Welcome to a diary of food and adventure. My goal is to lose 5 pounds in less than 10 days – returning me to my ‘normal’ weight and getting all the fat rolls out of my armpits. To hear about how this all began go here.
If you have a few unwanted pounds hanging around your midsection (or other section) feel free to join me! I am a firm believer in not letting the extra holiday weight or water weight hang around long enough to become your weight. Get rid of it now before it settles in and raises a family.
Juicing is a huge part of my life and juice is playing a big role in my current “clean-up” plan in order to drop weight fast.
If you are new to juicing go here to read all about it. Juicing is a game changer. In America we don’t eat enough fresh fruit and veggies. Living foods are what heal, repair and sustain our bodies. Most of the veggies we eat are cooked, processed or tampered with.
Juicing is a simple way to pack your diet with tons of fresh,raw fruits and vegetables.
I stood strong against juicing for several years before I finally got a juicer. After reading book after book proclaiming the miracle of juicing I finally caved. One of the books that really rocked me was Life, Cancer & God. In this book the author tells how she beat advanced stage cancer. Her approach included her faith, healthy living choices and LOTS of juicing.
While I was in Florida (last week) I read a couple of other interesting books that included juicing as a part of a healthy diet. One of them was Reboot with Joe Juice Diet. His story is amazing. Basically he was fat, sick and nearly dead. I’m not sure if I am getting this 100 percent accurate – so bare with me…. but he basically lost 100 pounds in 60 days by juicing. He changed his heath and his life.
His diet is not one that anyone would live on, but I agree that juicing is a great way to kick-start a weight loss program or shed a few unwanted pounds quickly.
I’m not sure how people survive on juicing alone for days (or weeks) – I think I’d be difficult to live with.
Even if you are not interested in losing any weight, juicing is a great addition to a healthy lifestyle.
- Juicing May Replace your Daily Multi-Vitamin – When fruits and vegetables are juiced, the cell wall of those foods are opened to release all the nutrients inside. This makes amino acids, chlorophyll, enzymes, minerals and vitamins available for fast absorption by the body once the juice is consumed.
- Freshly made juices are the King of all foods. The nutritional value of freshly made juice can not be reproduced or manufactured and put into a pill. There is no other food that can be absorbed and used as quickly by the body. Because juice does not need to be digested, it is readily available and absorbed almost immediately by the body.
- Juicing is a nutrition packed shot to the body. Because juicing removes the fiber and pulp from the fruits and vegetables you can consume much more volume of these foods. The juice is nutrition packed.
- Juicing will allow you to consume a wider variety of foods. With juicing I consume limes, lemons, cucumbers, celery, ginger root and many other fresh foods that I would otherwise never eat every day.
- Juicing is the fountain of youth. New research actually indicate that antioxidants (like the ones found in fresh juice) slow aging, promote endurance and improve mental function. [Jacobs, Carole. The Everything Juicing Book. Adams Media. 2010]
- Juicing allows you to consume more fruits and vegetables. Different groups have different recommendations for the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables we should consume each day. For heart health and disease prevention the quota is steep. I don’t know what the right amount of fruits and vegetables is, but I know that with juicing I easily consume over 20 servings a day.
I know that a juicer is an investment. You don’t need to spend a bunch of money to start juicing. I know that some people use a blender. I think this route sounds time consuming and difficult. If I am going to add something to my already busy schedule, it needs to be quick and easy.
To see the juicer I have go here. I have a masticating juicer. You do not need to get a masticating model. Any juicer will provide healthy juice for you to drink. The Walmart near me sells this one for about $50. I will say that I’ve cleaned several juicers and the masticating is the fastest and easiest to clean.
In order to drop some pounds fast I am juicing for breakfast, lunch & snacks. In addition to all that juice I am munching on a few raw fruits and veggies. The only meal I am eating (in the traditional sense) is dinner. For dinners I’ll be having clean meats and lots of veggies.
When I say I am juicing – I mean I am juicing like crazy. I will easily drink between 6-8 fresh juices each day.
Here’s what I ate on Day 1:
DAY 1
Sunrise:
2 3 cups of coffee
Breakfast:
I made bacon and eggs for the family for breakfast & forgot I was on a juice regimen. I ate a plate of bacon and eggs before I remembered I wasn’t eating food. Dang it.
At this point I could have thrown in the towel and quit or just decided to postpone the whole thing until tomorrow. I decided to stay the course even thought I’d fallen off the wagon for a minute there. Bacon and eggs are not the worst thing I could have eaten. The eggs came from my coop and the bacon I raised in the side yard – all good.
I assembled the juicer (easy) and made 5 servings of my Go-To Green Juice.
I drank 1 of them for breakfast & sealed the rest for later.
Lunch:
I made a big batch of carrot-berry ginger juice (2 lbs carrots, 1 cup cranberries, 1 cup strawberries, 1 inch of fresh ginger root). This made a bunch of juice so I drank a giant glass of it for lunch and stored the extra in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
I also ate a cup of fresh blueberries.
Early Afternoon Snack:
I drank another of the green juices from this morning.
Late Afternoon Snack:
I drank the rest of the Carrot-Berry Juice.
I absentmindedly sat on my coffee table & cracked open a handful of hazelnuts and popped them in my mouth before I remembered that I was supposed to be sticking with only juice until dinner. Ooops.
Again, I decided that it wasn’t the end of the world and I’d finish the evening strong.
Dinner:
I drank the last of the green juice and enjoyed a picnic dinner. My dinner included some homemade summer sausage made with venison and a bunch of celery and carrots.
Day one ended early as I was exhausted. We had quite the adventure getting home from Florida (go here to read about it) and then we attended a swanky New Year’s party. I had been busy unpacking, taking down Christmas decorations and getting ready to start life again so I was tired. Sleep was more important to me than food so I called it a day and turned in.
Stay Tuned – Tomorrow I weigh in.
XO,
Cj
