Well. The weigh in was disappointing. I haven’t lost an ounce – but this is how it goes. It usually takes my body a couple of days to catch on.
I am on a juicing marathon. The goal is to lose the 5 pounds I found over the past month as quickly as possible. I’ve been blaming the muffin-top on casseroles and restaurants, but it doesn’t matter how it got here. It needs to go. If the 5 pounds of “holiday weight” doesn’t disappear soon it will become my weight and I don’t want it.
Today I thought I’d tell you a little more about juicing.
“According to the Department of Agriculture, 90 percent of the antioxidant action in fruit is in the juice, not the fiber. It’s hard for most people to eat enough raw fruits and vegetables to equal what they’d get in a quart of juice… a quart of tomato juice equals 5 pounds of tomatoes!” [Jacobs, Carole. The Everything Juicing Book. Adams Media, 2010. pp 14]
As I mentioned yesterday, juicing is like a steroid shot of nutrients and vitamins straight to your blood stream. In todays busy world we all could use some more fresh fruits and veggies in our diets.
Juicing allows you to consume the nutritional equivalent of pounds and pounds of fresh foods without having to actually eat, chew and digest 10 pounds of carrots.
I did some quick math and found that yesterday I consumed:
- 10 stalks celery (7 servings)
- 3 cucumbers (6 servings)
- 3 apples (3 servings)
- 2 pounds carrots (6 servings)
- 3 limes (2 servings)
- 1 cup strawberries (2 servings)
- 1 cup blueberries (2 servings)
- 1 cup cranberries (2 servings)
- 1 cup celery sticks (2 servings)
- 1 cup carrot sticks (2 servings)
That’s 34 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables. Wow! I could never eat all of this in a day, but juicing and drinking it is so easy.
I also don’t think I could turn all of this into a smoothie and drink it. When you use a blender to make a smoothie, everything you put into the blender comes out of the blender. You are consuming the entire food. With juicing you are extracting all the enzymes, nutrients and vitamins from the food without the bulk. This allows one to consume the nutritional equivalent of LOADS of food without chewing and digesting it all.
WHY?
According to the Dietary Guidelines for America we should consume between 5 and 13 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
This is a fine recommendation, however there is some interesting research out there about the actual value of the fresh food Americans are consuming today.
Did you know that our vegetables and fruits are not as vitamin packed as the ones from 50 years ago?
FUN FACT: “YOU WOULD HAVE TO EAT 5 APPLES TODAY TO GET THE SAME NUTRITIONAL VALUE AS AN APPLE FROM 1950.”
1950: “I think I’ll eat 2 apples.”
Today: “I think I’ll eat 10 apples.”
That’s a lot of apples.
This makes sense to me. When I consider how our food is grown (chemicals). How our soil is depleted. How foods are often picked before they are ripe (so they can travel). How far our food travels. How long our food is stored.
Of course it’s going to be inferior.
FAQ
I have been getting some questions about my current plan.
#1: Are you following a plan or regimen?
No. I have read many books on juicing and have learned one important fact: Just start juicing. It is so good for you. There are some tips and tricks in the juicing world that will allow you to get the most bang for your juice, but the main ingredient is juice.
Tomorrow I will talk more about how to get maximum benefits from juice.
#2: How long are you going to do this?
Until the extra 5 pounds are gone. When I hit my ‘normal’ weight I am going to go back to eating all my normal foods. This includes: baked goods from fresh milled flour, homemade pasta, homemade tortillas and all the diary I want. 🙂
I do not feel deprived when I juice all day. I feel great and have lots of energy. I don’t mind juicing for breakfast, lunch & snacks. When I get hungry for something to munch I’m eating fresh fruit and vegetables. I am also eating clean foods for dinner.
DAY 2
Sunrise:
3 cups of coffee
Breakfast:
I put the juicer together and made 4 servings of my Green Kale Juice
I drank 1 of them for breakfast & sealed the rest for later.
Lunch:
I made a big batch of carrot-berry juice. I drank an unheard-of amount of it and saved the rest for later in airtight containers in the refrigerator.
Early Afternoon Snack:
I drank another of the green kale juices from this morning.
Late Afternoon Snack:
I drank the rest of the Carrot-Berry Juice.
About 5:00 I finished off every juice in the house because I was hungry.
Dinner:
For dinner I had pan-seared breakfast chops with pan sauce (I raised the pork), roasted sweet potatoes (that I grew), steamed broccoli and a salad with organic dressing.
We went to a friend’s house for dinner and it was great to be with friends and eat some solid food after a day of only liquids!
I ate an absolutely enormous amount of food for dinner so I’m not expecting the weigh-in to go well in the morning. I’ll be sure to let you know!
XO,
Cj
