Advice to new juicers

I think that since I have been doing this for nearly 60 days and my weight loss is 27 pounds, I can comment on what to do when you are first starting out.

1.  Decide how serious you are about this.  Do you want to lose weight?  Do you want to get more greens and veggies into your diet?

2.  How long do you plan to do this?  Is this something that you are doing for a month?  A year?  The rest of your life?

3.  Based on your above decisions, get the right equipment.
    a.  decide how much money you want to spend.
         - a blender will make a smoothie, but will not extract the nutrients you need completely.  You can can              get spinach and softer fruits to break down pretty well, but nuts and kale, hard fruits and most
           veggies will not break down.

            -  Nutribullet 600 or 900.  One of the best options.  The 600 is cheaper and will do the job.  These                   extract the nutrients and break down your fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds completely.  Easy to
                use, easy to clean and I highly recommend it.

             - Juicer.  One of the best options to get if you are looking to get the nutrients right in to your system               and looking for a consistency that is more juice like and less smoothie like.  Everything can go in
              the juicer.

4.  Decide how you are going to juice.  Do you have time to juice 3-4 times a day?  Or is it easier to juice all of your daily juices at once.  Don't worry about reading that it's not good to store your juice.  If you are drinking them all in one day, nutrients are not going to be lost.

5.  If you do not like the taste of vegetables, making them in to a juice is not going to change their taste.  You need to make sure you are adding fruit to the juice.  Pineapple is your sweetest choice.  Costco has a Festival blend that includes pineapple, strawberry, mango and papaya.  You can use it frozen or thawed Bananas also add sweetness.
Spinach is one of the mildest dark greens.
My advice is to make a green smoothie in the morning with your greens, banana and pineapple and then in the afternoon, do a more veggie one with pineapple added.

6.  Beets are not for everyone.

7.  Once you get your tastebuds used to it, move on to other greens such as kale, chard, etc.

8.  Use resources to look for recipes.  Pinterest is a great resource.

9.  Read ingredients on soy milk, almond milk and other "healthy" drinks.  You might be surprised.

10.  Lastly, enjoy what you make  If you did not care for a juice, tweak it the next time and see.  This is all trial and error.

And be healthy.

 

A Green day

Daily gratitude:  Hmmm...

Feeling the need to detox has got me seeing green.

For breakfast I blended the Power greens, 1 banana, 1 pear, sunflower seeds, water (ice in hubby's)

I added a little cinnamon to mine.

And it blended to a smooth consistency.  The pear adds a little texture to the smoothie, but over all, very tasty.

Afternoon juice was another green concoction:

Bunch of kale
6 celery stalks
cucumber
2 wedges of pineapple
pint of strawberries washed but not hulled
1/2 lime
nub of turmeric
nub of ginger
1/2 pear

This is a sweetened green blend that will get the good minerals and vitamins right in this afternoon and hopefully take the burgers and tacos out!

Yes.  My Sunday cheat day was awesome.

Monday, Monday

Now I am not gonna tell a fib and say I was very good this week end.  I did pretty good on Saturday.  Sunday was a true cheat day.  However, the good news is that I did not gain any weight.  Whew.

So now to detox and get back on track.

I have a bit of a scratchy throat from being out in the rain and cold on Saturday, so I wanted a juice high in vitamin C.  I also wanted our regular morning juice and a green juice to detox on.  I guess that means we made 3 juices.

The morning juice is the same - the spinach and fruit in the Nutri-Bullet

The juice on the right I will call Vitamin C Plus

2 ruby red grapefruits peeled 

12 hulled strawberries

ginger

turmeric

What a refreshing juice.  I can feel the vitamins going right where I need them.

Green juice is simple

Kale

half bunch dandelion leaves

1 wedge pineapple

celery

2 cucumbers

ginger

turmeric

Both of the juices went thru the Breville juicer.

My goal for this week is to lose 3-5 pounds.  I am determined to do it.  

Detox Monday

Daily gratitude:  Glad to make it to another Monday

Our cheat day was yesterday.  Super Bowl Sunday.  Didn't do too bad.  The chili I made for dinner sat in my belly and my body was screaming for a detox.

That's what today is.  Detox Monday.

Pineapple is also a great detoxifier and flusher.  It is high in Vitamin C and manganese, which is good for bone strength and growth.   Pineapple is known to help in digestion and is a great anti-inflammatory and helps prevent gout attacks.  It is also high in beta carotene and helps prevent macular degeneration.

Morning juice was:

2 cups pineapple
1 banana
2 cups spinach
1.5 cups water
blended smooth

Our afternoon juice is a juice high in greens.

4 kale leaves
2 green apples
2 kiwi peeled
handful of dandelion greens
6 stalks of celery
lime
ginger
turmeric
Run all ingredients thru the juicer.  This is a mild, easy to drink green juice.

Yum yum.  Time to detox.

T.G.I.F.

Daily gratitude:  Grateful I have stuck to this plan

I have lost 2 more pounds.  Total loss for me is 18 pounds.  Matt has lost 25 pounds.  Men...


Other than the beet juice the other day, I have mainly stuck to green juice this week.  I have also looked at the detox recipes.  Our weight loss seemed to plateau and I think we needed a little extra push.

We went back to the fruit blended smoothie in the morning yesterday.  Matt likes those and it does seem to keep us fuller through the morning.  I have also started to take the protein powder in the mid morning.  That seems to help me make it to lunch.

Pear Smoothie
2 pears cut off the core
1 banana
1.5 cups water
2 cups spinach
1 avocado
blend til smooth

Our snack juice was a green juice
Rainbow chard
celery sticks
carrots
apples
lemon
lime
turmeric
ginger
I also had half a head of romaine that needed to get juiced or thrown out soon
All ingredients in the juicer.

It made an ugly juice, but I know it's good for me

Another green juice recipe
1 beet green stalk (leftover from Tuesday beet juice)
6 kale stems and leaves
cucumber
lemon
2 green apples

This was an ugly color but it was like green lemonade.  Very citrusy and easy to get down.

Tuesday... Oh Tuesday

Daily gratitude:  I am thankful I was able to control my desire for a chicken biscuit

Another lost pound will do that for you.

I posted a photo to Facebook:  This one:

With the heading that Matt and I had lost weight.  So many people contacted me after that and asked me how I did it and what were some recipes.  I was glad to direct some of them to this blog and to the "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" infomercial.  I had one friend go out and buy and juicer and start this incredible diet. Another one will start this week -end.  And I have several more telling me why they can't do the diet.

LOL

Everyone makes  choice.  It does take a lot of discipline.  But your health is worth it, I think.

One of the best benefits right now is having Matt help me in the kitchen.  He usually makes the juice in the juicer and I do the blended one.  I get all of the ingredients together for him, but he juices them and then cleans everything up.  

Today we made a beet juice

2 beets

4 carrots

2 apples

6 stalks of celery

2 limes

2" of ginger

Thru the juicer.

This is enough for 2 servings of juice.  

We are trying to do a beet juice once a week.  The lime and the ginger in this juice cut the earthiness of the beet and make it very tangy with lime.  

Here is a link to see the benefits of raw beet juice:  Beet Juice Benefits

Wow.  So drink your red juice on a weekly basis and feel all that healthy goodness inside you.  AND please, do not panic if your poop turns the water in the toilet red.  It will happen.  Sorry to be so descriptive, but...

Week 4.

Daily gratitude:  I am grateful for my dogs:  Beau, Finn, Bindi and Meera.  They make it all worth it.

Matt and I are heading in to our fourth week of juicing.   Here is what we have noticed so far.

Weight loss
No more antacid pills
No afternoon naps
Increased energy
Decrease of bloating
Lowered blood pressure
Not needing almost daily Advil for headaches.

All of that in just 3 weeks.

Because we had a cheat day yesterday  - and, to be honest, Matt had a cheat 3-dayer - I have decided to do cleansing juices for the afternoon.

Our morning will be the fruit smoothie - the 2 cups of fruit with the spinach.  It's filling and tasty and gets us ready for the afternoon.

Our cleansing juice today will be:

5 kale stalks
3 apples
1 lemon
1 cucumber
ginger
thru the juicer

This is a lemony juice.  Tart and good and you don't even taste the green

I have started to use glass containers to store my juices.  They clean up better and leave less of an odor. Plus, I have been reading about BPA's and hey, I am juicing to be healthy, I may as well not put anything extra in my juice, especially cancer causing chemicals.

Here are the new pitchers.  Check out your discount stores for them.  I got all 3 at Ross for under 4.00 per pitcher

No cheat Saturday

Daily gratitude:  I am grateful that my father in law is going to be okay after suffering a fall and a bleed

My husband is back from one night of camping.  He did not do as well as I did and managed to consume half a bag of Doritos.  We decided we needed to juice today and save the cheat day for tomorrow.

Rise and Shine Blended Juice

2 cups of Festival Blend fruit
1.5 cups water
1 banana
2 cups spinach
Blend thoroughly and enjoy

This is our go to juice for the morning and we love using the frozen fruit.  It makes it a little thicker and a little colder.  If you use frozen fruit, make sure there is no added sugar.  I normally measure mine out and let it thaw for about an hour prior to blending.  I have an old blender and it needs a little help with the frozen and hard chunks

We made two vegetable juices for the day.  The first one is a V-8 type juice.  Here is my recipe

8 plum tomatoes

cucumber

celery

1/4 onion

parsley

red pepper

lime

Through the juicer    I will probably add a hint of hot sauce to it.

Our other juice was a green juice using kale.  This recipe will make about 60 ounces

2 bunches of kale

2 cucumbers

2 grapefruit - peeled

1 blood orange

Look at the color of that kale coming out of the juicer.  Green goodness.  

Now that the juice is made for the day, we can go about our business and not have to worry about stopping our day to make juice.  I find that this way keeps us more on track than having to stop and make the juice.  

Enjoy your day.  Happy juicing.

Taking a break from green

It's Friday.  The end of a long week.  It is the end of the third week and it has been easier to juice.  I find that drinking the protein in the morning, followed by the breakfast green juice makes me fuller and more content through the day as opposed to spreading the protein out.

My morning juice is
2 cups grapes
1 banana
2 cups water
2 cups spinach
Through the blender.

I have had my fill of the green juice.  Going to switch it up with a carrot - celery juice for the afternoon.  did you know that celery is one of those negative vegetables.  You actually burn more calorie digesting it than it has in it.  Cool.

Carrot-Celery
4 carrots
3 apples
3 celery stalks
nub of ginger
Through the juicer.

Look at that color.!  Now I used BIG carrots and got enough juice for both afternoon juices.  So this will be my lunch and my afternoon snack.

Carrots are rich in antioxidants and especially, beta-carotene.  It also has tons of Vitamin K and is good for eye health and the do have anti-cancer benefits.

Celery is a great anti-inflammatory, especially  gastrointestinal anti-inflammatory.  

Enjoy your day.

Alone time

Daily gratitude:  Hmm.  Hard one today.  I know I am grateful for something, just can't think of it right now.

My husband is gone for the week end.  I am planning to continue on with the juicing.

My morning juice will be:

2 Cups pineapple
1.5 cups water
1 banana
2 cups of spinach
In the blender.

This is what I mean when I say in the blender.  I use this:

For the morning smoothies, the blender works fine on the softer fruits and spinach.  I can get the spinach chopped down finely.

For the afternoon, I am going to try the Sweet juice on Vmac and Cheese's blog site. 

SWEET GREEN JUICE

Makes a little over a quart of juice

3 granny smith apples (or any variety)
1 navel orange, peeled (I use the first steps in this technique to peel citrus of any kind)
1 lemon, peeled
2 inch nub of ginger, washed
entire bunch spinach, thoroughly washed
1/2 bunch kale, thoroughly washed

Through the juicer.

 When I say through the juicer, this is the machine I use for that:

 The juicer extracts all of the juice and most of the fiber making the juice more of a watery consistency.  I use this juicer for the beets, apples, cucumbers - what won't break down easily in a blender.  

I went to Hubbly Bubbly last night for dinner.  Click their name for the link.  I ordered the Hummus bowl with chicken and then added tomato, cucumber, lettuce, the Mediterranean salad and pickles.  I ate half.  The other half came home with me for dinner tomorrow night.  Good clean eating at the Hubbly Bubbly Falafel diner.  If you are in or near College Park, Orlando, Fl, it is a must try.

Place all ingredients over the lettuce leaves and enjoy.  Yummy delicious and low calorie!

Enjoy your day and juice for your health.

10

Ten Pounds lost.

I feel more energetic.  My knees do not hurt.  I no longer take daily afternoon naps.  All in 10 days of juicing.  I am sure most of the lost weight is bloat, but I'll take it.

It is keeping me motivated for sure.

One notable mention today.  Swiss chard gives a lot of juice.  A lot of lovely dark green juice.

The Ninth Day

Daily gratitude:  I am thankful that I no longer work in an office and that we can afford for me to work from home.

The last 2 days have been enlightening for me.  I feel more energetic.  I have less body pains.  Could one week of doing this really have this effect?  I do not know to be honest, but it has motivated me.

Breakfast:
Please remember that I am making for 2 and the breakfast juice is for breakfast AND the mid-morning snack

4 cups fruit (papaya, pineapple, mango, strawberry
2 bananas
1 avocado
4 c coconut water
4 c leafy greens
In the blender

The avocado gives this juice a more "smoothie" texture making it rich and creamy and thick.  we use this juice mainly for breakfast and mid morning due to having more fruit in it and we want that fruit sugar and   carbs to burn off during the day.

Lunch: 

4 apples

10 carrots

7 kale leaves and stems

7 dandelion leaves with stem

cucumber

2 limes

nub of ginger

nub turmeric

Run all ingredients through the juicer.  This is 4 servings of juice.

Lime was the flavor of this juice today.  I made enough for our lunch and our afternoon snack.  

DAY 8 and shopping

Sometimes you just need Whole Foods Market.

Kale and spinach can be gotten most places.  Today, I brought home some Turmeric and dandelion greens. Yes,  Dandelion greens to go thru the juicer.

Have I told you I lost 8 pounds in 8 days?

Snack and Lunch
2 c of fresh frozen fruit blend (strawberry, papaya, mango, pineapple)
1 banana
1/2 avocado
2 c spinach
2 c water
In the blender

My old Kitchen Aid struggles to blend the frozen fruit.  I will probably thaw it a little more next time.  Texture was definitely more of a shake and felt shake-like.  Again, I am trying to get the fruit done in the morning and leave the veggies for the afternoon.

Afternoon juice will be a green juice.  Please remember that I am juicing for 2 people.  Take these in half for one person.

6 Kale leaves and stalks
6 dandelion leaves and stalks
1 lemon
nub Turmeric
nub ginger
3 apples
1 large cucumber
Run thru the juicer.  Drink right away.

By using a whole lemon, this dark green juice tasted like a green lemonade.  Lemon was the predominant taste.

Dinner tonight will be 3 ounces of pork loin, swiss chard and garlic and a salad.

DAY 7

Our juice for the morning is this recipe

2 c green grapes
1 banana
1 knob ginger
1/2 avocado (I substituted a pear since I had no avocado at the time)
2 c water
2 c leafy greens (kale)

Afternoon and snack juice recipes

Beet & Carrot Juice
4 beets peeled
7 carrots
1/2 lemom
Thru the juicer

My advice is to pour your glass and drink it as fast as you can.  Unless you like the taste of beets.  I immediately went right in to making the tomato juice after I emptied the waste receptacle.

Tomato juice
12 tomatoes
6 celery stalks
knob ginger
nub of jalapeno pepper
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Thru the juicer

This is delicious.  DELICIOUS.  Light tomato without the thickness of what you get in cans.

I would advise making sure your utensils, juicer and all surface areas are wiped clean.  Beet juice stains.

Because I have a busy day in store, I made the juice ahead of time. The literature would like you to believe that you lose nutrients and MUST drink your juice ASAP.  while I do agree that some nutrients are lost, I also believe that this should be easy and convenient.  People do not stick to diets when they are not easy and when they are not convenient.  Please make sure that your juice is consumed within 24 hours of processing it.

DAY 6

After our day of "cheating" we started day 6 with the pear smoothie.

Our plan was to stop at Hi-Octane Smoothies, but they were not open on Sunday.  Kind of shocking since they are located near a gym.  In a bind on our way to the dog show, Matt ate an apple and I got an organic pea, spinach and apple puree that I ate. It took the edge off, only contained spinach, pea and apple and I felt was my best choice.

WE had a green smoothie at Eat More Produce for late snack and then headed to Outback for dinner.  I failed to satisfy my beef craving on Saturday and it was very strong on Sunday.

The bread came to the table.  One slice each.  No butter.  Then the salad.  Okay.  We can eat a little cheese and the croutons.  We used vinegar and oil for dressing.  Sirloin steaks and side of broccoli.  Boy did the potato on the lady's plate next door look divine.

Came home and felt much better.  I am obviously going to need to eat beef on my cheat days in order to make it on Sunday.

Day Five

My daily gratitude:  So glad to find more and more Smoothie/Juice bars along the way of life.  Makes sticking to this easier.

Day 4 we ate dinner.  I made lightly steamed broccoli, lightly steamed carrots and a 3 oz piece of Corvina fish.  I also tore up some romaine and sliced a tomato.  Never was I so happy to eat my veggies.  I made sure to season them well with the Kirlkland No-Salt seasoning blend and added cinnamon to the carrots.

Day 5 started off with an early rise to leave for the dog show.  I, unfortunately, ate nothing.  Hubby ate a banana and an apple.  On the way home we stopped at Hi-Octane Smoothies in Clermont.  I chose the one I felt was closest to what I was juicing - mango, pineapple juice, banana and spinach.  Their blender was much more hi powered and the consistency was decadent.  Smooth and creamy.  Delicious.

I made it.

My afternoon lunch/snack was this in the blender

2 pears cut up
banana
water
2 c spinach

Delicious.  Tasted like pears.

On Day 5 Matt is down 10 pounds and I am down 6.

Tomorrow is our cheat day.  I wonder what I will do with it.  Hmmm.

Day Two

My daily gratitude:  I am glad I work from home.

Hubby home today.  I made the Day 2 smoothie with Kale.  Hmm.  Not as smooth as it was with spinach.  I finally did research to try and understand why there was just more volume to the blended as opposed to the juiced.  Of course I knew that the entire vegetable and fruit were in the blended, but it just seemed like so much.

Yes.  Blended leaves the fiber in.  All of it.  Juicing discards the indigestible fiber.  Juicing allows the body to absorb the nutrients immediately; however, you may or may not feel hungrier quicker.  Trust me.  You will. It also releases the nutrients in to the system quickly - which can cause a spike in blood sugar if you are using all fruit.

Blending breaks down the fiber, but your body still works to further break it down.  It offers a slower, more even release of nutrients in to the blood stream.  You do feel fuller due to the fiber left in.

So. I will blend my smoothies that call for more fruit and juice my veggies.

Okay.  That's out of the way.

Day 2.

Made the smoothie.  Forgot to unplug the machine and accidentally hit the "on" button.  Kale, strawberries and bananas everywhere.    What a mess.

2 cups berries
1 banana
2 cups water (I use coconut water)
2 cups leafy greens

Delicious.

Had that for breakfast and my snack at 11:00 am.

For lunch, I decided to juice veggies.

7 carrots.
A tomato.
 2 stalks of kale,
4 celery,
an apple
Handful of parsley
1" of peeled ginger
1 lime
In the Juicer

When I look at the gathering of veggies and fruit on my counter, I think, WOW!!  How many people in a normal day life eat that many fruits and vegetables?  Not many.  I am about to eat my entire daily servings of fruits and vegetables in one sitting.

I gotta tell you.  It was okay.  The ginger adds a flavor that seems to overpower everything else in the juice.

This was my lunch and my afternoon snack.  Look at those colors!  

They don't last if you store it.  When I went to get my afternoon juice at 3:00.  My juice was no longer a lovely orange.  It was brown and ugly.  Hmm.  What to do about that.

By 5:00 pm, I knew that I needed something to "chew" Matt felt the same way.

For dinner we ate our dinner.  I made a salad with lean chicken breast, romaine lettuce, kale, tomatoes, cucumber, celery and a little pineapple.