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....

Day 1 of Reboot (Quick Start)

Day 1 of Quick Start Reboot: For some reason I woke up at 7am after going to sleep around 3am, so I got on my cruiser bicycle and went for a short ride, going against the wind on the way home. whew!!

I started out with Chamomile tea with lemon and later, had one quart of Mean Green juice. YUM!! Then I met a friend who is visiting the area before she goes back home. I was so hungry by 1:30pm that I decided to go out to a restaurant to eat. I headed out to Wellington to eat at California Pizza Kitchen (they have great salads), but realized I was very close to Whole Foods!! I had a wonderful self-made veggie salad with red kale, spinach, romaine, roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts (not the ones in oil), broccoli with raisins, and an asian cabbage salad with sesame seeds. I meant to add some dressing to the greens, but it was too late to go back after I had paid ($6.00!!!), so I had it with the flavors from the other salads.... It was awesome!!

Then home to rest... later in the afternoon I had 1/3 of a fresh pineapple with some strawberries. That was tasty and nice to have something sweet. Later I made a carrot, celery, apple, ginger juice. I love me some ginger!! It adds some heat to the juice.

Anyhow, the world of veggies and fruit is opening up to me after a 30 year absence from that lifestyle. I am starting to feel 30 years younger, and the mind-set of those days is coming back, the good part, that is.... haha...

I will be juicing and eating veggies and fruits for 9 more days, for a total of 15 days. I want to do a juice only fast for about 10 days, see how that goes, then possibly for 30 days. I will see how I feel and where my head is at by then... I also have to see my doctor to get his OK before doing a juice fast, so I don't get into trouble.. lol.. .

I am excited to think that I could be 50-60 pounds lighter.. a day at a time.. For today, I am very happy with the progress and am feeling great and very upbeat....