on listening for quite a long time now. My listening is pretty good, but I still feel like my speaking is a little stuck. This is a normal thing that can happen. That's the time to start doing the shadowing. Alright, that's where you're listening to my audios. You don't pause, you let it keep playing, and you talk along with the audio. You repeat, you copy the audio, you try to copy the pronunciation, copy the rhythm, copy the pauses, copy everything. But without pausing, so you're listening and talking at the same time. It can be tough, it can be quite a challenge for a while. Sometimes you need that challenge, so maybe you keep doing the same lessons, but now instead of just listening, you're now also doing the shadowing. And that can really give you that nice kick, that nice boost, that nice quick, sudden improvement where your speaking will start making big improvements too. You've got the listening, your listening is doing great, you know you're really close now, and you just need that extra little kick. That extra little thing to get your speaking coming out, get those words flowing out of your mouth easily. The shadowing is great for that. You don't need to start with shadowing, it can be a little too much sometimes in the beginning. Up to you, you can try it. There's certainly nothing bad about it, but definitely when you get to that point where you feel like, man my listening is quite good now, but I still feel like my speaking is a bit stuck, that's when you kick in and you adjust, you just adjust. You don't quit, you don't need to throw out everything, start completely from nothing again, just adjust. You add in the shadowing and that's probably all you need. Same thing, you might get, you finish power English, you're moving through VIP, your fluency is now pretty good. You're understanding, you're listening really well. You're speaking, the words are coming out, you're getting really nice fluency, it's starting to feel effortless, but people aren't understanding you so well. You find that you're getting frustrated because people are constantly asking you to repeat. What did you say, huh? People are confused when you talk, that's a pronunciation issue. That means, well, maybe you need to adjust, now you got to add pronunciation, you just got to work on your pronunciation some. You can get my course, my pronunciation course, you can get other pronunciation courses, you can just try shadowing. There's a lot of things you can do, but again, you don't quit everything else you're doing. You just have to adjust and say, okay, you know what, keep doing what I'm doing, but now I'm going to work on pronunciation 20 minutes a day. That's probably all you need, you don't even need to be perfect with pronunciation, you just need to be clear enough that people understand you. If you have a little bit of an accent, it's no big deal, a lot of people like it. Okay, so that's exactly what I'm doing, I'm not throwing out the Jacqueline stuff, I'm going to continue. I have the same principles of eating, they're working for me, I'm feeling good. I feel like my exercise program is perfect for me right now, doing the heavy hands two hours a day. It's all working great, but my weight is stuck, like my fitness is improving, I'm feeling better, but my weight stuck a bit. So I need to adjust, I'm not going to get rid of all that other stuff because all that other stuff is working well, but I need to adjust. And I'm like, you know what, I'll add in some juice fasting, add in some juice fasting just to break through those plateaus and get my weight going down again until I get where I want to be. So make adjustments in life when you need to, don't be afraid to make adjustments, right? We don't need to be prideful, we don't need to get frustrated, and we certainly don't need to quit. A lot of times we're doing most things well and you need just small adjustments. It's very similar in sports, you know, I like the golf analogies, I like to use golf analogies, I'm not really much of a golfer actually, but just because they really show the ideas clearly. Because in golf, you know, if you watch a golf, if you watch a professional golfer swing, and one time he hits the ball badly, and another time he hits the ball well, if you don't see where the ball goes, most of us, me and you and normal people, they're going to look exactly the same. They'll say, well, what's the difference, right? But the golfer, the professional golfer, the super high level golfer can look at this way and say, ah, and this one, this one's better than that one. And good golfers, even normal regular golfers, can tell even just by the sound of the ball, they can tell the way it sounds when the club hits the ball, right? So golfers, you know, they may have a very good swing, I mean, all professional golfers have a good swing more compared to normal people. But if they're struggling, you know, it's probably just a couple centimeters adjustment, you know, a little higher when they're on the backswing, a little slight adjustment of the way they're holding the club, a little bit of a shift with their hips or their feet, like tiny adjustments. So they don't usually totally change their swing, okay? If they start having problems, they don't just suddenly, well, I'm going to do everything completely different now, right? No, they're professionals, so obviously what they're doing is working well, but they usually need to make adjustments if they're having a problem. So grind, grind, grind, focus on that constant and never-ending improvement, and make adjustments as you need to. When you get stuck, just try adding in something, change one thing, and see if you start getting better results. Sometimes just the change is fresh, keeps your brain fresh, and that's enough. Sometimes the change just helps your motivation, even if it's not doing anything else. It just kind of breaks your pattern a bit, gives you a little bit of extra motivation, makes things a little more interesting again, and that keeps you going. So make those adjustments. With English, play around with shadowing, play around with pronunciation, play around with which lessons you focus on more or repeat more. All these little adjustments can make a big difference. Of course, again, all my courses are at effortlessenglishclub.com. Lots of love to you. See you next time. Bye for now.