March 20, 2012

Here is a photo of my juicer... Breville Juice Fountain Elite.... Notice the plastic bag in the pulp container. After juicing, the pulp can easily be removed and thrown out, neat, no muss, no fuss.

I weighed myself this morning and am now 27.2 lbs down from November 2011. I am amazed because I am juicing twice a day and eating one main meal. If I eat too much I don't feel good, so I do best with smaller wholesome meals. I don't pretend to know what I am doing, but I keep doing internet searches to see the possibilities. There are so many schools of thought, so many ways to go about regaining health, vegan, vegetarian, juicing only, so I am trying to go middle of the road. I think I am off to the side of the road though, because I eliminated sugar, processed foods, meat, dairy, etc. BUT I have had a few items that are processed, and last week I had a chicken breast. I am trying not to be so stringent, use common sense, and enjoy what I am doing. I don't want to be so rigid that I will have a "beat myself up" attack if I stray a little here and there.

My skin has changed to softer, even though I am 63 years old and try to stay out of the sun as much as possible since I live in Florida where the sun is very strong and harsh. My forearm and legs used to be "tougher" but now it has changed.

Today I had juice twice. I went to a salad bar for a late lunch, ignored the "free" frozen yogurt machine over there, and tried not to eat things with too much oil. They have an amazing olive tapenade, they call it muffaletta, and I love that stuff!! So I have to be light with that.... If I love it that much it is because it is not that good for me... :-)

Anyhow, one of the juices was pears and fennel bulb. That is so good... Usually I have greens in any drink, but not that one, not today. It is very refreshing...

OHHhhhhhh...... Yesterday I made socca, and that is a chickpea flour, tortilla type thing you make in a cast iron skillet that is heated in a very hot oven, then you add some olive oil, then the chickpea batter, then bake it for 25 mins at 450.. I know.. I thought it would be burned!! But I flipped it over, added some carmalized veggies, and put it back in the over for 3 mins. Then I cut it with a pizza cutter... It has a very different flavor that may take some getting used to... but I love the idea of having such a high protein item that is like pizza!!!! LOL I must experiment more!!

That's it for today. My official weigh-ins are on Sundays... More will be revealed!! haha

March 13, 2012 - Doing well!!!

I have been eating cooked foods, plus raw foods, plus juicing. My experiment has lessened my weight loss. If you feel you are losing weight too fast, just eat some cooked veggies and that will slow it down. I will say that the more I eat, the hungrier I am, and when I mostly juice, I don't feel as hungry.

Today I had "mean green" for first juice of the day, then I ate some cooked cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, which was okay, nothing special. Then I made collard greens, parsley, carrots, celery, red beet, and ginger root. It was tasty and I do love the red beets. Go very easy on the red beets to see how you react to them. If you are pre-cleanse, the red beets really pack a wollop because of their liver cleansing properties. They are also high in sugars, so at first I used 1/2 beet, now I am up to a whole beet. If you do too much too fast, you can become nauseous, blech.....

I make 32oz of juice at a time, drink 16oz of it while I clean the juicer and refrigerate the other 16oz for about an hour later. I sip the juice slowly and wash the juice around my mouth to stimulate saliva, digestive juices.... Then I read that the acid from the juice can erode the enamel off your teeth... Even something good can be bad?? One thing I learned is to rinse your mouth with water after drinking juice, don't brush your teeth right after juicing, wait a while.

Because I had a good meal, and mostly juices today, I feel pretty good. The juice gives my stomach a rest from digesting foods. I suffer from GERD and take medication for it, and I don't know if I will ever be able to stop this medication. Maybe I am just built this way? I think once the weight comes off, a lot of these secondary problems will go away.

My skin is clearer and not spotty, and the texture is moving toward the soft side. My weight loss has slowed, so I have to start eating raw foods, not cooked, and use portion control, and really get serious, I MEAN IT, about walking about 30 mins every day. I have some weights, a yoga mat, yoga bricks, Wii Fit Plus, etc. It is all waiting for me to GET SERIOUS!!!!

I am sending my first Breville juicer, the Ikon Multi-Speed, back to Breville tomorrow for warranty replacement. Sometimes when I am ready to juice, it will not start. I tried taking it apart and putting it together again, still won't start... Wait a while, still won't start, then I turn it on out of nowhere and it starts!! This drives me crazy, especially when I have everything all set up to juice..... Hopefully, the new Ikon won't act like that and I can keep it as a backup or sell it to someone, or who knows what. I love the Breville Juice Fountain Elite, but it would be nice if it had variable speeds like the Ikon. I like the metal basket on the Elite, the Ikon plastic basket seems to collect residue that is difficult to get off the surface. I use Dawn detergent and it does a good job. Anyhow, Breville said it would take 14 days to get the replacement Ikon, thank God I have a back up...

I love the juices, but I don't feel I have enough variety. I tend to use what I buy which lasts a while since I am the only one in the house juicing. I need to try fennel bulb with other fruits besides pears, just to change things up.

I bought quinoa, brown rice, 7 bean mix, lentils to try. I read that lentils and brown rice was a complete protein, so I will try that with some raw veggies, or steam them lightly. I have to stay away from the Whole Foods cafeteria and eat at home. Stay away from flour, wheat, sugar, dairy, meat, eggs, cheese, butter, ok that is dairy, but I feel so much better, still have cravings for those foods, so that tells me I am not juicing enough, or eating raw foods enough. Once that conversion happens I don't think I will have cravings...

More later....

March 8, 2012

I got on the scales yesterday and came down one more pound. Every pound counts.

I made a lunch/dinner that was mediocre at best. I overcooked the steamed broccoli making it inedible. I roasted a spaghetti squash and it was awful. One good thing is I also roasted a red pepper, a sweet potato, celery, etc. I also made a tomato sauce for the spaghetti squash and that totally sucked. I ate the mushrooms that I put in the sauce, but threw the rest out. I won't kid myself by thinking I will eat it later. So my meal was pretty much gross. I have done better, but this time.. ick...

BUT, I made a delicious juice this evening: Two oranges, peeled; one lime, peeled; and one green apple. It was so refreshing and I really enjoyed it.

I went to a different farmer's market today. This one is also close to my home. I bought a HUGE bunch of collard greens that I had to put in the refrigerator sideways... It must weigh 10 lbs!! All that for $2.50!!! So I will juice the heck out of that!! The kale was puny and ridiculous, so I switched over to collard greens for a while. They also had NICE ginger root for $2.50/lb instead of $4.99/lb.

I got a lot of things I usually don't buy, because I am trying to have variety in my diet and not eat the same things every week. I also want to make some lentils and brown rice, supposed to be a good combination for a complete protein. I will have that with some steamed veggies and try not to steam them to death so they are edible... Maybe for 3 or 4 mins!!

So that is what is new on the food front.

I ordered some surround sound speaker stands which are supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I rearranged my living room and had to move the speakers, so that is my solution for the rear speakers. They sound so good!!

I also ordered a corner breakfast nook bench for my dining area. I will be getting that March 28, photos to follow, but here is the type of bench I am talking about. I love it and the price was right, $250 and free shipping!! Thank you Sears!!

That's it for today, I have to get to bed... Sweet dreams everyone!!

March 1, 2012

I LOVED this salad today. I went to Jason's Deli, they have a wonderful salad bar for $7.79 all you can eat, but I only visited the salad bar one time. They had mufeletto, several types of olives chopped, and I put it on a crisp bread... To me it was an olive tappenade which I totally love... Also on there was calamata olives, quinoa, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, bean salad, some lemons, red and yellow pepper and red onions, baby carrots, etc. I REALLY enjoyed this salad.

I had a veggie juice and later a fruit juice. Both were awesome, but I find my appetite is perking, which means I am not focusing on the juices enough. If I have enough juice, I don't want to eat and eat. So tomorrow, a visit to my favorite produce market, hopefully, they will have some of their beautiful kale, and I can get back on track with the 80% veggie and 20% fruit juices. Lately, I have wanted fruit juices. It is not a surprise to know that my weight loss has stalled.

I think I get it... stay on juices til I reach a desired weight, then slowly introduce foods back into my diet, one by one. I will find which foods are agreeable to me by my body's reaction to them. I see the logic to that now, and since I have a new juicer, plus another juicer I may send back for warranty replacement due to some motor starting issues, plus I have my Acme Supreme Juicerator from 30 years ago that I bought a new cutter blade for and I just received the clutch/nut that needed to be replaced.. Now, the juicer is doing a great job and working properly. So I can juice up a storm without fear that I will be in the middle of a reboot or fast and have juicer problems.

I am glad I took some time off of Reboot (3 or 4 days), so I can regroup and get focused...

That's about it for today... Life is so good!!