mmm peanut butter

I had some organic peanut butter as my first non-juice food, and of course, it was DELICIOUS. I'm going to see if I can stick to that for a few days as I think about what else I want to eat...

Day 10 - w00t!

woohoo! I made it to day 10! I have to say, in the last few days it became harder than the first couple days... I've decided that in the next few days I'm going to introduce solid foods back into my diet. I'm not sure how exactly, I'm kicking around a few ideas, such as fruits, veggies, and almonds, cashews, and peanut butter. I'm going to keep this journal going until day 15, and I'm still going to juice the majority of the days left, even if I do start eating solid foods again. I'll also write about my feelings about the whole diet, and what my plans are moving forward... but for now, goodnight world!

day 10, down 14 pounds since the start

I went next door to the fitness center, and I weighed in at 180 pounds, putting the total weight lost 14 pounds, at day 10 of my juice fast! not too shabby!

drinking in style!

tomorrow's juices

Breakfast -

Purple Power Juice
6 cups Concord grapes
1 Golden Delicious apple
2 (1-inch) pieces of ginger
1/2 cup blackberries

Lunch - 

Chayote/carrot/apple/pear

and

Romaine-Apple-Orange Juice
2 cups romaine hearts
2 green apples
1 orange
2 celery stalks
1/2 cucumber

Day 9

i feel like I'm heading into the home stretch now, i'm more than halfway to my goal, and I'm still fine healthwise. I feel great, i've been waking up with no problem, I've been going strong all day long with little tiredness or any other out-of-the-ordinary feeling. Overall I'm happy with myself and my body, all is good. I can actually see thinning in my face now, which is weird, but also makes me smile thinking about it. I'd say this has been a really positive experience thus far.
However, i'm starting to get hungry again. I'm not sure if it's a physical feeling, or a psychological desire to eat food at this point. It's getting harder to not notice food here and there, when I'm at work and walk into the kitchen, seeing people drinking coffee, or even opening my own fridge. But at this point it's sheer willpower that's getting me through it, somehow...

I had a berry juice for breakfast today, and lunch was a virgin bloody mary recipe that is completely different from the first one i made, and about a thousand times better! Here's what it was...

10 plum (roma) tomatoes
3/4 pineapple
2 stalks of celery (not whole stalks, just the chutes)
1 lemon
1 red bell pepper
hot sauce i had in the fridge - for this I used iguana XXX habenero sauce

This was, no lie, one of the best bloody mary mixes I've ever had. It's not as thick as regular bloody mary mix, but i think it had a better flavor to it that Mrs. T or anything you can buy in the store, it was delicious! I've actually been pretty lucky in the last few days, because I feel like the juice recipes I've been trying have really finally started tasting super good...

i did go grocery shopping today, and i bought enough to last me until Saturday. Here's the list...

2 pineapples
8 green apples
5 pears
1 red pepper
2 bags of carrots
1 bunch kale
2 quarts of strawberries
2 pints blueberries
2 containers blackberries
10 plum tomatoes
1 bag red grapes
1 bag white grapes
3 lemons

Total - $44.07


Current Stats -
weight - 181-182
BP - 136/101

day 8

Ok, here goes a quick post for day 8. Breakfast today was a tasty fruit juice, blackberry-kiwi.



Blackberry-Kiwi Juice
1/4 large pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into cubes
1 cup blackberries
1 kiwifruit
1 pear
30 mint leaves

Followed by another fruity concoction for lunch. 

Apple-Cantaloupe-Honeydew Juice
2 apples
1/2 cantaloupe
1/2 honeydew
6 to 8 kale leaves
6 to 8 Swiss chard leaves

I actually substituted some fresh romaine lettuce instead of chard leaves and kale, mostly because I used my kale up on Saturday and I didn't feel like stopping at the store on my way home from dinner last night. 

Tomorrow I'm going to have to go shopping for a lot of stuff, because I did a good job in the last 2 days of using up a lot of the loose fruits and veggies I had in the fridge. I've decided that I need to increase the veggies again. After last week's beet juice disaster, I really shied away from making the green juice, but I think I have to up the veggies because they have important nutrients I'm not getting... ugh, the green stuff tastes like earth. Luckily green apples help with that!

I'm feeling great, and I got tired for maybe 15 minutes today, but that wasn't as bad as the two days last week. I feel a lot healthier, and I'm happy with the results so far. 

Current Stats

Weight - 183ish

BP - 128/101 (I had some stress in my life today..)

well that sucked.

dinner sucked tonight, but i made it through. The place had bacon-wrapped meatloaf. SERIOUSLY? BACON-WRAPPED MEATLOAF! I was going to get it, bring it home, freeze it, and eat it when I'm doing juicing... but I didn't.
what was weird is that the waitress was fascinated by the juice diet, asked me lots of questions about what it entails, what I can eat, etc. What was even weirder is when the manager came over and asked who was doing the juice fast, and also asked me all sorts of questions. We must have talked for a good 3-5 minutes. It was just really out of the ordinary, but I liked it. I'm hoping people do get interested, maybe even curious enough to give it a try, lose some weight, feel better about your body, yada yada yada.

day 7

so today may very well be the hardest day yet. Why? Because my sister, brother in law, niece & nephew are in town, and we're taking my parents out to dinner. I'm still on my fast, and I'm not going to break it, but I'm still going... so I'll be sitting there drinking my water while everyone else enjoys their meals. Luckily I made a lot of juice today to prepare for this. I have no doubt it will suck a little.

I'm at my parents house right now, and I'm going to hop on the scale in a little bit to get a weigh in. My scale at home isn't digital, so I'm not sure of it's accuracy, but I was 183 pounds this morning. I'm really happy with the results so far, but I keep on expecting a slowdown - I mean, I've got to be out of water weight by now... my mood is good, and my energy levels are high. I feel pretty focused overall, but I don't feel like I've gained any mental acuity from detoxing my body at this point. 

One thing that's throwing me for a loop is my sister's reaction to me. The last time she saw me was only 3 weeks ago at Christmas, but she can't get over the fact that I've lost so much weight, my complexion looks great, and I'm "glowing". In fact, it's getting a little weird. My mom pointed out that my hands aren't shaking as much, which is a normal thing for me - I don't have steady hands at all. 

Here are today's juices...

Carrot Pineapple Orange Juice

1 small orange, including rind, seeded and cut into pieces
1/8 small, ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into pieces
2 carrots, scrubbed clean and cut into pieces
Juice of 1/2 lemon (stirred in at end)

*Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Cookware Series, Juicer Cookbook, by Carol Gelles.

Apple-Cantaloupe-Honeydew Juice

2 apples
1/2 cantaloupe
1/2 honeydew
6 to 8 kale leaves
6 to 8 Swiss chard leaves

*Adapted from Reboot Your Life.™

Spicy Tomato (High Antioxidant Juice)

2 large tomatoes 
1 stalk of celery
1 cucumber
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3-5 grinds of fresh ground black pepper
1-3 shakes of cayenne pepper

down another 3 pounds

Day 6

I got home late last night, and didn't feel like blogging about my day, so here it goes... I've been feeling good overall, I got a little tired yesterday, but I'm not nearly as tired as I was over the last couple months. I notice that I do have more energy, but I also increased my fruits intake because I made 2 really horrible vegetable juices, so now I'm working on finding a recipe that I can make a few times a week. After this blog I'll be searching for some tomato-based juices, because I do like tomato juice, and if I can find something really tasty (the drink yesterday with carrots/celery/chayote was great), I think I'll be able to introduce more vegetables to a tomato juice.
I noticed my complexion is better than usual - not sure if it's because of the juice or not, but there is a lot of info out there that points to juice being great to improve complexion.
Today I made fresh juice, and it was gooooood! Usually I've been prepping my juice for the next day, and the time spent usually wears me out and I end up not bothering to drink anything fresh, and also it's warm at that point. I could add ice cubes, but I haven't. I'm going to make a fresh juice for dinner, so we'll see how fresh green juice is - I'm not holding my breath for the Second Coming or anything....
That's it for now, I'll write again later.

Current Stats -
Weight - 184 lbs
BP - 118/96

QUESTIONS!

if there are any questions anyone has, or would like to know anything else about anything I'm blogging about... please please please comment! I'll respond as best as I can! Thanks

a quick word on cleaning

so the one thing that I'm not doing is making juice fresh. The reason for that is because it's a time-consuming process to make juice. I'm juicing once a day, because it's taking me a good 1 1/2 hours, sometimes longer when you factor in cleaning and cutting up fruits and veggies. Then there's the cleaning. I have it down to a process now, and it doesn't take too long, but the whole thing can be messy. I'm constantly running the faucet to clean food, strain berries, and clean up what's all over the counter. Also, depending on the size of your juicer, you may have to prop the juicer up on books, or containers up on books to make everything work out in the right way. There's also the trash, which sits next to me the whole time for stems, seeds, and whatever else has to be removed. It's not the cleanest or easiest thing to do...
These are things to keep in mind when doing a juice diet, juice fast, or even owning a juicer. But so far the results are far outweighing the negatives!

Day 5

So far, so good. I started marking a calendar at work, crossing out days towards my goal... I know, I lead a very exciting life! don't be jealous...
I didn't sleep well, but I think that's not because of the juice. I finished my breakfast juice, and I'm almost done with one of my lunch juices, and both were really good. I think part of my problem before was that everything was recommending to use green apples to sweeten the juice, and I was using granny smiths. I switched to golden delicious, and I think it's really making a difference.
Maybe it's nothing, but I don't trust farts today.
The more I'm progressing with this, the more I can't help but to think about nutrition (and even motivation) in a different light. I think it's also helping my mood, because in addition to losing weight and knowing that I'm getting closer towards a goal, I don't have the crappy feeling of eating heavy foods; food that makes you feel full, tired, or even gross. In general, I've had great energy levels all week, and besides the taste of some of the juices, everything is going well. I don't feel like I get many wins at work, so it's nice to have this to offset that.

oh yeah

So I did 30 minutes of cardio and then went over to lift some weights pretty fast. It may not have been anything, but I got lightheaded for about 5 minutes.
All the reading I've been doing does recommend light cardio and light lifting - A juice fast isn't supposed to be done while trying to have intense and high impact exercise, because it doesn't give you the stuff your body needs to recover... if you work out intensely, then use juice as a daily supplement to your meals, or an easy and healthy way to substitute a possibly unhealthy breakfast/lunch/dinner to your daily routine.
Also, you can use supplements and powders (L-Glutamine, creatine, whey, etc etc.) in your juices. I'm not taking that approach because this is for weight loss and also a reboot of my system. If you're interested in trying this, here's a great link with several different plans that you can try.

Juice Plans

Again, I don't know if people are reading this, but I'm trying to give a normal person's detail of this kind of fast. So hopefully people are benefiting from this...

day 4 & catching up!

I didn't sleep particularly good last night. I woke up feeling super tired, and it was a good 10-15 minutes until I finally 'woke up'. That being said, I wasn't tired all day! I drank fruit juice today, which is always delicious, but I had to dump out my veggie juice.
I tried making another V8 recipe, but this one had beets and radishes in it, and looked like blood. Now, I'm normally all for drinking blood, but this was not good at all. I managed to get through about 6 ounces, but decided after that that there was no way I was going to finish it. So I dumped it out, rinsed the bottle, and had more fruit juice.
You may be asking yourself what the significance of blogging about washing a container out... Well, first of all, juicing isn't entirely accurate. The particular juicer I have adds a lot of oxygen to the juice, which breaks down the nutrient value faster, as well as gives the juice a lot more foam. This foam adds up, and it also makes the juice thick, almost like a smoothie, but more liquid. It also coats almost any surface, and I'm finding I'm constantly rinsing out any glass or container I use several times. Anywho, when I got home and opened up the bottle, the smell of beets overwhelmed me! it was awful. Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica.
I'll post my current stats at the bottom, but I was able to use the scale at the gym today, which gives a much better reading. I am pleased at the current results. I know it's probably mostly water weight, but I'm still happy so far..

SHOPPING!

blueberries
2x blackberries
2x strawberries
celery
8 cpples
3 cucumbers
5 kiwis
4 pears
1 Chayote

Total Price - $23.65

I'm not sure if that will last me until Saturday or not. I'm trying to get better at figuring out how to buy for 2 days without repeating recipes over and over, and also not having extra food around. I don't want to buy stuff that ends up going bad, that'll just piss me the hell off!

Tomorrow's Menu -

Strawberry-Pineapple-Mint Juice
1/2 large pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into cubes
1 cup strawberries
1 pear
30 mint leaves

Cucumber, celery, pear w/ an apple

& this recipe that had a weird fruit I bought


Current Stats - 
Weight - 186.8
BP - 136/96

so sleepy

About 30 minutes ago I lost all my energy. I am wiped out... I'm going to have some juice, hopefully it'll help me out of this slump. I just want to go take a nap!

Day 3... these days are getting looooong

last night I couldn't fall asleep, I finally fell asleep sometime after 2am. Woke up at 7, had some juice for breakfast (today was pomegranate/blueberry with some sparkling mineral water), and started my day. I made a third container of juice to bring to work today, because I was reading last night and it sounds like I'm drinking close to the minimum of the recommended amount of juice for the timeframe I'm shooting for... oops.
I guess I slept decently, even though it wasn't for a long time. I'd like to get to sleep earlier, but I just wasn't feeling tired earlier :(  I felt the dull feeling of a migraine in the back of my head, but 6 hours later I haven't had it develop into anything substantial. yay!
I could kill for some cheese right now, or a bag of cheez-its. I won't give in, but it sucks craving food, and having to drink a bunch of green slurry. Luckily I added cayenne pepper to today's juice, and it really added some flavor (and heat) to the juice, which is a great change. At first I was concerned about using spices, but after extensive reading, it turns out it's OK to use a bunch of herbs and seasonings for flavor...

in other news, work sucks. just sayin'.

The end of day 2

It's currently 10:30pm, and I have to say that my energy levels have been very good today. I went to the gym after work, got in a little cardio, went to the farmer's market, picked up the next 2 days' worth of ingredients for my juices, and am all set to try some new recipes.

One thing I'm going to start keeping track of is the amount of money I'm spending on food, to give you a better idea of the cost associated with this endeavor.















plain parsley
2x fresh mint
loose radishes
jalapeno
4x plum tomatoes
3x bartlet pears
3x red beets
1lb carrots
pomegranate
2 pints blueberries
2 containers strawberries
1 pineapple

Total : $23.78

Depending on how much juice each item produces, I'm looking at 2 days of juice, and 1-2 days of veggie juice (depending on extra vegetables left over). I shopped for 2 days' worth of juice, and in addition to the stuff I already have in my fridge, I could probably be OK until Friday. The problem is that you don't always have the leftovers you need, or the proportions the recipes call for... and once you start improvising, the taste can suffer. However, here are two good links with some tips to help.

http://www.jointhereboot.com/juice-s-o-s/

http://www.jointhereboot.com/jamins-juicing-tips/


One thing to also keep in mind, and as stupid as this sounds, is containers. You'd be surprised at the amount of containers you'll go through in the course of a few days, and if you're like me and getting tired of constantly cleaning everything, you'll need a bunch. I'm rotating around about 8 containers, ranging from 16oz to 32oz, all with sealable lids. Lids are EXTREMELY important because juice settles, and will start to separate. In fact, you may find you have to stir it occasionally to keep it from settling.
Ok, it's late and I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow.

temptation...

Breakfast was delicious, but lunch wasn't as good. I'm struggling to find that perfect recipe I can drink a lot of without making a face after. It's not that it tastes bad, but it tastes really earthy... which is fine, but just in small doses. I drank 5 cups total today, and was pretty stoked to finish up the last of the green stuff. I'm going to try a more radical recipe for tomorrow, involving beets and radishes. fuck it.

I got a message about wanting to know if my poop starts becoming orange... so far, no. But who knows? When I started taking a bunch of vitamins for my migraines, it turned my pee this ultra bright shade of fluorescent green. I'll keep you posted on this.

so finally I'll touch on temptation. today it was seeing pretzel sticks. I really had an urge to lick the salt off of a pretzel stick, just for a change. I'm sure as the fast continues, that's going to get worse. It's bad enough every other commercial on TV is for food, but it doesn't help when you are constantly around people that have all sorts of snacks and goodies sitting on their desks, or you walk past the lunchroom and smell something in the microwave filling the air with a nice aroma...

day 2

So it's still early, so whatever I'm experiencing/feeling should be taken with a grain of salt.

I made it through yesterday just fine, except when I got home I was on the couch and started dozing off. Maybe it was a fluke, we'll see as the week progresses... I went to bed sometime around 1:15am, and was up at 7:27am to my alarm. Strangely enough, I usually wake up earlier, without the aid of my alarm clock. Also, I was completely wiped out when I first woke up... not unusual, but it took me a little more time to wake up. I'll keep my eye on that...

Today's menu includes - about 30oz of a blackberry/strawberry/grape juice, and for lunch, I made the original V-8 recipe - cucumber/spinach/carrot/celery/tomato/green pepper/parsley. I tasted it last night and this was much better than my carrot concoction, but we shall see how it is when I have a full glass. *fingers crossed*

day one, done

Ok, so day 1 is over. I spent an hour and a half preparing my juice for tomorrow, and I also found a great new site for juice recipes that I'm going to start trying tomorrow. I'm going to the farmer's market after the gym, hopefully I can get some great fresh ingredients and make something new & delicious. 

Williams-Sonoma 30 day Juice guide

I tried attaching a video, but it was really grainy. I'm not giving up on that idea, but for now I'm going to keep using this as a journal. 

So last night I also had some wine with my dinner, which I think raised my blood pressure today, so I'm interested in seeing how my BP is affected after this juice diet. I also weighed in a little more too, so I have a better indicator as to how weight fluctuates having a full day of solid foods. 

Current weight - 193

BP - 148/110

If I can think of other things to add, I will. Right now I'm thinking about including the daily price of food, but it gets tricky because I'm not buying just for a day. For example, if I buy a bag of apples, I may only use 3. So I haven't decided what to do about that yet. 

carrots go a long way

so today's lunch juice was super carroty. When I went to juice the kale I had, I realized it was dried out, so I substituted carrots instead. It's so potent, mistakes were made.

Day 1

So far, so good. I binged yesterday, and for my final meals I had a bagel with veggie cream cheese & a cheese-filled pretzel for lunch, and a calzone with pepperoni for dinner. Both were delicious!
It's still early in the day, but I'm sure it's going to be tougher as the day drags out. I've finished my fruit juice already, and all I have left now is my veggie juice, composed of a cucumber, carrots, 2 granny smith apples, half a lemon, and a little piece of ginger. Hopefully it'll be tasty (or at least better than some of the green juices I've been having in the last 2 weeks).

And so it begins... Juice Fast!

Juice Fast - the day before...

     So today, Sunday January 13th, 2013, is the day before I'm going to begin a 10-15 day juice fast. I did some reading back in December about juicing, and asked for a juicer. My awesome sister got it for me, and so began this idea of mine.
     It started as an idea to supplement my regular diet with juice for breakfast, possibly lunch, while lowering my caloric intake daily. Along with healthier eating & exercise, the plan was to take steps towards a healthier way of life, without doing something extreme or drastic. However, as I read more, I came across a movie on Netflix that changed my idea.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

     I highly recommend this to anyone. It's a good introduction to the idea of a juice fast, and it also provides a lot of the science and nutritional information behind juice diets, juice fasts, and juicing in general. It's narrated by Joe, a middle-aged businessman that, like the rest of us, is caught up in the daily grind of balancing work, a social life, and an ever-increasingly unhealthy way of eating. He's got a skin disease that flares up without warning; he's currently on all sorts of medication, and he's overweight/generally unhappy with himself and the way he's living. The movie is a documentary about his 60 day juice fast & quest across the USA and his interaction with regular people and their views on their own diets, eating habits, and ways of life.
     That being said, I'm taking a very modest approach to a juice diet and starting with a 10-15 day juice fast to reboot my body, hopefully shed a few pounds, and start a journey towards a healthier way of life - a cross between exercise, smarter eating, and moderation.

Starting stats -

• BP - 139/107
• Weight - 192

in general, I haven't been feeling great. Sometimes I can feel a dull pain in my gall bladder after eating fatty foods (I had a gall stone a few years ago, so I'm familiar with the feeling). I get a winded a little too easily, and I'm tired of it.