The Joy of Juicing

I decided to start juicing.

I decided that I needed to do something, anything to get my body back on track. I have far too many aches and pains, too many health issues for my age and I need to do something soon or else I could end up with diabetes, a heart attack or even dead at an early age.

I decided to Reboot my life.

Inspired by tales from friends, family and coworkers who have all juiced and loved it I too am jumping on the juice bandwagon. I am not doing it full bore as some have done, but I believe the plan I have mapped out fits me best for right now and what I think I can handle without cheating or falling off the wagon. My main objective is going to be to eat more healthy and get my body back into a condition that is more natural and not hopped up on processed foods and sugar. If I lose weight in the process it will be an added bonus but losing lots of pounds is not my main goal for right now. I want to get healthier so I can feel better, lose the migraines and stomach issues and hopefully get pregnant.

I watched the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead at the urging of my coworker who watched it, got inspired and did a 60 day juice fast and lost a whole lot of weight. The movie is wonderful and really should be watched by everyone who wants to make their lives healthier and better. I was motivated by the success stories in the movie and how logical it seems. You are what you eat, so all the fatty, sugared, processed foods I put down my gullet was not adequate enough fuel for my body. No wonder I always felt tired and run down and like a big fat slug. I was not giving my body the correct foods to run right. If you give a car bad gas it's not going to run as well. Same as our bodies. We need healthy natural foods as fuel so we run at our peak performance. And through juicing you are able to get all of the best things out of your food, as well as more of it. I can look at five oranges and know I could never eat them all in one sitting. But juice those five oranges and all the best stuff from them comes out and suddenly I am "eating" those five oranges just in liquid form. Since you are "eating" more food you fill up more and thus are not as hungry. Something I didn't believe until today, my third day, when my random hunger cravings have mostly subsided.

Now, I know I am not as disciplined as the guys in the video and my coworker. Realistically I realized there is no way I would be able to drink only juice for 60 whole days. I am not sure I could drink only juice for a whole week. I like food and chewing way too much. But I figured I could replace two of my meals with juice and then eat only raw fruits and vegetables as snacks and my dinner. Also, Sundays would be my "cheat" day since that is when we go to Charming's mother's house for a late lunch every week. I didn't want to not eat her food so I decided that one meal would be my only none juice/veggie/fruit only meal of the week. I am going to watch my portion control and not load up on carbs to stay true, but my MIL usually cooks pretty healthy stuff and we always have a salad so I won't be too off. Also, I am allowing myself I piece of protein (be it steak, pork, chicken etc.) on one of our days off since Charming and I always grill and I am not sure I could bear to not have a small piece if he's eating it. I will be doing grilled veggies to go along with it and no carbs or starches.

I started on July 5th since I needed a last hurrah over the holiday weekend. I will be juicing up until July 24th to start out with. Sort of my trial run for juicing. So here is the log of what I have had and how I have been feeling so far.

Day One - Breakfast: Banana Smoothie (not the greatest I know but I was easing into it); Lunch - Orange Juice and raw carrots; Dinner - Large salad with multiple veggies (also a bit of shredded cheese...again, easing) and lite Ranch dressing (easing), apple, strawberries.

Day one I felt okay, just mostly tired and a bit achy. By the end of the night I was cranky and hungry and broke down and had a sliver of sugar free pound cake. I know, bad. But it did take away the headache I had.

Day Two - Breakfast: Orange juice; Snack: grapes; Lunch: Carrot juice and apple; Dinner: Large salad again, even less shredded cheese and light Italian dressing, grapes and raspberries; Snack: Orange

Day two was HORRIBLE. I wanted to kill everyone and possibly eat them. I was super cranky and irritable and couldn't watch TV because the food commercials pissed me off. I had the worst headache all day and night, just on the edge of being a migraine (but I was strong and took nothing for it, just drank water like a camel.) I also got my monthly visitor which I highly recommend if you can help it, do NOT start this process when Aunt Flo arrives. You may threaten terrible things you don't mean but can't help spewing out your mouth. And coworkers will give you a wide berth all day because you look like your will shoot fire out your eyes and possibly fry your shoes and eat them on the spot.

Day Three - Breakfast: Orange/Raspberry juice; I skipped my lunch because of what I explain below (I know bad) but I did have a Strawberry/Banana juice for a snack so I guess that could have been a late lunch; Dinner: Large salad again, NO CHEESE, and low fat raspberry vinaigrette, watermelon and grapes; Snack: handful of nuts (paranoid about not getting enough protein)

Day Three so far has been better. I woke up with no headache which was nice. Charming and I spent two hours cleaning, cutting and juicing a bunch or things which caused him to exclaim it was all too much work for him and he needed a steak to recuperate. I now have some juices in reserve for the next few days. My only issue is the prep work and time it takes to make the juices is taxing. Also the cleanup is horrendous. I am using a juicer our cousin kindly lent us but man is it a pain to clean! And it took a while for us to get the hang of things. A comedy of errors occurred in our kitchen with juice and pulp flying everywhere in the beginning. But we soon got somewhat of a handle on it and I hope next time goes even smoother. Cleaning in btween each juice is a pain but expected. All part of the experience I guess.

I also weighed myself today. I said I wasn't going to because I didn't want to focus on the weight side of things, but Charming convinced me I would want to know if I am losing mad amounts of weight. So I agreed to only weigh myself once a week. And I am going to share my starting number with you all here right now because if I have to face this number I would rather do it with other people who care than alone.

Today my weight is 258. Yup, I am a Big Fat Fatty. But I hope to change that.

I thought blogging about my journey would help me stay on track, so I will be making updates here regularly. I can't guarantee they will be every day but I want to track my progress and keep a log of how I'm doing, how I'm feeling and the strange things that may go through my head. I also look forward to your feedback and comments and suggestions. My one big hurdle right now is making sure I am eating enough vegetables and enough variety. Looking back at what I have eaten in the last three days I am definitely not eating enough veggies. But some of the veggie juices scare me so if anyone has some yummy suggestions, please let me know. I am trying one tonight that has kale, spinach and celery but also apples and a lemon so I hope it makes it sweet enough to drink it.

I tip my glass to all of you and hope you'll join me on this journey to a new and improved me!