Juice cleanse

So... last night husband and I watched "fat, lazy, and nearly dead" I think was the name of it. A documentary that follows this guy around on a 60 day tour of the US while he's on a veggie juice only diet. He encountered a couple of people along the way, one a trucker. After his trip when he gets home, he gets a call from the trucker saying he's ready for a change. The trucker ends up losing 202 pounds!

Basically it rekindled what I've known all along, I grew up with health nut parents complete with fresh made carrot juice and all. I miss having that energy and over all feeling of.... "glow"... I guess you could call it. What sealed the deal for me was when a woman who tried it, said she felt 21 again. I'm only 29... way too young to feel this old! My energy is just gone, I've gotten lazy... I haven't been on a 3 hour dog walk through the woods in YEARS. Totally my fault that I fell in with the normality of fast food and eating too much in general.

We're not obese or anything, but each of us could stand to lose 30 pounds. Luckily I'm tall but recently I've noticed my height advantage with hiding excess weight is about to run out.

So. Dramatic change to kick start the process. Today we're going to buy a juicer, a scale and tape measure, and a giant pile of veggies after I dig up some recipes.

Our taste buds are in for a kick in the pants! We don't even eat that terrible... but it's bad enough. By no means are we on the raw diet, and we don't eat enough fruits for sure.

Any of you do this? Have any good juice recipes? I know beat will sweeten carrot, but that's all I remember. Now... they're talking about kale and ginger and stuff I'm not familiar with.

Great topic for discussion. I have been doing a lot of reading about cleansing and vegetable juice diets also and have been really thinking hard about it. Although I don't have any recipes on hand, I would love to hear other stories. I will be buying my ingredients for my organic cleanse today and will start in the morning. Ingredient are water, lemonade juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Have to do a herbal laxative as well. This is for 10 days. If you all don't hear from me again, then that means I didn't make it.

haha!

Well we just did a "Mean Green" juice, and that is supposed to be our staple for the next 10 days. No solid food... only juice.

I feel full.

We haven't bought the scale and measuring tape yet. We want to mark progress for sure and keep a log on how we feel each day.

The recipe we just did was actually pretty good! We have by no means trained our taste buds yet, but I was impressed. The Juicer we bought is way cooler than the one I had as a kid. It's a Cuisanart, was on sale at Sears today.

It was...

1 whole cucumber... just throw it in, no peeling!
1/2 lemon (just throw it in peel and all!)
2 apples (had to half them)
4 celery stalks
handful of Kale

It called for ginger, which we forgot. We substituted with a couple of carrots.

We spent $36 on veggies... we'll see how long it lasts. The cost listed on the show was $15 a day for non organic. Fridge is FULL!

Husband just whipped up a concoction... wow! Peppers (red and green), Banana, Apple, Oranges, Spinach, and tomato! Sounds crazy but wow... like fruit juice!

I feel like I had a 5 hour energy drink but I didn't.

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That recipe actually sounds delicious. I may have to try that.

You should check out the 3-Day Cleanse book by Zoe Sakoutis and Erica Huss. (They founded Blue Print cleanse) A friend recommended it to me when I began juicing and I love it! The book has tons of great juicing recipes and it also has a lot of really insightful information about juicing and detoxing. If you are serious about making healthy changes, I def suggest it. My fave recipe of theirs is pineapple, pear and lemon grass!

What kind of juicer do you have? I was reading about the Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer. I had myself all hyped up to buy the most expenisve one and then I was talking to my mom and she totally busted my bubble. We started talking about how often would we use it and the price of fruit & veggies. I know they can be pricey but most importantly they are the healthiest snack. I have started eating 2 carrots a day (dipped in peanut butter) and I send my DH to work with 2 carrots and peanut butter. Our friend received the Jack LaLanne juicer for his birthday last year, but I don't think he has used it EVER. Any advice on juicers? Thanks.

I wish I had a juicer but I don't want to spend a lot of money.

We went with a Cuisinart Juice Extractor, it was on sale and we got another 15% off for military discount... I think it ended up being $132 and some change after taxes. It's very quiet as far as juicers go! It also has a 3inch feeder tube to reduce chopping, you can throw a whole lemon in, rind and all, if you like a bit more zest, and it has a pitcher instead of one glass, great for 2 people. The pitcher also has a foam stopper, so that when you pour, the foam stays in the pitcher.

We have spent $90 in veggies over 4 days. Today we need to go get more apples and cucumbers.

I've lost 3 pounds in 4 days. Energy is way up! Focus is improved... back doesn't hurt as much as it was for some reason... maybe the increased activity from the new energy?


We are totally cheating though... I allow one cup of black coffee.. the headache from the caffeine withdrawal was not cool with the amount of chores I need to do.

We have a tiny dinner of mixed rice (cooked) and an assortment of veggies raw, chopped, and mixed into the rice. Some Basil and Cilantro and a dash of extra virgin olive oil.

Can't get over how good I feel after the initial... protests... of my stomach.

Husband tried to have a Mt Dew at school... said all he tasted was syrup and chemicals. He has drank mt dew his whole life!

ETA: I justified the cost of the juicer and veggies as a way cheaper alternative to gastric bypass. LOL... basically you're feeding yourself a concentrate, which allows you to reduce meal size easily, you get full off of one glass of juice depending on what you have put in it. Allowing the small rice dinner has avoided the irritability we had on day 1. Dinner is really 1 cup, in a bowl. Before... I'd fill the whole dinner plate up and it would be something like... 4 cups of food loaded down with butter and all.

The cost will go back down once we use the juice as a supplement and not the majority of the diet. Juice for breakfast and snacks, small meals of raw veggies and whole grains. No bread though, not on a regular basis anyways. Once the food is processed, you lose the actual nutrition in it.. apparently. Even steaming veggies removes some good stuff they had. As soon as you add heat, they start breaking down and changing.

TV is really hard to watch. Pizza... fast food... every single commercial is all food and cars! We mute the TV and go make juice. haha.. or watch netflix.

Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I watched that same documentary (was bored and looking for something on Netflix) and I went out and did the same thing. Bought a juicer and a bunch of veggies. It was a shock to the system. I only made it four days though. My stomach started hurting REALLY badly. But, to be fair, I was working insane hours and the time and I'm pretty sure I had a pre-existing ulcer.

Now I just try to incorporate veggie juice and fruit smoothies into my diet, as well as lots more salad/veggies.


Good luck though! It really did make me feel better, even in that short amount of time. I think I lost five pounds, but they came back as soon as I started eating whole food again.

I really want a VITAMIX!!

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Good job!!!

Please keep us posted on your progress AND weight loss and how you feel.