Three Days to Clarity: The Life-Changing Benefits of Juicing

Sometimes “incurable” means we can only heal ourselves from within.

I was 38 years old when my career—and my health—came to an abrupt stop. I was a vocational teacher, proud of the classroom I had built and the hundreds of young men and women I had trained to work with their hands and shape their own futures. I loved my work. Then the doctors sat me down, and their words burned into me: “What you have is very rare. Incurable. Enjoy your last days.”

The diagnosis was neurological diaphragmatic paralysis. My diaphragm was paralyzed, making breathing itself a laborious, daily battle. The classroom I loved was gone. The career I had poured my heart into was gone. I was left at home, on the couch, with nothing but silence. For the first time in my life, I had nowhere to go, nothing to do.

That was jarring for a man like me. I had spent my whole life in motion—working at Jiffy Lube as a teenager, grinding through an apprenticeship to become a licensed master electrician, then teaching in the very school where my father had once taught. My life had always been in sixth gear, pedal to the floor. Now everything screeched to a halt.

And so I sat in stillness.

It was in that silence that I heard something inside me cry out: I need answers. I need help.

A Picture That Changed Everything

One memory bubbled up: my brother juicing when we were kids. Back then, it seemed odd. Now, it felt like a clue. I went online, desperately searching for anything that might help. That’s when I stumbled across a documentary called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead by Joe Cross, who recounts the miraculous benefits of his juicing journey.

The movie poster stopped me in my tracks: It depicts an overweight man poking out of the feeding tube of a juicer. Beside the juicer was the same man, but this time he was fit, trim, and happy. It’s almost cartoonish, but it hit me like lightning. What if it’s possible? What if food could heal me?

The next morning, I drove to Whole Foods and stood in the produce aisle. It was like I was seeing this part of the grocery store for the first time. The colors shimmered—reds, yellows, oranges—but the greens leapt out at me. They almost spoke: This is what you need. This is the medicine your body is craving.

I filled my cart with kale, spinach, cucumbers, celery, and apples. Back home, I unpacked my brand-new juicer, dropped in the greens, and watched as a stream of vibrant liquid poured out.

When I raised the glass to my lips and took that first sip, I nearly wept. Energy surged through me. For the first time, I understood what “living food” meant. Every meal I’d eaten before—processed, packaged, microwaved—had been dead. This was alive. This was life entering me.

The Battle with Sugar

I committed to a three-day juice fast. The first day, I felt shaky. The second day, the headache hit. Brutal. Pounding. I could barely think. Out of desperation, I looked up withdrawal symptoms for hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. To my shock, I checked every box.

But I wasn’t using drugs. I was withdrawing from sugar.

That’s when the truth hit me: Sugar is no different than any other addictive, refined plant product. And I was an addict.

By the third day, something shifted. The pounding in my head began to ease. In its place came something I hadn’t felt in years—clarity. Not just clarity, but a peace and focus deeper than anything I had ever known. My body felt lighter, my mind sharper, my spirit alive.

For the first time in years, I wasn’t living out on a tether of illness and cravings. I was back in my body. I was home.

An Awakening

On the afternoon of that third day, I lay back on my deck, letting the sun warm my face. Suddenly, it was as if I were seeing light for the first time. The world was radiant. Even behind my closed eyes I saw bright, energized forms dancing. I can only describe them as the little “guys inside,” the living sparks of life that had been buried beneath years of toxins and fog.

A profound light filled me, so strong it brought me to tears. It was a moment of enlightenment where I felt reconnected to God, or what I call Source. Who I had been before that moment and who I was after were two completely different beings.

The doctors had told me my condition was incurable. But I realized something that day: I now knew the way I could cure myself from within.

Cleaning the Terrain

That first three-day fast showed me something I now call the terrain. The environment inside our bodies matters. When the terrain is polluted—by sugar, chemicals, toxic food, toxic thoughts—the true self gets pushed out. The “bad guys” take over. They drive your choices. They make you crave what’s killing you.

But when you clean house, when you give your body rest, the spirit returns. Your true self comes home.

I didn’t stop after those three days. I kept going—11 days in all. I lost 40 pounds of inflammation and water weight in that time, and I gained an even deeper clarity of mind and spirit.

The Ongoing Journey

I won’t pretend I’ve never slipped back into old habits. I have. It’s easy to drift. But now I know the truth: Whenever I veer off course, I can always come home again. It only takes three days.

Three days of rest for the body.
Three days of silence for the spirit.
Three days to remember who I am.

I’m 52 now. The doctors who told me that my days were numbered at age 38 were wrong. They didn’t know what fasting, juicing, and God’s healing power could do. My routine still involves juice and smoothies several times a week, with regular days of fasting.

My health challenges remain real, but I’m alive. I’ve watched my children grow. I’ve learned that healing doesn’t always come in the way we expect, but it does come. And I know this: The body is designed to heal when we give it the chance.

What those three days gave me wasn’t just physical clarity. They reconnected me to Source, to life, to the truth that no matter how dark things look, the light can always break through.

And that’s a lesson worth sharing.

• by  Christopher Servedio