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 5: That which shall not be spoken of needs to be spoken of.

     I'm a regular kinda guy. I make my deposits, drop the kid at school and I make all my decisions like any King of his Castle, while sitting on his throne. Yes, these are all euphemisms for bowel movements. A topic I've been avoiding since I started juicing but suuuuuch an important topic that I knew I'd have to tackle it at some point. So here it is,

   I never had a problem in this department so I didn't expect to see/feel much of a difference when the juicing kicked in. I was warned that the drinks will make me gassy, they have not. I was warned that the drinks would give me cramps,they have not. The first two days I noticed more activity, more visits to the bathroom but nothing explosive. I was also amazed at some of the lengths I was greeted with. Impressive two flushers! Funny story, me and a few friends of mine used to take pictures of our "Events" and text each other with our impressive results, always trying to one-up the next guy(guys will be guys!).  I tell ya there's nothing like sending your best bud a pic of something that could double as a child birth while he's in a meeting at work. Classic.

So, back to what I was saying,  I didn't have any emergencies as others have experienced when juicing. I've heard stories of people having sudden emergencies and those people must be doing something wrong. They must be using too many different recipes or not letting their body adjust properly or forcing their body to take more liquid than its prepared for. As much as the sun loving hippies would suggest the body isn't designed for an all liquid diet.

   So take it easy with the juicing. Do what I did and test your recipe first. Don't be a dummy and go ," man this drink makes me gassy! I think i'll drink two more glasses!" change it up, find the veggie that's doing a number on you and just remove it from your recipe. This is why I've taken it slow with juicing before I dive into a full 10 day challenge. I can't be having no emergencies while in a crowded train in Manhattan. I'll be on the news with the title "Man ruins commute for hundreds!". So just take it slow and do it right.

   Day 5 I've taken a step back on the juicing for two reasons.One reason was to get some calories in me. I didn't want to crash, I wanted to take this slow from the beginning and do this right because I want this to a part of my lifestyle not just something to get attention. The second reason was because I kind of messed up. I didn't keep up with the shopping. I didn't have healthy food in the house and I didn't have veggies to replace the juice. So when hunger pangs kicked in I had to go out and make some choices and I think I've been clear on how difficult it is to make good choices outside when you're surrounded by great food like I am. I mean, right on my corner I have a pizzeria that makes the BEST pizza I have ever eaten EVER. Their sauce is one that I would gladly bathe in, I mean it, I would drop my trowsers and swim in all that glorious sauce like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin back stroking and all. It's THAT good. When hungry, it's easy to cave in, you convince yourself "oh one slice won't hurt" and then next thing you know you're eating your son's slice as well (he's a slow eater so if anything I'm teaching him a life lesson)

Get BEHIND ME Pizza! 

      I need to get on point with the shopping and create a better schedule so I have enough veggies that I can make the juice but not SO much that the veggies will go bad. I also can't make so MUCH juice because those jars only stay good for about 2 days then the juices loses their nutrients. Juice oxidizes the moment it comes out so if you jar it up it's only going to be good for about 24 - 48 hours but honestly, after tasting the green juice after two days in the fridge I'll never drink one passed 24 hours again. Fresh juice just tastes appropriate.

         One final thing I've noticed, even though I've eaten food and stopped juicing as much for a day, my digestion is in overdrive and i'm still using the bathroom about 3 times a day. All that juice has kind of coated my stomach and things are just flying right on through. I better watch out, any faster and someone might get hurt.

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 3 Juicing: Some surprising results.

Can you guess what this is? If you said a belt then pat yourself on the back because you are a GENIUS! I took this picture in the morning because I noticed something when I was at work. My jeans kept falling down. I was looking like one of them hop hip kids with their Nike's and loud music. Actually with my work clothes I looked more like the Hobo that asks for change around my neighborhood.

This is no exaggeration, but I started this Juicing 3 days ago and my belt buckle would fit at around the second mark. I now need to tighten this belt at five holes/sizes down. I suppose I should be a little more detailed when it comes to these results. I know it helps some people to see the numbers but I was never much of a numbers person so saying I dropped from this size to this size in this amount of time under these conditions using these materials  while these stars were aligned was something I didn't really want to focus on because frankly... it's exhausting. I'll have Dez take official measurements today.

  I finally regulated my sleep pattern and I finally feel great this morning. No headache and most importantly no ravenous cravings. At this time I'm usually hungry for a bagel from this delicious bagel hole across the street from my job. I'm not even sweating it now. Sipping on the juice throughout the night has kept my hunger pains in check better than I thought it would. I really thought they would find me at work curled in a fetal position with my stomach growling loudly yelling out random foods. Nope, I am in control of this ship.

    When I get home I'll have enough energy to implement some of the cardio I do. I have the X-box 360 kinnect and I recently purchased Your Shape Fitness. It's a great program that tracks your body movements and provides some really good workouts. I've seen a bunch of work out programs on and off the Xbox and most require you to just jump in place as fast as you can like an idiot (I'm looking at you Shaun t!) but this game/program provides everything from Yoga to Zumba. I especially like the Shadow Boxing part. I'll usually drop the music and turn up the great Rocky soundtrack and pretend up punching slabs of meat in a freezer...but in my underwear.

Probably the best workout game ever for a console.

      I will be implementing more green juice today with two more protein shakes. My arms are swollen from the weight lifting and my chest burns from the push-ups. But I don't feel sluggish and I feel like I can handle another workout easily. I like this feeling.

Day 2 : Juicing

 

   
      It was a much better day today but not without its challenges. I got back from work and I wasn't as ravenous as I usually am at this time of day. So I made smoothies in the morning for my family and then we all hit the park nice and early. Keeping my mind busy outside of the house worked wonders for curbing any hunger cravings. We played and watched as our beautiful son learned to ride his scooter or played some basketball with his classmate. I sat there with Dez and just took in the Sun and the occasional cool breeze. I was at peace and I felt...refreshed.

   Lunch was when I decided to make my first official green juice. The Veggies were washed, the juicer cleaned and we were ready. I was shocked with how much juice was coming out of each fruit and veggie. I checked my sugar levels before I drank the green stuff and I was at a steady 140. I haven't been able to fast yet because of my work schedule and I'm managing only 3-4 hours of sleep at a time whenever I can so 140 is pretty good considering. 

 Note to anybody starting to juice: Don't drink it warm! ! Warm green juice was horrible. Here is what you do, throw some ice in there and drink it somewhere sunny. Just kick back and let the sun hit you and that is probably the best way to enjoy this experience. I sat there by the window really feeling refreshed and I'm going to use that word a few more times because its such a fun word. Here is the best part, all the symptoms I had felt the day before were gone. I didn't feel sick, I didn't have a headache and best of all I didn't feel hot and cold. In FACT..the most interesting part of this whole experience is how cold I was feeling the whole day. I am the one who is always running hot, the yeti, the one with the window open on a winter day and today I was freezing and it was a good 70 degrees in the apartment.

I read online this is something that's common when juicing. Something about your body not being the furnace because you're changing your digestive system. Whatever, I'm just happy to be feeling something.(I'll spare the bowel movement details) These two days have been a tough challenge and I have to keep reminding myself that its only BEEN two days and I have to take this day by day. Even if I don't immediately see results knowing my digestion isn't making heat for me is giving me a warm feeling. I did feel weak going to work that night but I blame that on the lack of sleep and not on the juice. Once at work I drank the rest of the juice  and even combined some good ol weight lifting and I once again was surprised to see how much energy I had considering no sleep and no food.

    I'm still not removing solid food from the diet here, I'm planning to have breakfast with Dez , I need those moments.Breakfast time with her stabilizes me mentally and I need that about as much as I need this new diet. But I am starting to feel confident that maybe soon, the juices will be enough to keep me full.

 

  So here is my green juice recipe.

Kale
Celery
Apples
Carrot
Spinach
Ginger
Leafy Greens
Lemon

            I apologize if my recipe doesn't follow an exact formula I'm not that organized but here are the details I do have. I ended up buying $11 dollars worth of veggies and I got about 2 quarts worth of green juice. I feel like that's a pretty decent value. Invaluable health benefit aside I do need to budget this diet and I was pleased to see that amount of juice.  Now for the most important question, how did it taste? Well, It tasted like someone made fun of me, took my lunch money and then threw me into a garden. I then comically popped my head up and it was all full of dirt and leaves. Yeah that's how I felt, that being said it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was afraid the drink was going to make me gag. That I would have this putrid rancid vile drink in my hands and putting it down was going to be something out of Fear Factor. I think the key ingredient here that softened the whole flavor was the lemon. The biggest flavor that stood out was the celery. So here's how my day went.

What it's all for.

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 !