Juicing Day 5

A third of the way there, woo!  I feel re-energized...ok, not really, but I am happy with my progress and results, so I'm going to suck it up and stick it out.  Today's juice of the day is apple (2), jicama (1 medium), celery (2 stalks), lime (2 small), and mint (2 cups).  While I have to say that it's a little heavy on the lime, it's quite tasty (and not nearly as minty as I had feared).

For the record, I'm not starving.  I'm not depriving my body of calories (fat is another story), and while I may not be getting 100% of the protein that I "should" be getting every day, 1.) I wasn't eating enough animal protein per day to meet those needs anyways and 2.) not everyone needs a standardized amount of protein in their diet.  I don't live my life according to charts and formulas.  I've found (before and during this juice fast) that listening to your body is critical.  Counting calories will drive you crazy.  Eat when you're hungry (or in this case, drink a raw, fresh pressed juice) and stop when you're full.  Make sure you get enough exercise/movement for the amount of food that you're ingesting.  If you're moving less, then eat less.

I've been catching a lot of criticism for my experiment, everything from joking around to "poor baby" to downright lectures.  Well, you can rest assured that I'm not dying or getting sickly, and I'm certainly not a victim here.  I find it amusing how people tell me what conventional "experts" consider norms (did you know that the mayo clinic discourages people from drinking juices at all?  And if you do drink juice, they suggest you get store bought pasteurized juice...HA), mostly bits and pieces of information without really asking me about the juice fast or researching it on their own.  Juicing, in general, is something that most people should at least incorporate into their daily diets, especially given the fact that the majority of us don't get nearly enough fruits/veggies in our diets.  In each of my juices, I'm getting at least a daily dose of veggies/fruits.  If you are thinking about juicing, just remember to "eat your colors" and juice a wide variety of vegetables and fruits (although, you should probably limit the amount of fruits in your juice...just enough to add a touch of sweetness).  Heck, "eat your colors" should be a daily mantra when it comes to fruits & veggies in general.

Cheers,

Dorothy

PS I promise to update my posts with some pictures as soon as I charge my camera.

PPS I am planning on changing the frequency of these journal style entries.  Since I've transitioned rather well into drinking just juice, I will be just posting some recipes (with photos) of my juice successes.  I'll probably update and summarize at the 15 day mark and then again at the 30 day mark, just for progress sake.

Juicing Day 4

The word of the day today has been "negotiation."  Pretty much all day it's been my stomach v. my head in a very child-like back and forth that goes a little something like this:

"I'm hungry"
Have some juice.

"I already had juice.  I'm bored of juice.  How about Dante's 3 layer fries?" (fries, cheese, bacon, jalapenos, sour cream)
You already know the answer to that is no.

"Fine, what about potstickers, you know, the ones from Lily's Garden...they've got ginger in them, sort of like those juices you keep drinking."
Um, no.

"Alright, what about Doritos.  You' haven't eaten Doritos in ages.  All that cheesy crunchy goodness...don't you miss crunching?"
No and no.

"Roast beef with potatoes?"
You don't even like beef.

And then my stomach deals a low blow...

"Vietnamese spring rolls?  You don't even need to put the noodles on them, just veggies, green apple, herbs, and that delectable peanut sauce???"

Oh crap...

I've been bugging my nutritionist friend for support a LOT today, to the point where I'm sure she's amused and mildly irritated at the same time.  She's been a great deal of help with talking me off the ledge over the past 4 days, and she told me that 60 days is a really long time to subsist on juice alone.  We talked about my motives and my 2 upcoming races that I should start training for soon...60 days is a heck of a long time to go without chewing and crunching.

So here's the revised deal:  15 days (so my stomach is just going to have to suck it up and stop thinking about food other than fruits and veggies) of pure, unadulterated juice.  I'm going on vacation for a long weekend at the end of the 15 days, so I'll be transitioning into eating some solid foods (again, fruits & veggies only, with maybe a little protein in the form of eggs).  Then for the remaining 11 days (so 15 more days total), I'll be juicing for breakfast and lunch and eating a nice solid scrumptious salad for dinner.  She suggested this would be a great way to transition back into the land of the living (er...eating).  A 30 day juice/raw veggies & fruits stint sounds doable.

So for now, back to the juicer I go.

Cheers,

Dorothy

Off to a Great Start! (Breakfast Smoothies)

Alright, day one is in the books, not without a few temptations, however.  For breakfast, I made a blueberry spinach smoothie.  I know that spinach in a smoothie sounds like a bad idea, but actually the flavor of the spinach is pretty delicate, easily masked by the stronger flavors of pretty much any fruit that it's paired with.  I try to have either a smoothie or a bowl of whole grain, high fiber hot cereal (with fruit & a little honey) every day.  I find that the fiber in both of these helps to get me to lunch without searching the office kitchen for something else to snack on.

  My smoothie recipe is really basic & pretty easy to switch fruits in or out, depending on availability and personal taste.  The easiest thing to do is just pick up a couple of bags of frozen fruit when you're grocery shopping & just keep them in the freezer.  If I use milk, I try to use whole milk that is raw or organic milk that's pasteurized at a low temperature (Kalona Super Natural is the only organic milk brand that I know of that does low temp. pasteurization).  Vitamins are fat soluble, so if you use skim milk, there are far less vitamins than whole milk.  I know that there are plenty of people who would argue that whole milk is full of fat, but I don't really eat much junk food (if any) on a regular basis, so I justify my whole milk as my "junk food."  If you're going to use honey in your smoothies, or at all for that matter, make sure that it's raw, unfiltered and local, like within 100 miles of your home.  Honey has some great anti seasonal allergy properties since real local honey contains small amounts of pollen in it, sort of the same concept as a vaccine (if you ingest small amounts of the allergen material, your body builds up an immunity to it).  Smoothies take less than 5 mins to make, so they're a great make & go breakfast for days that I'm running late.

Basic Smoothie Recipe

1 cup spinach (or a decent sized handful)
1 cup frozen fruit (if you use strawberries or something with really big chunks, I suggest microwaving them for about 25 seconds to thaw them just a little)
3/4 cup liquid (milk, soy milk, almond milk, fruit juice, just something to get the frozen stuff moving)
1-2 teaspoons raw unfiltered local honey (or more to taste)
1/3 cup almonds (optional)
1 teaspoon cinnamon or freshly grated ginger (optional, depending on the fruit blend)

Throw all the ingredients into a food processor, blender, or blend with a stick blender until smooth and blended (you shouldn't be able to see big pieces of spinach).  Pour into a travel mug & run out the door.

Before:  Frozen blueberries, spinach, honey & milk

After:  Smoothie goodness