Juicing Day1

Today was the day...the full blown juicing began. It was interesting and not too bad of a day. Here are some things I learned:

1. When juicing mangos, the juicer will smoke a bit if you don't take out that big seed (pit) in the middle. Since I always cut up the mango I never really got to that part so I never knew it was there. Juices much better when you pull it out. Hahaha!

2. I own a very powerful juicer because it shaved off quite a bit of that seed before I realized something was wrong.

3. Cucumbers can be violent. Do not just drop it in. Turn the machine off, load, and then turn on with the top covered.

4. Shockingly, a yellow hot pepper and some ginger make for an excellent addition when added to your morning juice.

5. Everything is a bit thicker than I expected. Not quite a smoothie but not quite juice. It is definitely not what I expected but still good.

6. When I think everything tastes like grass, my husband finds the juice kind of tastey.

7. It takes quite a bit of fruit to get a small amount of juice.

8. Cleaning a juicer post juicing is MANDATORY!

9. Pulp is gross. Especially when you have to stick your hand in it to pull it off of the top of the waste top.

10. If you line your waste container where the pulp goes with one of those baggies that your fruits and veggies come in from the store, your cleanup time is much easier.

So day 1 hasn't been bad. As I mentioned in last night's post, I used the slim fast method of juicing and miserably failed at it. I still decided to do that today since I was starting to go into exhaustion mode as I did when I was sick with fibro so I decided to give myself some REAL food. It was healthy though. Instead of the Doritoes that I bought yesterday, that smelled awesome, for a snack, I enjoyed some Vampire Killer Kale Chips that I had bought in the past from Brad's Raw Foods. They are just dehydrated kale with some vegan cheddar cheese and some garlic. I only ate around 8 of those and they aren't very big, so it was a small snack. For dinner we went to Chen's per Zac's request. He had juiced with me all day and was a bit on the starved side. So while he hit the buffet and had the awesome fried rice and crab rangoon, I hit the hibachi grill and had veggies. The only non-veggie thing I had today were some noodles that I picked up for the grill and some of those crunchy things that went in my Hot and Sour soup. Overall a good first day. I actually feel pretty good right now. Normally when I am exhausted at the end of the day, I am finding that I actually have some energy.

If you are considering juicing, I say go for it. It isn't all sweet and thin as it in the store so that will give you a different taste for sure. Anytime you juice kale, your juice will have a slight grassy aftertaste. It's not as bad with spinach, but definitely lets you know it's there by the green color you get. With day one over, I am excited to start Day 2 and see what it brings. I look forward to the weight loss and the mental clarity and all the other things that people rave about on this diet.

For those that want to know the recipes that I used today, they are posted below:

Breakfast:

Sunny G Juice

Ingredients:
2 mangoes
1 orange
1 yellow pepper (capsicum) ...I used an actual yellow hot pepper.
2 inch piece of ginger

Directions:

1.) Peel mangoes and orange and wash pepper.

2.) Slice off top of pepper and remove seeds.

3.) Cut pepper in half to fit into juicer chute.

(Overall had an orange juice taste but a slight spice to it that I liked. Where I usually have a somewhat queasy stomach, that was eased with the ginger.)

Lunch:

Spinach Lemonade

Ingredients:
8 cups spinach
2 lemons
1⁄2 cucumber
1 pear
2 granny smith apples

Directions:
1.) Peel lemons and core apples.

2.) Juice everything.

3.) Add a splash of all natural sweetener like stevia if you want to tame the sour/lemon flavor a bit. (optional).

(This has an overwhelming "greens" taste. Yes it taste like lemonade but it also tastes like grass. The only thing that I can compare it to is when you were a kid and would eat clover-if y'all did that-. I remember my next door neighbor telling me that it was ok to eat clover and some kind of flower and that is the exact thing that this tastes like.)

Dinner:

Fruit blast

Ingredients:
Handful of cherries
2 Handfuls of black seedless grapes
1/2 handful of green grapes
4 skinny organic carrots
1/2 pint of strawberries

Directions:
1) Thow everything in juicer (stems on cherries as well)

2) Pour over ice

3) For an added lighter flavor, after you have drank your first batch, add water over your ice and get a flavored water.
(This was a concoction that I threw together in order to stop burping up grass flavor. So I went for no greens but threw in some carrots to get my veggie fix. It was quite tastey.)