Day 20

I have been having some funny symptoms. I think I have it narrowed down to the temporary crown in my mouth, which gets replaced with the permanent one next Wednesday.

But I'm feeling only partially on-line and I am feeling like I need to at least eat a meal each evening to stay present. Otherwise I am sleeping or wanting to sleep all the time, which is not my normal metabolism when I am juicing. Normally I am wide awake with more energy than I need to get through the day and play with my kids and keep the kitchen clean and stuff.

I'm going to keep juicing two meals a day, and try to keep evening meals within the modified parameters for weekends, but I'm not going to even try to lose weight this week. If I can maintain, I will call it good.

Week Two

Did I lose weight? Nope. Gained 2.5 pounds.

What did I expect? Chinese food. Crispy chicken burritos. Hospice. Karaoke. Adrenal overload. Puh-leeze.

That's how my body works. It's a constant-constant-constant battle. Did I mention? It never stops.

But something interesting IS happening. Even though I have not been juicing ALL of my meals, I have for the past two weeks had only juice until the evening, and often all day, but not EVERY day. And things are shifting.

My mid-section is shrinking. That layer of fat around my liver-section is going away, and I don't see my tummy sticking out past my chest when I look down. My posteriority complex is shifting as well. While it is not shrinking that I can tell, it is smoothing. And my jeans do fit differently. The button is not biting my belly like it did last week.

I have a funny shape. It's been that way for about 10 years. I'm all distorted - I have bumps where there should be curves. When I was younger and overweight, things were at least nicely curved. That's the trend I'm seeing now. I'm starting - slowly - to curve where I have lately bumped and bulged.

The other interesting thing that I'm seeing is that my skin is smoother. As in less cellulite, ladies. Did you get that? Go back and read it again.

So I'm calling this experiment successful so far.

I have not been drinking water because I figured that the amount of juice I have been drinking contained enough fluid. I am re-thinking that. My Naturopath told me that I am releasing high quantities of toxins. She said I needed to flush them out of my system with water because if I didn't, they would just go find a new place to hide.

No.

This week I'm going to add 64 ounces of filtered water per day to the mix. Hopefully it will allow me to drop some weight. I'll let you know how that goes.

Day 12

This past weekend, I made great plans. I had good intentions. And I not only fell off the wagon, I careened.

Friday night was good. Dinner out with Steve. Simply cooked meat and veggies, with fresh squeezed grapefruit juice. Modified weekend, just as planned.

Saturday morning was good too.

Even Saturday afternoon. I made a gallon of juice to take with me overnight to my Dad's, because Gramma is in hospice and it was time to go hold her hand. Now, I don't know about your emotions, but mine have their own personalities and feeding schedules. Tough decisions were made. Apparently that means Chinese food. And karaoke. But that's a different conversation entirely.

I was fine Sunday morning with my juice, too, waking up at my Dad's. But Sunday afternoon, leaving Gramma's, I found myself on my two hour drive home with crispy chicken burritos in my hand, and a half gallon of day-old juice sitting between the seats next to me, unopened. Now, I am not a fast food kind of girl. I know what's in that stuff. It has to get pretty desperate for me to eat something someone hands me through a window.


But I'm not giving up.

I put one tiny little Thai chili pepper in today's juice. I feel like I want to sleep for days after the last couple, just to process, but I have to work. So the spiciness is for waking me up, and it seems like it's helping.

One Week

All I really have to share today is that I'm still juicing, and I lost 6.5 pounds in the first week. That's pretty normal for the first week. It should slow down now.

Oh, and the carrot apple mix seems to still be fine by the end of a day following me around in a stainless steel canteen, but the stuff I made yesterday pretty much made me yack by the evening.

I feel great. I'm not hungry. I'm not tempted by what I'm making for my kids. I have plenty of energy, and I'm not cranky.

Seven.

On the 7th day, she rested from all of that monotonous apple carrot juice. And she saw that it was good.

Breakfast was two green pears and two fennel bulbs, juiced. Not bad. Better when I let it sit for about 20 minutes and let the flavors mix. It was fun watching my 10 year old run around with fennel fronds sticking out the sides of his mouth while he got ready for school.

For the rest of the day I made two juices.

Juice the First: slightly modified Reboot Rainbow Salad Juice from www.jointhereboot.com. Not bad. I like the salt in there - it's a nice break from all of the sweet for the last several days. The purple kale is a little overpowering. Might try it with spinach next time. Or just take Chlorella capsules and leave the green out of the mix. By the way - you know that reaction you get when you slice onions and you cry? Imagine pulverizing every cell wall of the onion instead, releasing millions of tiny tear-gas bombs into the air, and then breathing that. Note to self - next time using an onion in the juice, breathe through a slice-of-bread mask. And put the onion in last. Next to an open window. With a fan.
_________
four small zucchini
two regular sized slicing tomatoes
1/4 of a purple onion
5 purple kale leaves
two carrots
pinch sea salt
pinch fresh pepper
 

Juice the Second: Sunset Blend, also from www.jointhereboot.com, also slightly modified. Pretty good. The sweet potato tastes powdery. I'll need to get used to that.
_________
two golden delicious apples
two carrots
one medium sized golden beet
one red bell pepper
one cara cara orange
one large-ish sweet potato

Beyond day three, barring life-shattering epiphanies, and until new clothes need to start happening, nothing is really very interesting. But tune in tomorrow, when Ariana says "I lost _____ pounds in the first week!" (It's not nuthin'!)

Day Six

I feel great!

It's going pretty good. Yesterday was the first day that I didn't eat anything solid. No carrot sticks, no apple slices, no midnight refrigerator runs for a bite of chicken leg.

I found myself on the way to pick up my son from school, praying that my daughter had eaten the last of the salted caramels I remembered I had in the car. She hadn't. I sat with one in my hand and looked at it for about five minutes, thinking about all of the reasons I wanted it, and all of the reasons I didn't. It was strange, and it was enlightening. The reason I wanted it was because I wanted it. Period. But there was a long list of really good reasons I didn't want it. They made sense. They actually made more sense than eating it made, which makes no sense to me, because carbohydrate addiction and glacial metabolism are my Demons.

And make no mistake, they are Demons. I have the most willpower of anyone I know. I can stick to a plan and carry it out. I finish projects. I have been self-employed for 13 years. I was raised to believe that I can do anything, and by golly I can.

But I am fat. Because all of the willpower in the world is nothing if my hand starts putting the food in my mouth 20 minutes before I realize it's happening. And because my fabulous, amazing body can gain weight on 500 calories a day. I am not oblivious to the situation, except in the moment when it's happening.

I digress.

I wanted to answer another question I've been getting. Is it expensive to juice?

It doesn't have to be. Here's what I do. It's much more boring than my cousin Merica's plan, which looks delicious by the way, but it works for me. I'm kind of roughly following the Gersons' juice plan. They say that a base of apples and carrots is great for healing disease, and that sounds just juicy to me, so I'm going with it.

I found 3-pound bags of small organic fuji apples at New Seasons for $2.99 so my apples are about $1.00 per pound this week, but they are usually about $2.00 per pound. I buy organic limes, beets, ginger, turmeric, and I get the 10 pound bags of organic carrots at Costco for $5.99.

I use about 3 pounds of apples a day ($1.80 to $3.60), and the same amount of carrots ($1.80). One lime ($1.00), one half large or one small beet ($1.00), two thumbs of ginger ($0.75), one knuckle of turmeric ($0.50). That works out to about $6.85 to $8.65 per day, or about $50.00 to $60.00 per week for the base price. I also add in greens every day, and red peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, whatever is on sale. It still is under $75.00 per week.

The weight is coming off. On the days when I eat raw carrot or apple slices, it comes off slower than the days when I eat nothing solid. But I don't want it to come off too fast, because I want to be able to maintain my weight loss, and I don't want my skin to be all saggy.

'Cause yuck.

Day Four

The weekend went okay. I was delighted to find your comment here, Merica, about listening to your body. Juicing - especially if you are using organic produce and going cold-shoulder on the turkey - really spills toxins into your bloodstream quickly. The Gersons talk about using coffee enemas to encourage your liver to spill the toxins into your gut so you can eliminate them more quickly. But if you are not doing that - and I'm just not, thank you, even though it sounds pleasant and stuff - easing into things is important.

And I am. Here's what I found out-and-about in Portland on Reboot Day 2. If the restaurant has a decent bar, the bartender will squeeze any combination of fresh citrus juice for you. Everyone sitting around me, eating cooked whatnot and stuff, was ooohing and aaahing over the smell of my fresh grapefruit juice. I ate a raw asian slaw with a couple of ahi skewers covered in sesame seeds that looked like a torch had been passed somewhere near them but they were still fairly pink, and then they were stuck in an upside down half orange. It was a tiny dinner, off of the happy hour menu at Jake's, but it was just perfect for easing into a fast.

Saturday evening was easy too. I went to Chipotle and got a burrito bowl with the fresh vegetable options in it - no rice, no beans. It felt like the guacamole was important - like I needed a little bit of fat. That cut the headache I was getting and allowed me to sleep.

Oh yes - and next time I start one of these I'm going to remember to pay attention to where I am in my cycle, because I really do need more protein and more fat and more iron at certain times of the month.

On to the burning question - what juicer do I use? I have gotten this question several times over the last few days. I'm using a Breville Juice Fountain Elite, just like the ones they use in the film. I have tried the Champion and the Jay Kordich Power Grind Pro as well. In my experience, the Breville is easier to use, faster to use, less temperamental, and easier to clean. The other two have things going for them that the Breville doesn't (you can make sorbet with the Champion, and the Power Grind does much better with greens and makes nut milks), but the Breville is my story and I'm sticking with it.

I do put greens through the juicer, and it does okay with them as long as I pack them down tightly or wrap them around the carrots as they go through, but I am also adding a little bit of powdered broken-cell-wall chlorella to my juice several times a day so I can make sure my protein intake is sufficient - especially during the winter when I get really cold if I don't have enough protein.