Seeing the scale go down I just want to...well, figure out what else I can do to make it go down faster. I am so anxious for it to go below 200! It's like, it's not real weight loss until it does, it may just be a fluxuation. Actually, though, I just opened a spreadsheet with my weight from 3 months ago and apparently I started the year at 5 pounds more than I started the juice feast, so I am down 15 pounds for the year which sounds much more real and substantial than 10 pounds.
I feel so dumb sometimes, season after season I watch the show "Biggest Loser" and all the contestants start out weighing more than I do, but by halfway through the show, the smaller ones start to weigh less than I do. Then I just think...what the heck am I doing? The answer, I suppose, is "nothing".
Anyway...I woke up before my alarm today. Not exactly all by myself...one of my cats woke me up BUT I wasn't really tired. The night before, my other cat kept waking me up all night long and then yesterday you'd think I'd have been really tired, but I didn't even take a nap, something I did several times last week. So, it's starting to seem like maybe I'm needing less sleep.
On a whim, I got the circulars from my mailbox and actually read them for the first time in years. I was checking for produce specials, and decided to walk to a store that is over an hour away on foot and take a nice long walk. I thought I knew the route, but after walking past the rowing club and the yacht club, I passed the homeless shelter and dead-ended at the women's correctional facility. I had to go all the way home and look at a map to realize I needed to go INTO the yacht club past the sign that says "private property, permission to enter may be revoked at any time" and then I would find the pedestrian path that runs between the marsh and the freeway. So, I added probably an extra hour to my walk.
When I finally got to the store, my credit card was declined and I had no other method of payment. Fortunately, there was a branch of my bank there and I managed to find out my credit card had been duplicated and was being used in New York and New Jersey. Apparently, I used it at Costco here on the east coast and then ten minutes later someone used it on the New York turnpike and my bank figured that couldn't be right so they shut down the card. I was racking my brains trying to figure out how someone could have skimmed my card and the only time I think that could have happened was right before the last time I went to my local farmer's market and I used the cash machine outside my local bank...someone could have had a skimmer on that machine.
The bank was able to issue me a temporary card, it doesn't have my name on it and it doesn't work as a credit card, debit only, so I'm not able to order anything online right now. Maybe that's a blessing in disguise since it's tempting to order more supplemental things for the juice feast but if I keep doing that I'll run out of money even sooner than I already am.
Weight: 202.8
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 12
It's frustrating to see the weight loss slowing. Okay, okay, realllllly I'm not just doing this to lose weight, but since that is one benefit of a juice feast I got kind of excited about it and I want to see those numbers keep falling! I do see my stomach shrinking, it's like a deflating balloon or or something, and I can feel parts of my body shrinking, and my boyfriend says my face looks thinner (I see it, too) but then I'll catch a glimpse of my reflection in a pane of glass and I'll be like "whoa! I'm sooooo wide! Ugh!" and I just want that weight to melt off.
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that I did a coffee enema. I definitely used too much coffee. It was the equivalent of about 8 cups and I don't know how much caffeine you actually get when taking your coffee that way but for me it was....well, I felt jittery like maybe I actually drank 8 cups of coffee, although I haven't had coffee in about two weeks and I haven't had solid food so maybe just one cup of coffee, taken orally, would have made me just as jittery. I did have that kombucha, though, so I guess I did have some caffeine. Oops. maybe I shouldn't have kombucha? Wait, but if you get caffeine in your system from the enema, then maybe the kombucha IS okay? Or maybe only if it's a kombucha enema? :P
I had the enema at 1 or 2 pm, then I had a terrible time trying to sleep.
Today I thought I'd go to the produce store, since they were closed yesterday. I figured this would mean they'd have lots of stuff on the "old clearance produce" shelves, but it wasn't all I hoped it would be. I got 4 pounds for $1 oranges, then on non-discount I got some purple garlic and a bunch of curly parsley. I spent a grand total of $3.04, which should help bring down my daily average!
I didn't have my first juice until about noon, and I actually started to feel sort of light-headed. Meanwhile, I was doing things like planning a meal to make for my boyfriend's family this weekend. I think I did a good job of coming up with a menu that people on a Standard American Diet can enjoy but I will still be included in the meal and people may not even notice I am not eating everything!
Here's the menu:
Starter: a melange of fresh juices (three different juice blends served in 6 oz juice glasses that I got when we were doing a beer tasting, I chose really yummy ones, mostly from the book Raw Food, Real World - even non-vegans and non-raw foodies seem to love all the recipes in that book.)
Soup: Black Eyed Pea & Squash w/Shiitake Mushrooms from Vegetable Heaven (the broth from it sounds wonderful, so I'll have that.)
Samusas (aka samosas - we like the recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance, even the dough is full of flavor. If we have leftovers, probably my boyfriend will eat them but theoretically we are going to freeze them and use them in Samusa Soup in a couple months, so I won't be able to eat these when we make them but maybe eventually.)
Dessert: Cantaloupe Sorbet (or watermelon, if we can't find a luscious cantaloupe. I'd love to make 3 sorbets, and I do have an ice cream compressor, but I think it'd be too many leftovers.
So that's what I was doing instead of making my first juice of the day - pouring through recipe books. I was so inspired that I started devising a Mother's Day Brunch menu as well, but that was a bit harder. You want people to feel satisfied even though you are serving them a bunch of fruits and veggies and maybe not as many refined grains as they are used to. I think the trick is to hit them with the fruit or the veg first, before they've had time to serve themselves anything else. For instance, we make this wonderful walnut-red pepper spread that we serve with lots of (often home made) bread - and we usually serve this while we're cooking, so people don't feel hungry and antsy while waiting for us to finish. For my menus, it'd be a bad idea to give people all that bread first...they just won't eat that other stuff. So, hence the melange of juices being served first before people have eaten anything else, and same with the brunch menu - I'll make sure to put out a big platter of cut fruit and serve big glasses of orange juice before the meal - hopefully people will then be satisfied without as much coffee cake and quiche as they are used to us serving them and will actually eat plenty of fruit/veg.
I was pretty happy about how little I spent on produce today and thinking how long I could make my money last until I started doing a little more reading on juice feasting and realizing maybe I was missing a few things I should be doing/taking. I ended up ordering some Healthforce Intestinal Drawing Formula, which I should be taking right now, the Chanca Piedra I need starting day 31, some maple syrup and more MSM powder, which I realized I should be taking morning AND evening, not just morning.
The Intestinal Drawing Formula contains flax meal. This kind of confuses me. Aren't we supposed to be avoiding things that contain fiber? Hopefully I will stumble upon the answer soon.
Weight: 203.6
One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that I did a coffee enema. I definitely used too much coffee. It was the equivalent of about 8 cups and I don't know how much caffeine you actually get when taking your coffee that way but for me it was....well, I felt jittery like maybe I actually drank 8 cups of coffee, although I haven't had coffee in about two weeks and I haven't had solid food so maybe just one cup of coffee, taken orally, would have made me just as jittery. I did have that kombucha, though, so I guess I did have some caffeine. Oops. maybe I shouldn't have kombucha? Wait, but if you get caffeine in your system from the enema, then maybe the kombucha IS okay? Or maybe only if it's a kombucha enema? :P
I had the enema at 1 or 2 pm, then I had a terrible time trying to sleep.
Today I thought I'd go to the produce store, since they were closed yesterday. I figured this would mean they'd have lots of stuff on the "old clearance produce" shelves, but it wasn't all I hoped it would be. I got 4 pounds for $1 oranges, then on non-discount I got some purple garlic and a bunch of curly parsley. I spent a grand total of $3.04, which should help bring down my daily average!
I didn't have my first juice until about noon, and I actually started to feel sort of light-headed. Meanwhile, I was doing things like planning a meal to make for my boyfriend's family this weekend. I think I did a good job of coming up with a menu that people on a Standard American Diet can enjoy but I will still be included in the meal and people may not even notice I am not eating everything!
Here's the menu:
Starter: a melange of fresh juices (three different juice blends served in 6 oz juice glasses that I got when we were doing a beer tasting, I chose really yummy ones, mostly from the book Raw Food, Real World - even non-vegans and non-raw foodies seem to love all the recipes in that book.)
Soup: Black Eyed Pea & Squash w/Shiitake Mushrooms from Vegetable Heaven (the broth from it sounds wonderful, so I'll have that.)
Samusas (aka samosas - we like the recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance, even the dough is full of flavor. If we have leftovers, probably my boyfriend will eat them but theoretically we are going to freeze them and use them in Samusa Soup in a couple months, so I won't be able to eat these when we make them but maybe eventually.)
Dessert: Cantaloupe Sorbet (or watermelon, if we can't find a luscious cantaloupe. I'd love to make 3 sorbets, and I do have an ice cream compressor, but I think it'd be too many leftovers.
So that's what I was doing instead of making my first juice of the day - pouring through recipe books. I was so inspired that I started devising a Mother's Day Brunch menu as well, but that was a bit harder. You want people to feel satisfied even though you are serving them a bunch of fruits and veggies and maybe not as many refined grains as they are used to. I think the trick is to hit them with the fruit or the veg first, before they've had time to serve themselves anything else. For instance, we make this wonderful walnut-red pepper spread that we serve with lots of (often home made) bread - and we usually serve this while we're cooking, so people don't feel hungry and antsy while waiting for us to finish. For my menus, it'd be a bad idea to give people all that bread first...they just won't eat that other stuff. So, hence the melange of juices being served first before people have eaten anything else, and same with the brunch menu - I'll make sure to put out a big platter of cut fruit and serve big glasses of orange juice before the meal - hopefully people will then be satisfied without as much coffee cake and quiche as they are used to us serving them and will actually eat plenty of fruit/veg.
I was pretty happy about how little I spent on produce today and thinking how long I could make my money last until I started doing a little more reading on juice feasting and realizing maybe I was missing a few things I should be doing/taking. I ended up ordering some Healthforce Intestinal Drawing Formula, which I should be taking right now, the Chanca Piedra I need starting day 31, some maple syrup and more MSM powder, which I realized I should be taking morning AND evening, not just morning.
The Intestinal Drawing Formula contains flax meal. This kind of confuses me. Aren't we supposed to be avoiding things that contain fiber? Hopefully I will stumble upon the answer soon.
Weight: 203.6
Monday, April 25, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 11
Today I was hoping to go to the Menlo Park farmer's market - my boyfriend said maybe we could, but once I found out it closes at 1pm I should have known that wouldn't happen. His daughter left town in the morning and he's been so busy lately and he's going out of town this week and he needed a little time at home to relax, do yoga, maybe some housework. He probably needed more time than he actually got. I just ended up being annoyed because I like to know ahead of time what's going to happen, and I thought we would meet earlier and do farmer's market and then we didn't.
It all worked out, though. I really needed some oranges and I knew the produce store was closed for Easter, so I decided to take a one gallon water bottle to fill up and go in search of an open store. The discount grocery (pretty much my closest store, if you don't count 7-11) was open and I got oranges, grapefruit, cantaloupe, ginger, pineapple and three boxes of organic prunes. I was pretty excited to find organic prunes at the discount grocery - I think they were a really good price and they'll keep just fine until July so I'm already for Prune Day!
I did a really short yoga workout and wasn't even ready yet when my boyfriend came to pick me up at 4pm because I was making my green juice - then we went for a little hike at a nearby park. It's wonderful there are soooo many parks and preserves and nature trails around here and we are finally exploring them! After that he took me to Whole Foods and bought me a bunch of red leaf lettuce, a couple young thai coconuts and some carrots. So I guess it doesn't matter that I didn't go to the farmer's market. I want to get my bicycle up and running again, though, and check out all the farmer's markets in my area.
Then we went to see a movie and I had a tea there. I've never had tea at the movies before - normally I would have an icey or we'd sneak in a bottle of wine or something, but the tea was nice. I do question the quality of the water, but I'm sure boiling hot tap water is better for you than most of the stuff you get at a movie theater concession.
My boyfriend is worried that after this feast I am going to become 100% raw. He's also feeling like maybe I'm purposely using my juice feast to distance myself from him. I've tried to assure him that neither of those things are true. I know my juice feasting is something of an inconvenience to him - I mean, for instance he has some customers of his that want to go on a hot air balloon ride in wine country. If we take them to wine country during my juice feast, how is that going to work out? Not the balloon ride itself, of course, but there are sure to be restaurants and wineries and things involved as well. And then what about his family? Spending time with his daughter was fine, but we often have his family over and cook for them. I'm totally game to cook for them while juice feasting, but I'm sure he's thinking that would be really weird. Maybe I need to come up with a menu that we can all enjoy. You know, a juice everyone will like, a soup with a broth that I can have too, and then maybe he can make some bread to go with it or something. Maybe this weekend we can try that.
As to the 100% raw part, I don't really want to do that. My boyfriend is vegan - well we both are although we eat honey (haha, I hate that when people say "well, I'm vegan but I eat fish" or "I'm vegan unless I'm out to dinner with my friends" or whatever weird qualifiers, and now I'm doing it too) I guess...I should say...we eat a plant based diet, and we do it for both health and ethical reasons - the ethical part is more me, but I think that you're going to cause suffering no matter what. I'm not convinced that eating agave nectar grown in Mexico under who-knows-what conditions and then processed under who-knows-what conditions and then shipped to who-knows-how-many different places or how far is better than eating locally grown honey purchased directly from the beekeeper who harvested it. And, from a health perspective I think the honey is healthier, although we shouldn't be eating too much honey anyway.
Yeah so, anyway...I don't want to be 100% raw, but I want to make better choices, and to me juice feasting is a short cut of sorts. I do this for three months, lose weight, get healthier and make a fresh start and better choices afterwards. So for instance, before at one of our favorite restaurants this would have been my typical dinner:
bread with olive oil
vegan cheeses with oily crostini
portobello sandwich with lots of aioli on oily focaccia bread
chocolate peanut butter pie
3+ glasses of wine
But what I'd like to choose is more like:
seasonal pickled vegetables
salad with tempeh
soup
1/2 glass of wine
The second menu is a totally normal amount of food to eat for one meal, but it's just not what I do when I go out to a restaurant, and I want to change that. It's also a lot more raw food, but it's not 100% raw, and that's fine with me.
All the words in the world may not convince my boyfriend about this - I guess I just have to show him with my actions.
Weight: 204
It all worked out, though. I really needed some oranges and I knew the produce store was closed for Easter, so I decided to take a one gallon water bottle to fill up and go in search of an open store. The discount grocery (pretty much my closest store, if you don't count 7-11) was open and I got oranges, grapefruit, cantaloupe, ginger, pineapple and three boxes of organic prunes. I was pretty excited to find organic prunes at the discount grocery - I think they were a really good price and they'll keep just fine until July so I'm already for Prune Day!
I did a really short yoga workout and wasn't even ready yet when my boyfriend came to pick me up at 4pm because I was making my green juice - then we went for a little hike at a nearby park. It's wonderful there are soooo many parks and preserves and nature trails around here and we are finally exploring them! After that he took me to Whole Foods and bought me a bunch of red leaf lettuce, a couple young thai coconuts and some carrots. So I guess it doesn't matter that I didn't go to the farmer's market. I want to get my bicycle up and running again, though, and check out all the farmer's markets in my area.
Then we went to see a movie and I had a tea there. I've never had tea at the movies before - normally I would have an icey or we'd sneak in a bottle of wine or something, but the tea was nice. I do question the quality of the water, but I'm sure boiling hot tap water is better for you than most of the stuff you get at a movie theater concession.
My boyfriend is worried that after this feast I am going to become 100% raw. He's also feeling like maybe I'm purposely using my juice feast to distance myself from him. I've tried to assure him that neither of those things are true. I know my juice feasting is something of an inconvenience to him - I mean, for instance he has some customers of his that want to go on a hot air balloon ride in wine country. If we take them to wine country during my juice feast, how is that going to work out? Not the balloon ride itself, of course, but there are sure to be restaurants and wineries and things involved as well. And then what about his family? Spending time with his daughter was fine, but we often have his family over and cook for them. I'm totally game to cook for them while juice feasting, but I'm sure he's thinking that would be really weird. Maybe I need to come up with a menu that we can all enjoy. You know, a juice everyone will like, a soup with a broth that I can have too, and then maybe he can make some bread to go with it or something. Maybe this weekend we can try that.
As to the 100% raw part, I don't really want to do that. My boyfriend is vegan - well we both are although we eat honey (haha, I hate that when people say "well, I'm vegan but I eat fish" or "I'm vegan unless I'm out to dinner with my friends" or whatever weird qualifiers, and now I'm doing it too) I guess...I should say...we eat a plant based diet, and we do it for both health and ethical reasons - the ethical part is more me, but I think that you're going to cause suffering no matter what. I'm not convinced that eating agave nectar grown in Mexico under who-knows-what conditions and then processed under who-knows-what conditions and then shipped to who-knows-how-many different places or how far is better than eating locally grown honey purchased directly from the beekeeper who harvested it. And, from a health perspective I think the honey is healthier, although we shouldn't be eating too much honey anyway.
Yeah so, anyway...I don't want to be 100% raw, but I want to make better choices, and to me juice feasting is a short cut of sorts. I do this for three months, lose weight, get healthier and make a fresh start and better choices afterwards. So for instance, before at one of our favorite restaurants this would have been my typical dinner:
bread with olive oil
vegan cheeses with oily crostini
portobello sandwich with lots of aioli on oily focaccia bread
chocolate peanut butter pie
3+ glasses of wine
But what I'd like to choose is more like:
seasonal pickled vegetables
salad with tempeh
soup
1/2 glass of wine
The second menu is a totally normal amount of food to eat for one meal, but it's just not what I do when I go out to a restaurant, and I want to change that. It's also a lot more raw food, but it's not 100% raw, and that's fine with me.
All the words in the world may not convince my boyfriend about this - I guess I just have to show him with my actions.
Weight: 204
Raw Juice Feast, Day 10
Today my boyfriend and I got up early (well, early for us when we're together anyway) and I forgot to bring my msm powder or my dry brushing brush to his house but I drank a mason jar of water with lemon while we did a hip opener type yoga (How To Grow A Lotus) and he had grapefruit juice with Super Seed in it. I wished I was having grapefruit juice with Super Seed! Then I made us some pineapple-garlic juice and then got ready to go in to the city.
While I was waiting for my boyfriend and his daughter to finish getting ready, I had time to put my juice feast days into my iPad calendar. (It would be cool to make an iPad app that is a sort of calendar that tracks all the juice feasting stuff you are doing.) My boyfriend's daughter invited me to her graduation, which is out of town, and she wasn't positive about the date but she thought it might be July 15. After I put the last date in, I said to my boyfriend "oh, guess what day July 15th is!" and he guessed exactly what I was writing in my calendar entry just then, "Prune Day". July 15th will be the day after the last day of the juice feast, the day you are supposed to eat a pound of soaked prunes to break the feast! Well, naturally a lot of jokes about prunes ensued, although I tried to explain that prunes are not going to have the same effect on someone who doesn't have a bunch of food in their system and has been juice feasting for 92 days. At least, I don't think so. Heck, I've been taking Cascara Sagrada lately and that doesn't even really do anything for me. Neither do coconuts. People say those are supposed to have a laxative effect, but I don't notice it.
Once we got to the city, we started to go to the farmer's market, but then we thought it probably closed at 3 and we should go eat first, I guess because it was so tempting to get something to eat at the market and ruin our appetites otherwise. We ate at a restaurant we love called "Plant" and I had some kombucha that was really not very good - the waiter said it was something, something and cilantro, but it was actually something, something and chipotle and if I'd known that I'd have ordered the plain flavor. It tasted kind of like a bloody mary without the tomato juice. Then I had a double shot of wheatgrass and the greenest juice they had. The green juice was not tasty at all. I like the one I make. The wheatgrass went down easy but then the aftertaste...blah...I grabbed the orange wedge that came with it and then started eating it...then I remembered I shouldn't and I spit most of it out. I was all like "oh no, I ate some solid food!" then I thought about how it seems like some fiber gets through the seams of the nut milk bags anyway and so I thought no big deal.
I was very careful to take advantage of the restrooms we came across. It does seem like my bladder holds more than it did before! lol
After lunch, we found we missed the farmer's market, and I was a little (inwardly) distraught. I missed my local farmer's market today with the wonderful $1 lettuces and now I'd missed my chance at any other lettuce, either.
Next, we went to the San Francisco Earth Day Festival. I thought it would be big and crowded but it wasn't. Overall I wasn't that impressed with it. They had some cool entertainment on several different stages, and they had hoola hoops and there were some really good hoopers there (I really want a hoola hoop - a nice one - about six months ago I had gotten my boyfriend to agree to buy all the stuff needed to make about 8 of them and I wanted to use them at a party but then it never happened - or hasn't happened yet) and aging left-over hippies dancing (one of my favorite parts of San Francisco) but then they had all these booths that were just products you see all the time at Whole Foods anyway and people walking around trying to get you to sign petitions or wanting to give you flyers about things like how what you eat impacts the environment (um, preaching to the choir here.) My boyfriend's daughter seemed to like it, though, so that's cool, and my boyfriend bought me a beautiful pair of yoga pants made out of bamboo - I got them in medium and the woman at the booth was kind of like "um, maybe you should get a large" and she was super nice about it but I felt like an idiot (a chubby idiot) and in front of her and my boyfriend I was feeling really awkward wondering do I try and explain that large tends to slide down the hips of my apple shaped body, or that I'm losing weight right now and they're too beautiful and expensive to get and then become too small for?
I did get a juice there, some morroccan thing with mint in it. Much better than the earlier juice.
So then we went shopping in Union Square. I felt bad because my boyfriend has lost probably 40 pounds over the past few years (he wants to build some muscle back now) and has finally gotten to this point where he could really use some new clothes - well, maybe a lot of new clothes - and he really wanted some new shoes and instead he only found one shirt for himself but ended up buying me a shirt and two pairs of shoes. He really wanted to get me some ballet flat type shoes but I refuse to buy any leather shoes so we couldn't find anything we agreed on.
Anyway...then we stopped at Starbucks so I got an herbal tea, and then we drove back to MY city and went to dinner at a thai place. Not a total success. They have fresh coconut water on the menu, but they were out of it, and they have a sort of herbal tea but it's sweetened with sugar - so I ordered the sweet and sour soup and just had the broth plus a few spoons of my boyfriend's yellow curry sauce - that was very tasty but I probably shouldn't have had it because it's made with coconut milk or coconut - either way that means it has fiber.
When I got home, I realized a.) I had WAY less than a gallon of juice today and b.) if you add up the cost of trying to drink juices prepared for you at restaurants and festival booths all day, it's going to be way, wayyyy more expensive than making it yourself! A lot of places charge like, $7 for a 12 ounce juice. There are 128 ounces in a gallon. To actually drink a gallon of juice, you'd have to have 10 or 11 of them...so that'd be $70. I could have a whole weeks worth of juice at least for that!
So then I had a quart of water with msm, and then a quart of water with l-glutamine powder and went to bed.
Weight: ?!?!?!?
While I was waiting for my boyfriend and his daughter to finish getting ready, I had time to put my juice feast days into my iPad calendar. (It would be cool to make an iPad app that is a sort of calendar that tracks all the juice feasting stuff you are doing.) My boyfriend's daughter invited me to her graduation, which is out of town, and she wasn't positive about the date but she thought it might be July 15. After I put the last date in, I said to my boyfriend "oh, guess what day July 15th is!" and he guessed exactly what I was writing in my calendar entry just then, "Prune Day". July 15th will be the day after the last day of the juice feast, the day you are supposed to eat a pound of soaked prunes to break the feast! Well, naturally a lot of jokes about prunes ensued, although I tried to explain that prunes are not going to have the same effect on someone who doesn't have a bunch of food in their system and has been juice feasting for 92 days. At least, I don't think so. Heck, I've been taking Cascara Sagrada lately and that doesn't even really do anything for me. Neither do coconuts. People say those are supposed to have a laxative effect, but I don't notice it.
Once we got to the city, we started to go to the farmer's market, but then we thought it probably closed at 3 and we should go eat first, I guess because it was so tempting to get something to eat at the market and ruin our appetites otherwise. We ate at a restaurant we love called "Plant" and I had some kombucha that was really not very good - the waiter said it was something, something and cilantro, but it was actually something, something and chipotle and if I'd known that I'd have ordered the plain flavor. It tasted kind of like a bloody mary without the tomato juice. Then I had a double shot of wheatgrass and the greenest juice they had. The green juice was not tasty at all. I like the one I make. The wheatgrass went down easy but then the aftertaste...blah...I grabbed the orange wedge that came with it and then started eating it...then I remembered I shouldn't and I spit most of it out. I was all like "oh no, I ate some solid food!" then I thought about how it seems like some fiber gets through the seams of the nut milk bags anyway and so I thought no big deal.
I was very careful to take advantage of the restrooms we came across. It does seem like my bladder holds more than it did before! lol
After lunch, we found we missed the farmer's market, and I was a little (inwardly) distraught. I missed my local farmer's market today with the wonderful $1 lettuces and now I'd missed my chance at any other lettuce, either.
Next, we went to the San Francisco Earth Day Festival. I thought it would be big and crowded but it wasn't. Overall I wasn't that impressed with it. They had some cool entertainment on several different stages, and they had hoola hoops and there were some really good hoopers there (I really want a hoola hoop - a nice one - about six months ago I had gotten my boyfriend to agree to buy all the stuff needed to make about 8 of them and I wanted to use them at a party but then it never happened - or hasn't happened yet) and aging left-over hippies dancing (one of my favorite parts of San Francisco) but then they had all these booths that were just products you see all the time at Whole Foods anyway and people walking around trying to get you to sign petitions or wanting to give you flyers about things like how what you eat impacts the environment (um, preaching to the choir here.) My boyfriend's daughter seemed to like it, though, so that's cool, and my boyfriend bought me a beautiful pair of yoga pants made out of bamboo - I got them in medium and the woman at the booth was kind of like "um, maybe you should get a large" and she was super nice about it but I felt like an idiot (a chubby idiot) and in front of her and my boyfriend I was feeling really awkward wondering do I try and explain that large tends to slide down the hips of my apple shaped body, or that I'm losing weight right now and they're too beautiful and expensive to get and then become too small for?
I did get a juice there, some morroccan thing with mint in it. Much better than the earlier juice.
So then we went shopping in Union Square. I felt bad because my boyfriend has lost probably 40 pounds over the past few years (he wants to build some muscle back now) and has finally gotten to this point where he could really use some new clothes - well, maybe a lot of new clothes - and he really wanted some new shoes and instead he only found one shirt for himself but ended up buying me a shirt and two pairs of shoes. He really wanted to get me some ballet flat type shoes but I refuse to buy any leather shoes so we couldn't find anything we agreed on.
Anyway...then we stopped at Starbucks so I got an herbal tea, and then we drove back to MY city and went to dinner at a thai place. Not a total success. They have fresh coconut water on the menu, but they were out of it, and they have a sort of herbal tea but it's sweetened with sugar - so I ordered the sweet and sour soup and just had the broth plus a few spoons of my boyfriend's yellow curry sauce - that was very tasty but I probably shouldn't have had it because it's made with coconut milk or coconut - either way that means it has fiber.
When I got home, I realized a.) I had WAY less than a gallon of juice today and b.) if you add up the cost of trying to drink juices prepared for you at restaurants and festival booths all day, it's going to be way, wayyyy more expensive than making it yourself! A lot of places charge like, $7 for a 12 ounce juice. There are 128 ounces in a gallon. To actually drink a gallon of juice, you'd have to have 10 or 11 of them...so that'd be $70. I could have a whole weeks worth of juice at least for that!
So then I had a quart of water with msm, and then a quart of water with l-glutamine powder and went to bed.
Weight: ?!?!?!?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Raw juice feast, Day 9
Today my boyfriend was picking me up at 3:30 pm so I drank a pineapple-garlic juice, then I knew I should be drinking a green juice but I needed some time to sort of let my body work through the juice I already had. It was a big pineapple and I did manage to drink it rather quickly. I kinda didn't feel like doing yoga but I ended up doing it anyway because I needed to get some exercise after drinking such a sugary juice.
This is the first day I didn't get more produce. I don't really need any today, but I'm worried about not having any in a few days because of today. Sunday is Easter and some stores will be closed (like the produce store) so it could get complicated. Tomorrow I will be at my boyfriend's so I won't be able to go to my local farmer's market, but we are supposed to go to the one in San Francisco.
I just barely had time to make my green juice before my boyfriend picked me up. He tried the juice and found it to be fairly palatable, although he says he could never drink a gallon of juice a day. We went to pick up his daughter and her friend and I ended up having to try and explain about the juice feast. I think the only part they heard was that you can lose weight and they both want to go on a juice diet now. In fact, I think that's the new official name of what I'm doing now, it's my juice "diet". Whatever.
We went to a vegan fast food restaurant where my boyfriend had a delicious (I've had it before) house-made chick-un burger and marinated kale salad and his daughter had some kind of tempeh sandwich with lots of chipotle sauce in it that my boyfriend said was even better than his burger. I had a juice with "everything" in it, so it was something like beet, celery, carrot, kale, broccoli, garlic, and ginger. It was okay.
We were trying to go to some movie screening for "Berkeley Vegan Earth Day", but it was unclear you were supposed to actually buy your tickets in advance and it was cash only but you had to wait until the last minute to see if they still had seats after you walked to the bank to get the cash and it was just sort of annoying that they couldn't actually tell you these things ahead of time on the website and so we were like "forget it" and we let his daughter and friend wander around the UC Berkeley area while we first sat at a coffee place where I had tea (it's weird, I never order tea at a coffee place) and then later wandered to a locavore sort of restaurant we like fairly well and sit at the bar, where my boyfriend had a glass of wine and I had a kombucha.
The kombucha was fantastic but I'm not sure if I should be having it or not. From what I've read, since kombucha is fermented, it CAN have alcohol - it kind of depends. Like if you buy a pasturized, refrigerated bottle of kombucha at the grocery store, it's not going to have alcohol, but if you are getting some house-made kombucha on-tap at a local restaurant, who knows? It could have 1% alcohol or something. And of course, it does contain tea with some caffeine and I shouldn't be having that. And I definitely felt the caffeine! When I went to bed, I was a little buzzed and wondered if I would be able to fall asleep.
I can't say I exactly had a gallon of juice today, but at least it wasn't a total failure and my boyfriend felt weird eating food while I was just having a juice but I think he's getting used to it quickly.
Weight: 204.2
This is the first day I didn't get more produce. I don't really need any today, but I'm worried about not having any in a few days because of today. Sunday is Easter and some stores will be closed (like the produce store) so it could get complicated. Tomorrow I will be at my boyfriend's so I won't be able to go to my local farmer's market, but we are supposed to go to the one in San Francisco.
I just barely had time to make my green juice before my boyfriend picked me up. He tried the juice and found it to be fairly palatable, although he says he could never drink a gallon of juice a day. We went to pick up his daughter and her friend and I ended up having to try and explain about the juice feast. I think the only part they heard was that you can lose weight and they both want to go on a juice diet now. In fact, I think that's the new official name of what I'm doing now, it's my juice "diet". Whatever.
We went to a vegan fast food restaurant where my boyfriend had a delicious (I've had it before) house-made chick-un burger and marinated kale salad and his daughter had some kind of tempeh sandwich with lots of chipotle sauce in it that my boyfriend said was even better than his burger. I had a juice with "everything" in it, so it was something like beet, celery, carrot, kale, broccoli, garlic, and ginger. It was okay.
We were trying to go to some movie screening for "Berkeley Vegan Earth Day", but it was unclear you were supposed to actually buy your tickets in advance and it was cash only but you had to wait until the last minute to see if they still had seats after you walked to the bank to get the cash and it was just sort of annoying that they couldn't actually tell you these things ahead of time on the website and so we were like "forget it" and we let his daughter and friend wander around the UC Berkeley area while we first sat at a coffee place where I had tea (it's weird, I never order tea at a coffee place) and then later wandered to a locavore sort of restaurant we like fairly well and sit at the bar, where my boyfriend had a glass of wine and I had a kombucha.
The kombucha was fantastic but I'm not sure if I should be having it or not. From what I've read, since kombucha is fermented, it CAN have alcohol - it kind of depends. Like if you buy a pasturized, refrigerated bottle of kombucha at the grocery store, it's not going to have alcohol, but if you are getting some house-made kombucha on-tap at a local restaurant, who knows? It could have 1% alcohol or something. And of course, it does contain tea with some caffeine and I shouldn't be having that. And I definitely felt the caffeine! When I went to bed, I was a little buzzed and wondered if I would be able to fall asleep.
I can't say I exactly had a gallon of juice today, but at least it wasn't a total failure and my boyfriend felt weird eating food while I was just having a juice but I think he's getting used to it quickly.
Weight: 204.2
Raw Juice Feast Day 8
Today was a produce store day. I actually got FOUR pounds of oranges for a dollar, so yay! They still had the 99 cents a pound organic braeburn apples, too.
This is the last day of my cat's medication, so that's going to free up my schedule a bit, I guess. I do still need to force-feed her sometimes.
A little tired of juice and I am also very bad at drinking it quickly - I guess you're supposed to do that because it's better for your teeth (and swish salt water around in your mouth, too, which I have yet to do). You're supposed to have two heads of lettuce a day but I've only been having one. Have to work harder at that!
My boyfriend bought me a one month membership to Crunch (there was an online special) and I was really excited about it and really wanted it, but as soon as he bought it I was all like "oh no! what do I do? When should I start it? Maybe I should wait because I want to take yoga classes there but it would be good to practice a little more at home first, get a little more in shape, lose some more weight because I'm sure I'll be the biggest person in class anyway but I don't want to feel like a total hippo!" He got one as well, and I think he wants to start in two weeks or something like that and we want to take classes together but I also have a postcard for a 1 week trial membership which I think I'd have to use first if I'm going to use it so I'm like "wait, does that mean I have to use it one week from now?" I'm stressing out.
I've been looking at what people wear for yoga. You move around in so many different positions that you really need to wear clothes that don't gape at the neck or arms and won't ride up at the waist (or down, in the case of the bottom pieces) and basically form-fitting stuff. Ugh! Seriously? :(
I need to go though my clothes and figure out what isn't too hideous and meets those qualifications.
Weight: 204.2
This is the last day of my cat's medication, so that's going to free up my schedule a bit, I guess. I do still need to force-feed her sometimes.
A little tired of juice and I am also very bad at drinking it quickly - I guess you're supposed to do that because it's better for your teeth (and swish salt water around in your mouth, too, which I have yet to do). You're supposed to have two heads of lettuce a day but I've only been having one. Have to work harder at that!
My boyfriend bought me a one month membership to Crunch (there was an online special) and I was really excited about it and really wanted it, but as soon as he bought it I was all like "oh no! what do I do? When should I start it? Maybe I should wait because I want to take yoga classes there but it would be good to practice a little more at home first, get a little more in shape, lose some more weight because I'm sure I'll be the biggest person in class anyway but I don't want to feel like a total hippo!" He got one as well, and I think he wants to start in two weeks or something like that and we want to take classes together but I also have a postcard for a 1 week trial membership which I think I'd have to use first if I'm going to use it so I'm like "wait, does that mean I have to use it one week from now?" I'm stressing out.
I've been looking at what people wear for yoga. You move around in so many different positions that you really need to wear clothes that don't gape at the neck or arms and won't ride up at the waist (or down, in the case of the bottom pieces) and basically form-fitting stuff. Ugh! Seriously? :(
I need to go though my clothes and figure out what isn't too hideous and meets those qualifications.
Weight: 204.2
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 7
Today was a Costco day because I wanted some celery and there were 2 packs or 3 packs or something of pineapples last time I was there and I wanted to get some of those because pineapple-garlic juice is my favorite. Sadly, they only had single pineapples, so I ended up just getting one. I also got some of those english cucumbers, which I think was a mistake because they are not going to be as juicy as other cucumbers (not sure about this, though) and they are basically seedless and I think the seeds have the most nutrition. Plus really, how do you make more cucumbers without seeds? That's weird. Same with watermelons...how do they make more?
It's been a week since I saw my boyfriend, but today I had plans to go to the movies with him and his daughter. I was a little nervous thinking of how this might disrupt my schedule, but I think he was more nervous about it. I'm that weird, unpredictable juice feaster now!
I had suggested we could go to a thai restaurant before the movie and I'd have some soup (well, some soup broth anyway) but we ended up going to Whole Foods where my boyfriend bought me a fennel bulb and a jar of coconut oil (so I guess I don't have to include those when figuring out how much this is all costing me) and a young thai coconut, which a nice employee there took in the back somewhere and cut a bit of the top off of. Then we went to the movie theater and I didn't get to have popcorn like my boyfriend's daughter or a half a messy portobello and caramelized onion vegan sandwich and chocolate bar like my boyfriend had, but I did have my giant coconut. I saved it because I wanted to use the flesh but it turned out to be all pinky-grey and not very nice. That's what I hate about just sticking a straw in a coconut...it tastes okay but if the flesh is all slimy and off-color then the water may be pink as well and then do you really want to drink it?
I was afraid I'd be hungry in the evening, but first of all I'm getting used to the sensation of hunger and it isn't as bothersome any more - I mean, it doesn't make me feel desperate to eat or anything. Actually, sometimes I feel hungry and I don't want to eat because I can't stand the thought of either a sweet or a green juice - so I just sit with my hunger instead. Yesterday and today, though, I made myself a sort of coconut-curry-tomato broth that also had ginger, garlic, carrot and celery juice in it. I put everything in the blender, strained it through the nut milk bag, then just barely heated it until a spoonful of coconut oil melted in it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have that or not. There isn't any salt in the curry powder...I did put some of the maiitake-shiitake broth that I made for my cats in it, but that doesn't have salt, either.
Anyway, I was fine with the coconut at the movie theater, so I guess my first "juice feasting while hanging around other people" was a success.
Weight: ???
It's been a week since I saw my boyfriend, but today I had plans to go to the movies with him and his daughter. I was a little nervous thinking of how this might disrupt my schedule, but I think he was more nervous about it. I'm that weird, unpredictable juice feaster now!
I had suggested we could go to a thai restaurant before the movie and I'd have some soup (well, some soup broth anyway) but we ended up going to Whole Foods where my boyfriend bought me a fennel bulb and a jar of coconut oil (so I guess I don't have to include those when figuring out how much this is all costing me) and a young thai coconut, which a nice employee there took in the back somewhere and cut a bit of the top off of. Then we went to the movie theater and I didn't get to have popcorn like my boyfriend's daughter or a half a messy portobello and caramelized onion vegan sandwich and chocolate bar like my boyfriend had, but I did have my giant coconut. I saved it because I wanted to use the flesh but it turned out to be all pinky-grey and not very nice. That's what I hate about just sticking a straw in a coconut...it tastes okay but if the flesh is all slimy and off-color then the water may be pink as well and then do you really want to drink it?
I was afraid I'd be hungry in the evening, but first of all I'm getting used to the sensation of hunger and it isn't as bothersome any more - I mean, it doesn't make me feel desperate to eat or anything. Actually, sometimes I feel hungry and I don't want to eat because I can't stand the thought of either a sweet or a green juice - so I just sit with my hunger instead. Yesterday and today, though, I made myself a sort of coconut-curry-tomato broth that also had ginger, garlic, carrot and celery juice in it. I put everything in the blender, strained it through the nut milk bag, then just barely heated it until a spoonful of coconut oil melted in it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have that or not. There isn't any salt in the curry powder...I did put some of the maiitake-shiitake broth that I made for my cats in it, but that doesn't have salt, either.
Anyway, I was fine with the coconut at the movie theater, so I guess my first "juice feasting while hanging around other people" was a success.
Weight: ???
Raw Juice Feast, Day 6
My idea for today was take care of cat medication-feeding stuff first, then run errands.It really kind of threw off my schedule for the whole day.
I had to go to the pet supply store and since that is 2/3 of the way to Trader Joe's anyway, I decided I might as well keep walking and check out TJ's produce section. It's such a small section and the prices are not that great, something which was obvious from the prices listed on big signs right outside the front door, but I went in anyway and ended up getting a container of strawberries and some rather small, sad looking bunches of organic celery. I was the one who was sad, paying what I did for them, but either I'm beginning to crave celery or the TJ's brand celery did smell and taste particularly nice.
Walking down the street, I had that feeling like I felt great and really energetic and - you know when you lose weight and you know you're not really fit and thin looking but you feel confident anyway just because you're weight is on the way down and you feel good about yourself? Well, I felt that. At least I did until I saw one of those google street view cars cruising right past me. I've seen them a few times before but they always looked like they were just maybe making a detour for lunch or they were a ways down the street...this one looked like it meant business and I was actually waiting for it to go by so I could jaywalk so I was just sort of standing right there in front of it and...suddenly I felt like a total schlub. I'm thinking this is over halfway BACK from TJ's and my face is all pink and sweaty from the warm sun and my stomach looks all huge in my shirt and my hair is up in a bun, making my head look small on my body and I'm carrying these awkward and gaudy bags...and now perhaps my total schlubness is going to be immortalized on google street view. Oh, yay.
Weight: 204.6
I had to go to the pet supply store and since that is 2/3 of the way to Trader Joe's anyway, I decided I might as well keep walking and check out TJ's produce section. It's such a small section and the prices are not that great, something which was obvious from the prices listed on big signs right outside the front door, but I went in anyway and ended up getting a container of strawberries and some rather small, sad looking bunches of organic celery. I was the one who was sad, paying what I did for them, but either I'm beginning to crave celery or the TJ's brand celery did smell and taste particularly nice.
Walking down the street, I had that feeling like I felt great and really energetic and - you know when you lose weight and you know you're not really fit and thin looking but you feel confident anyway just because you're weight is on the way down and you feel good about yourself? Well, I felt that. At least I did until I saw one of those google street view cars cruising right past me. I've seen them a few times before but they always looked like they were just maybe making a detour for lunch or they were a ways down the street...this one looked like it meant business and I was actually waiting for it to go by so I could jaywalk so I was just sort of standing right there in front of it and...suddenly I felt like a total schlub. I'm thinking this is over halfway BACK from TJ's and my face is all pink and sweaty from the warm sun and my stomach looks all huge in my shirt and my hair is up in a bun, making my head look small on my body and I'm carrying these awkward and gaudy bags...and now perhaps my total schlubness is going to be immortalized on google street view. Oh, yay.
Weight: 204.6
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 5
This morning I tried getting up an hour earlier and even though I stayed up a little later than I meant to, it worked out pretty well - except for the part where it turns out Costco doesn't open until 10am. Fortunately, the produce store is right across the street from Costco, so I went there and got some over-ripe pears, discounted blood oranges, the 3 lbs for a dollar oranges, some 99 cent a pound organic apples and then I splurged paying $3.40 for a pineapple and $2.99 for a big fennel bulb because I just really wanted them. I think they weighed my oranges wrong because they only came to $.07.
I'm realizing it's a lot of work procuring so much fresh produce every day, especially since I don't have a car. I mean, I'm very motivated to do it right now, but will I stay motivated for 92 days? Hopefully I will, since it's pretty good exercise.
Speaking of exercise, this morning I tried rebounding for about five minutes before my dry brushing and shower. I felt really energized by it, but I do wonder if working up a sweat before dry brushing is the right thing to do - I mean, it's not as dry. Well, not like I was soooo sweaty or something. It did warm me up a lot - I haven't been doing the hot-cold-hot-cold water shower thing because it sounds too dreadful so early in the morning, but maybe with rebounding it could be okay.
I also did power yoga - finally -and I made it through my dvd very well. Often when I do this dvd, I quit at minute 19 (out of an hour.) I felt very flexible and I was sweaty but felt good. The yoga seemed to get my digestive tract gurgling, so I thought if I could do yoga first thing in the morning while I'm drinking my quart of msm-lemon water it might be a good idea...I'd like to give it a try.
I went to bed pretty hungry. I meant to have one more juice than I did, but it was about time for a juice when I thought maybe I'd do yoga first, then I thought I should call my boyfriend before that (because that time of day he's often in his office but everyone else has gone home and he has a little time to talk) so I called him but he was on the way to see a customer plus we got cut off. Twice. So that took a little time to NOT talk, then I did the yoga, then I called him back and was on skype for half an hour. I guess probably two hours were used up with those two things, and I had a juice after that but then there wasn't really time for another one. I think I really need to work at getting my juices in - it's not that fun to be hungry, and of course it makes me think about all the foods I'm not eating.
Oh, here's something weird and exciting - just recently I noticed when I smile I have these new lines between the sides of my mouth and my cheeks, but today I smiled at myself in the mirror and they weren't there!
Today I had:
grapefruit-fennel-apple (needed more fennel & apple, less grapefruit)
lettuce-celery-orange-spinach X2
pinapple-garlic (my fave, might be okay with some spinach in it)
Weight: 206
I'm realizing it's a lot of work procuring so much fresh produce every day, especially since I don't have a car. I mean, I'm very motivated to do it right now, but will I stay motivated for 92 days? Hopefully I will, since it's pretty good exercise.
Speaking of exercise, this morning I tried rebounding for about five minutes before my dry brushing and shower. I felt really energized by it, but I do wonder if working up a sweat before dry brushing is the right thing to do - I mean, it's not as dry. Well, not like I was soooo sweaty or something. It did warm me up a lot - I haven't been doing the hot-cold-hot-cold water shower thing because it sounds too dreadful so early in the morning, but maybe with rebounding it could be okay.
I also did power yoga - finally -and I made it through my dvd very well. Often when I do this dvd, I quit at minute 19 (out of an hour.) I felt very flexible and I was sweaty but felt good. The yoga seemed to get my digestive tract gurgling, so I thought if I could do yoga first thing in the morning while I'm drinking my quart of msm-lemon water it might be a good idea...I'd like to give it a try.
I went to bed pretty hungry. I meant to have one more juice than I did, but it was about time for a juice when I thought maybe I'd do yoga first, then I thought I should call my boyfriend before that (because that time of day he's often in his office but everyone else has gone home and he has a little time to talk) so I called him but he was on the way to see a customer plus we got cut off. Twice. So that took a little time to NOT talk, then I did the yoga, then I called him back and was on skype for half an hour. I guess probably two hours were used up with those two things, and I had a juice after that but then there wasn't really time for another one. I think I really need to work at getting my juices in - it's not that fun to be hungry, and of course it makes me think about all the foods I'm not eating.
Oh, here's something weird and exciting - just recently I noticed when I smile I have these new lines between the sides of my mouth and my cheeks, but today I smiled at myself in the mirror and they weren't there!
Today I had:
grapefruit-fennel-apple (needed more fennel & apple, less grapefruit)
lettuce-celery-orange-spinach X2
pinapple-garlic (my fave, might be okay with some spinach in it)
Weight: 206
Monday, April 18, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 4
Today I went to the produce store and I got 4 seen-better-days lemons and 4 slightly-older limes for 79 cents. Not bad, eh? I also got more of the 3 pounds for $1 oranges and I broke down and got some apples and carrots, which I had been hoping to find in large quantities at a lower price. Funny thing is, the organic carrots were the same price as the "conventional" ones! Carrots were 99 cents a pound and they had some braeburn apples that were also 99 cents a pound. That's better than 1.99 a pound like all the other apples in the store, but I figure if I'm supposed to be having 10 - 15 pounds of fresh produce juiced a day, and it costs me a dollar a pound, that's 10 to 15 dollars a day.
I keep reading people saying "hey, 10 to 15 dollars a day...a lot of people spend that just on lunch!" Maybe so, but I don't. Lately my average for food is probably about $5 a day when you figure in the larger purchases I make sometimes, of a case of tofu or ten pounds of rice or a multi pack of liquid stevia. I don't think I can afford to double that amount, much less triple it. My brilliant back up plan right now, if I run out of money, is to switch to a water fast, which I guess would only cost 25 cents a day (for the water.) A better idea is probably earn a bit more money, although I've been hearing a lot about water fasting and I'd like to try it. It seems like winter would be the best time for that, since you wouldn't miss all the fabulous produce available the rest of the year.
I was up and about for several hours before having my first juice, and when I got back from the store I felt a little woozy, but just for a second. I also felt hungry numerous times today, but I only had a spoon of honey once. I had a lot of food cravings, mostly involving this non-dairy cheese sauce/spread that I have made so many times I have the recipe memorized. Cheese sauce with - baked potato, french fry, as a grilled cheese on sprouted whole grain bread...so with carbs basically. Overall I don't really crave starchy things, although they do sound tasty, but I do really want to eat the fruits and veggies I have instead of juicing them.
I was also very emotional in the afternoon, emotional and upset with my boyfriend, but I'm a little unclear as to whether the juice feast had anything to do with it or if it's just because I thought I would see him today but then that didn't happen.
I did some Yin yoga today. I've been meaning to do some Yang or you know, more strenuous yoga, but I had to make some room to do any kind of yoga. The yin poses I have memorized, but the yang (okay, actually power yoga) I needed something to play a dvd on, and lately I've had my Wii and two dvd players stop working on me. I had sort of bricked my iMac, but I got that working yesterday so I guess I no longer have any excuse not to do the dvd.
I was enjoying my weight leaping down by at least a couple pounds a day before this, but now it's what, .4 of a pound? I guess it was mostly the celery and enemas and lack of solid food before and now maybe it's only actual weight loss showing up? I'm not doing this to lose weight exactly, but I have to say that seeing the scale move down could be a very big motivator to keep going if things start to seem difficult.
I've been starting out with a fruit juice even though I guess I'm supposed to start with a green juice - it's just that it's so quick to blend up. Eventually I will probably start with the green juice first. Oh, and I had lost a piece of my masticating juicer. I still hope to find it but at first I was pretty disappointed thinking I could "make do" with my VitaMix and a nut milk bag. It turns out it isn't any harder to use the VitaMix and in fact the clean-up is easier. I did, however, manage to jam up the VitaMix today. I had to empty the contents into a bowl and then add them back in a bit at a time. Now I see the importance of starting with a half a cup of water, not adding everything at once, and cutting apples smaller than in 1/3s.
Today I had:
watermelon-basil (interesting but like watermelon better w/out basil)
beet-spinach-celery-kale-apple-lemon-garlic-ginger (okay but not delish)
celery-carrot-beet-apple (pretty good, maybe I could have thrown in a head of lettuce)
watermelon (one mealy watermelon - good thing I was juicing it)
grapefruit (weird juicing a whole - peeled - grapefruit, a little different but not bad)
Weight: 206.8
I keep reading people saying "hey, 10 to 15 dollars a day...a lot of people spend that just on lunch!" Maybe so, but I don't. Lately my average for food is probably about $5 a day when you figure in the larger purchases I make sometimes, of a case of tofu or ten pounds of rice or a multi pack of liquid stevia. I don't think I can afford to double that amount, much less triple it. My brilliant back up plan right now, if I run out of money, is to switch to a water fast, which I guess would only cost 25 cents a day (for the water.) A better idea is probably earn a bit more money, although I've been hearing a lot about water fasting and I'd like to try it. It seems like winter would be the best time for that, since you wouldn't miss all the fabulous produce available the rest of the year.
I was up and about for several hours before having my first juice, and when I got back from the store I felt a little woozy, but just for a second. I also felt hungry numerous times today, but I only had a spoon of honey once. I had a lot of food cravings, mostly involving this non-dairy cheese sauce/spread that I have made so many times I have the recipe memorized. Cheese sauce with - baked potato, french fry, as a grilled cheese on sprouted whole grain bread...so with carbs basically. Overall I don't really crave starchy things, although they do sound tasty, but I do really want to eat the fruits and veggies I have instead of juicing them.
I was also very emotional in the afternoon, emotional and upset with my boyfriend, but I'm a little unclear as to whether the juice feast had anything to do with it or if it's just because I thought I would see him today but then that didn't happen.
I did some Yin yoga today. I've been meaning to do some Yang or you know, more strenuous yoga, but I had to make some room to do any kind of yoga. The yin poses I have memorized, but the yang (okay, actually power yoga) I needed something to play a dvd on, and lately I've had my Wii and two dvd players stop working on me. I had sort of bricked my iMac, but I got that working yesterday so I guess I no longer have any excuse not to do the dvd.
I was enjoying my weight leaping down by at least a couple pounds a day before this, but now it's what, .4 of a pound? I guess it was mostly the celery and enemas and lack of solid food before and now maybe it's only actual weight loss showing up? I'm not doing this to lose weight exactly, but I have to say that seeing the scale move down could be a very big motivator to keep going if things start to seem difficult.
I've been starting out with a fruit juice even though I guess I'm supposed to start with a green juice - it's just that it's so quick to blend up. Eventually I will probably start with the green juice first. Oh, and I had lost a piece of my masticating juicer. I still hope to find it but at first I was pretty disappointed thinking I could "make do" with my VitaMix and a nut milk bag. It turns out it isn't any harder to use the VitaMix and in fact the clean-up is easier. I did, however, manage to jam up the VitaMix today. I had to empty the contents into a bowl and then add them back in a bit at a time. Now I see the importance of starting with a half a cup of water, not adding everything at once, and cutting apples smaller than in 1/3s.
Today I had:
watermelon-basil (interesting but like watermelon better w/out basil)
beet-spinach-celery-kale-apple-lemon-garlic-ginger (okay but not delish)
celery-carrot-beet-apple (pretty good, maybe I could have thrown in a head of lettuce)
watermelon (one mealy watermelon - good thing I was juicing it)
grapefruit (weird juicing a whole - peeled - grapefruit, a little different but not bad)
Weight: 206.8
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 3
Today was the farmer's market - yay! I am a little trepidatious about going there because it can be a bit chaotic and prices aren't always labeled and I hate to ask and then not buy anything and I walk around the donut-like circle the stalls form trying to choose and decide and I have actually gotten so unsure in the past I've just bought some oranges and left without anything else.
This time I did really well, with no running away with my bags empty and most of my money unspent. I got a little jar of local bee pollen for $2.75, 7 huge heads of beautiful leafy lettuce for $1 each, 2 bunches of beets, a HUGE bunch of mint, HUGE bunch of basil, 2 asian cucumbers, a little basket of strawberries and maybe something else I'm forgetting. I may try to blend up the mint and basil (not together) with some water and freeze them, otherwise I don't think I can use that much fast enough.
I don't think my boyfriend likes my new schedule. I used to stay up late and he'd call me to say goodnight every night when HE was ready for bed - sometime between 10pm and midnight. Now I text or call him by 10:30 at the latest to say goodnight and he's a bit hard to reach. Maybe his phone isn't right by him, or he's hanging out with his family and he doesn't get my call or message until over an hour later. It's kind of funny because he always thought I stayed up too late, and now he's finding my going to bed at a "normal" time is what's really inconvenient. For me, I miss talking to him, but I don't miss spending up to two hours making sure I don't miss his "do you want to skype" text so that he ends up going to bed before I respond. I feel a little bad, though, that I have taken such pains for years to be there for his calls and he doesn't seem to do the same for me. I think if I missed his message/call because I was having fun hanging out with my family, he would feel bad and left out, too.
Today I had:
cucumber, strawberry, apple (good, but I really just wanted to eat the strawberries whole!)
celery-lettuce-orange-spinach
coconut water-lime (note to self: don't put the lime in the coconut)
green melon (nice)
I didn't have any of the honey today, which is probably good, but I did have some bee pollen (probably also good)
Weight: 207.2
This time I did really well, with no running away with my bags empty and most of my money unspent. I got a little jar of local bee pollen for $2.75, 7 huge heads of beautiful leafy lettuce for $1 each, 2 bunches of beets, a HUGE bunch of mint, HUGE bunch of basil, 2 asian cucumbers, a little basket of strawberries and maybe something else I'm forgetting. I may try to blend up the mint and basil (not together) with some water and freeze them, otherwise I don't think I can use that much fast enough.
I don't think my boyfriend likes my new schedule. I used to stay up late and he'd call me to say goodnight every night when HE was ready for bed - sometime between 10pm and midnight. Now I text or call him by 10:30 at the latest to say goodnight and he's a bit hard to reach. Maybe his phone isn't right by him, or he's hanging out with his family and he doesn't get my call or message until over an hour later. It's kind of funny because he always thought I stayed up too late, and now he's finding my going to bed at a "normal" time is what's really inconvenient. For me, I miss talking to him, but I don't miss spending up to two hours making sure I don't miss his "do you want to skype" text so that he ends up going to bed before I respond. I feel a little bad, though, that I have taken such pains for years to be there for his calls and he doesn't seem to do the same for me. I think if I missed his message/call because I was having fun hanging out with my family, he would feel bad and left out, too.
Today I had:
cucumber, strawberry, apple (good, but I really just wanted to eat the strawberries whole!)
celery-lettuce-orange-spinach
coconut water-lime (note to self: don't put the lime in the coconut)
green melon (nice)
I didn't have any of the honey today, which is probably good, but I did have some bee pollen (probably also good)
Weight: 207.2
Raw Juice Feast, Day 2
I read yesterday that I'm supposed to have a certain routine, like get up early, drink quart of water with MSM and lemon, do enema, dry brushing, shower with hot/cold alternating water. I have been getting up early for about a week now, but didn't have a routine like that. So, today I tried doing that - it seems like a lot to fit in, then I'm trying to go buy produce and give my cat medication and force-feeding on a schedule - I can't leave my cat unsupervised in case she throws up her medication, so I end up walking to the store or stores first and she gets medication a bit later than I like which I guess means I should be giving it to her later in the evening, but I don't want to stay up past 10:30, so it's tricky. She'll be done with this medication in less than a week, though, so I may be force-feeding and such but it won't be like "do this, wait one hour do this, wait another hour and do this".
Last night I asked my boyfriend if I still had my Costco membership and he said I do. It's under his company membership, but I lost my card maybe a year ago. I guess it's around somewhere, but I haven't found it. So today I went to Costco - walked, which is actually kind of funny, I mean I wonder if anyone other than maybe Costco employees actually walks there - and I was kind of nervous about it because I thought I might have to pee. Actually, I did have to by the time I got there, but they have some semi-nice bathrooms that were clearly marked so it worked out. I've had to pee a lot the last few days, so that's my new worry about going anywhere.
The woman at Costco customer service, who seems to be very talented at ignoring roaches that are just a few feet from her head, gave me a new membership card with no hassle at all - it printed out instantly and as a bonus my new picture is at least 50% better than the old one! I wanted to get apples but I couldn't bring myself to buy one of those big clamshells that holds each apple in a separate bubble. What ever happened to bags of apples? It's just too wasteful. I wanted a big bag of carrots, too, but all they had was "baby" carrots. There is nothing "baby" about those carrots and they scare me, so...pass. I got a big bag of spinach, which unfortunately wasn't organic, two melons (which turned out to be like honeydews...surprise!) and best of all...a four pack of celery that was organic and only $2.99! I guess I'll be going back to Costco about every four days to get more celery.
I felt a little headachy for a while today - maybe because this is actually day 3 for me with no caffiene - and I took a nap in the afternoon. I've been eating a lot of that jar of honey I have - probably more of it than I should, but it's useful when I am really hungry but haven't made a juice yet. I know people make all their juices in the morning sometimes, to free up time in their day, but some of those juices get really thick and gloopy when you do that...bleh. Since I'm home all day, I'd rather make each one fresh.
Today I had:
Watermelon juice (nice)
celery-romaine-spinach-orange X2 (it's okay - good thing I like celery)
pineapple-garlic (yum! crave-worthy)
weight: 209.2
Last night I asked my boyfriend if I still had my Costco membership and he said I do. It's under his company membership, but I lost my card maybe a year ago. I guess it's around somewhere, but I haven't found it. So today I went to Costco - walked, which is actually kind of funny, I mean I wonder if anyone other than maybe Costco employees actually walks there - and I was kind of nervous about it because I thought I might have to pee. Actually, I did have to by the time I got there, but they have some semi-nice bathrooms that were clearly marked so it worked out. I've had to pee a lot the last few days, so that's my new worry about going anywhere.
The woman at Costco customer service, who seems to be very talented at ignoring roaches that are just a few feet from her head, gave me a new membership card with no hassle at all - it printed out instantly and as a bonus my new picture is at least 50% better than the old one! I wanted to get apples but I couldn't bring myself to buy one of those big clamshells that holds each apple in a separate bubble. What ever happened to bags of apples? It's just too wasteful. I wanted a big bag of carrots, too, but all they had was "baby" carrots. There is nothing "baby" about those carrots and they scare me, so...pass. I got a big bag of spinach, which unfortunately wasn't organic, two melons (which turned out to be like honeydews...surprise!) and best of all...a four pack of celery that was organic and only $2.99! I guess I'll be going back to Costco about every four days to get more celery.
I felt a little headachy for a while today - maybe because this is actually day 3 for me with no caffiene - and I took a nap in the afternoon. I've been eating a lot of that jar of honey I have - probably more of it than I should, but it's useful when I am really hungry but haven't made a juice yet. I know people make all their juices in the morning sometimes, to free up time in their day, but some of those juices get really thick and gloopy when you do that...bleh. Since I'm home all day, I'd rather make each one fresh.
Today I had:
Watermelon juice (nice)
celery-romaine-spinach-orange X2 (it's okay - good thing I like celery)
pineapple-garlic (yum! crave-worthy)
weight: 209.2
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Raw Juice Feast, Day 1
Last night I went out for sushi and sake and then we had a glass of wine at a local wine bar. It's not like I even wanted a glass of wine that much, I just thought "last one for three months!" It wasn't even very good wine - or maybe it was served a little too warm.
This morning, my computer had rebooted itself so my alarm didn't go off (need to find out how to turn off automatic updates!) and it was overcast and I felt groggy and thought maybe I overslept by a few hours, but no, it was 8am and I think the grogginess was from the wine and sake.
I wanted to have a bunch of produce all ready to go today, but yesterday morning I was just too involved with giving my cat her medication and force-feeding her and then it got to be that time when maybe a delivery driver might show up and I was waiting for some juice feast supplements to arrive and didn't want to miss that. So, I walked to the discount/overstock grocery this morning and got a gallon of purified/reverse osmosis water from their machine outside and 6 grapefruit, a baby watermelon, a cantaloupe and some chocolate mint growing in a pot. I saw some juice recipes that use mint and the mint we have growing in my boyfriend's yard hasn't really taken off yet, so I'm going to try and grow this one on my balcony. Maybe in a month or so I can actually use some of it.
After the discount grocery store, I turned around and went to the produce store. I have to remember to go there first. I had been excited because a few days ago they had bunches of locally grown lettuces: butter, red leaf, romaine, for 99 cents each, but today they were up to $1.99. I figured the price wouldn't last, but I hoped to at least get some. Mainly I think the celery (not even organic) is expensive at $2.99 a bunch. You have to really be careful at this store but they do have some good deals, like right now they have locally grown oranges 3 pounds for a dollar. Besides the oranges, I like their little section of marked down produce - sometimes they have really good stuff although you have to be careful about whether the prices are per package or per pound. This time they had baby watermelons for 99 cents each, which is a dollar cheaper than the discount grocery, so now I think I will always go to the produce store first.
Juices I had today:
Cranberry-lime (sweetened with stevia)
Celery-butter lettuce-romaine X2 (better than I thought it would be)
cantaloupe (mmmmmm...)
A little hungry sometimes, but then I just drank more juice or I ate some of the raw, unfiltered local honey my boyfriend bought me the other day.
Weight: 212
This morning, my computer had rebooted itself so my alarm didn't go off (need to find out how to turn off automatic updates!) and it was overcast and I felt groggy and thought maybe I overslept by a few hours, but no, it was 8am and I think the grogginess was from the wine and sake.
I wanted to have a bunch of produce all ready to go today, but yesterday morning I was just too involved with giving my cat her medication and force-feeding her and then it got to be that time when maybe a delivery driver might show up and I was waiting for some juice feast supplements to arrive and didn't want to miss that. So, I walked to the discount/overstock grocery this morning and got a gallon of purified/reverse osmosis water from their machine outside and 6 grapefruit, a baby watermelon, a cantaloupe and some chocolate mint growing in a pot. I saw some juice recipes that use mint and the mint we have growing in my boyfriend's yard hasn't really taken off yet, so I'm going to try and grow this one on my balcony. Maybe in a month or so I can actually use some of it.
After the discount grocery store, I turned around and went to the produce store. I have to remember to go there first. I had been excited because a few days ago they had bunches of locally grown lettuces: butter, red leaf, romaine, for 99 cents each, but today they were up to $1.99. I figured the price wouldn't last, but I hoped to at least get some. Mainly I think the celery (not even organic) is expensive at $2.99 a bunch. You have to really be careful at this store but they do have some good deals, like right now they have locally grown oranges 3 pounds for a dollar. Besides the oranges, I like their little section of marked down produce - sometimes they have really good stuff although you have to be careful about whether the prices are per package or per pound. This time they had baby watermelons for 99 cents each, which is a dollar cheaper than the discount grocery, so now I think I will always go to the produce store first.
Juices I had today:
Cranberry-lime (sweetened with stevia)
Celery-butter lettuce-romaine X2 (better than I thought it would be)
cantaloupe (mmmmmm...)
A little hungry sometimes, but then I just drank more juice or I ate some of the raw, unfiltered local honey my boyfriend bought me the other day.
Weight: 212
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