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.