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.