Day 6: Gotta get Organized

       

There's a lot you need to do before making a lifestyle change. In my opinion the most important thing someone needs to do is GET ORGANIZED. I'm serious, everything else comes second. Ask anybody who isn't as healthy as they want to be and chances are its due to them not following a detailed plan and sticking to it. I guaranteed that you're gonna hit a wall if you don't sit down and write everything out.

     Juicing requires a lot of work. Because the juices you make are only good for about 24 hours you can't store huge batches in your fridge. Also, I don't like storing my veggies in the fridge for a long time because they dry out. This means frequent trips to the market if you want your juices to taste as fresh as possible.

But to quote a famous old wise lady from the internet, "Ain't nobody got TIME for DAT!"  so you need to figure this stuff out and work your schedule around your juice to the point where this all becomes routine. It has to become routine because if you don't follow a routine you're going to go back to old habits like I have done today. So here's what my schedule now looks like.


Sunday- Veggie Shopping / Juicing
Monday- Drink remaining Juice
Tuesday- Veggie Shopping/Juice
Weds- Drink remaining juice
Thursday-Veggie Shopping/Juicing
Friday-Drink remaining Juice
Sat- Give juicing a rest.

                Repetitive right? it has to be. I know for myself I'll be going to the market 3 times a week. I'll be putting up a blog very soon on the pricing of my shopping list based on the recipes I've chosen but I'll just say now, It's been cheaper to juice than having breakfast and lunch in the city. Once you're in a routine you'll be in and out of the markets in minutes.

So wise

      Finally I have included my meal replacement recipe in video format. This recipe is Diabetic friendly but I've given it to my wife and my son and they enjoy it. My son in particular thinks its a strawberry milkshake, ha ha it's fun to trick kids.

Day 4: Steady as she goes !

   I almost fell off the wagon again last night!  To briefly explain, I work the night shift which is 12:00 am to 8:00 am. This shift does something terrible to your metabolism. You're hungry when you should be sleeping and maintaining a stable diet/weight has been extremely difficult because of this.

Every Weds (which is my Friday since I work Sat - Weds) I used to treat myself to a Subway Sub that's located about a block away and open 24 hours. This was my spot man, You know you have a problem when you go in and everyone knows your name. I haven't been there in weeks and I've been avoiding the place to keep from temptation but last night I got a call to one of the buildings I work in and to get there I have to pass...The Subway!

Oh Subway, how I loathe you and love you at the same time. You're disgusting...yet fresh. You're expensive, yet affordable. You are an enigma my friend and I ..just...can't! Not anymore. I walked passed the Subway,The owner looking at me like if I was cheating on him. My stomach growled loudly. I stopped , turned around and extended my hand in a final farewell. 


   Ok, onward to some updates. I finally got info on the Juicer I use. It's the Breville Ikon Juice Fountain and here's what it looks like.

 

It's a BEAST

      You can find it here.  This juicer was a gift from my parents and it's definitely a tad pricey if you're looking to get into juicing but unsure if it's something you want to keep doing in the long run. I had a juicer once that I had to get rid of. We had a horrible roach infestation thanks to our lovely reincarnation believing neighbors and the roaches had made the juicer their club med. After a massacre (A Massacre I tell ya!) we were roach free and ready for another juicer.

      The Breville has digital settings for your vegetable or fruit choices. I think I've stated this before but the amount of juice I got from a relatively small grocery shopping was pretty darn impressive. Also, the juice is almost all pulp free which has made drinking it down a lot easier for me. I dunno about you guys but I can't drink down thick pulpy stuff...

  This Juicer has been my foundation. I have worked my diet around this bad boy and that's what I needed because as I have discovered, juicing is easy. I have successfully replaced two of my meals with juicing which means (to me) I am currently living well under a 2500 calorie diet.  Again i'm horrible with details but I promise as I move forward with this lifestyle change I will get the exact numbers and how many calories I'm taking in a day.

    But the point is, I feel it. I feel lighter and I feel more focused . I'm going to go to the grocery store where I have begun to establish my name in a new place. I will video log the veggies I buy and how much it all costs and detail the recipe we have been using. Stay tuned.

Day 1 Juicing

I'm JUICING!

     I finally made the decision to Juice. My parents whom had successfully been maintaining a vegetarian diet for over a year now have been trying to convince me to embark on this challenge. Inspired by the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead released in 2010. The film tells the story of a man on the brink of death who decided to make drastic dietary changes in an effort to save his life. His story closely mirrors my own and while I didn't require the extreme changes he made I did feel like I needed to take a more proactive measure to avoid what could possibly be my very own future.

     So I researched how effective Juicing would be for Type II Diabetics. No surprise there was a slew of poor information out there, especially from those claiming to be health blogs but are ran by idiots that are so dangerously irresponsible that it could border on criminal negligence. For example, when one puts on the blog that this recipe is "good for diabetics" and the nutritional facts show a drink that contains 48g of sugar for one serving YOU deserve a slap in the face. I'm not using hyperbole, you literally require five fingers across and maybe five on the return for emphasis .

  I've decided to mix the juicing with the healthy protein smoothie recipe that I once incorporated into my diet before. It was an expensive recipe requiring a good amount of protein powder and a very difficult to find unsweetened Almond Milk but its filling and delicious and most importantly already proven to not spike my levels . That's something I was weary about going into this juicing since level spiking is the one thing that makes me a raging moody monster and I wanted to avoid that side of me as much as possible.So until I can see that the juicing recipes I have chosen are good for me I'll be mostly making the smoothies and slowly adding more and more green drinks.

My reliable and delicious Protein Shake

     So for 10 hours I had nothing but liquids. I got home from work and made myself another protein shake with Bananas and two Strawberries.   By 10:30am I was lying in bed shaking like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting when he was locked in a room trying to get off Heroin. I couldn't sleep, couldn't focus. I kept smelling food all around me. I swear for a while I had acquired DareDevil like honed senses and I was smelling things from blocks away.  I already drank down a smoothie so I couldn't drink another to curb the hunger and I couldn't stomach more water or juice. Mentally I was breaking down and I knew I was in trouble when I wanted to throw up. I ended up getting a huge migraine. The craziest part was when I was hot and cold at the same time.I had become a Katy Perry song !!!  I couldn't take it and I fell off the wagon. I ate the fastest thing I could make, a cheese sandwich. I barely got the plastic off the sliced cheese before I scarfed it all down like I was a prisoner in solitary confinement who hadn't eaten in days.

While I should have had a healthier option in front of me ready for just a situation, I was proud that I didn't run to some fast food joint and over order something to satisfy my ravenous cravings. I paused and took a moment for everything to settle. With no exaggeration the headache went away within minutes and I was calmer.  I had checked my levels and I was 140 so it wasn't my blood sugar, this was something else.

     I've taken a step back to adjust to this challenge. Tomorrow I'm going to approach it slightly differently now knowing how my body is responding. I will have Dez with me all day to keep my mind busy which is what most of this challenge is about. It's all mental and it's extremely difficult to keep focused when one has as much down time as I do. These blogs are helping me keep mentally busy, so...Onward !