So many juices, so little time...

Been playing catch up since coming home from vacation and then having my husband and 2 of the dogs come home earlier this weeks.

I will start with 2 juices I used fresh raspberries in.  Not a fan of that; however, that being said, perhaps if I added some honey it would have sweetened it up a bit and I would have liked it more.  Both were a little too green for me.  I used spinach in one and kale in another, a pint of fresh raspberries, banana, almonds and water.  Neither one were very "Smoothie" like and both had a very raw green taste to them.  Not a favorite.  Why do I post?  Because maybe someone will add honey and then post that it was a good juice.

The next juices are simply favorites of mine that I will use when I am doing a day fast.

Carrot Favorite

8 carrots
4 celery
4 apples
Thru the Breville juicer.

I simply love this juice.  Sweet, tasty, has a mild celery kick and it goes down easy.

Another favorite actually contains beets!  Yep.  BEETS

Sunshine Beet (right one)
2 peeled grapefruits
4 peeled oranges
1 lemon
1/2 large beet
thru the Breville.

I love this citrus juice.  Smooth, refreshing and good for you!

The rest are NutriBlasts

Smooth Yellow
Kale/spinach blend
banana
pineapple/mango blend
ginger
scoop vanilla protein

Has a hint of ginger.  The protein fills me up and gets me thru til lunch.

My goal this week to juice all day and eat sensibly at dinner.  I had gained a little weight on vacation and I am happy to report that I have shed those 5 pounds.  It was super hard these past 2 weeks since I had been eating food during the day while on vacation and I missed that.  Slowly, I re-trained my body, stomach, mouth and mind to get back on the juice and I am happy at the results.

I still have 20-30 more to go.

Juicy Thursday

Today, my first juice is a garbage juice.  Doesn't sound delicious does it?  However, this is why it is garbage juice.  I take a look in my fridge and see what produce needs to go ASAP and I make it in to a juice.  I just so happened to have quite a bit!

Week old tomatoes, both round and a few grape ones, and green onions as well as a head of butter lettuce.  I added a bit of fresh produce to round it out in to a nice tomato juice

Garbage Juice
1 head of butter lettuce
tomatoes (as many as you want)
4 carrots
4 stalks celery
green onions
wedge lemon
2 hands full of spinach

 I was off the diet this past week end and I certainly paid the price.  Although I did not gain any weight, the toll it took on my digestive system was great.  I suffered, up til today, with bloating and gas pain.  I imagined that there was a battle in my intestines between the good stuff moving in and the bad stuff trying to hang on, but getting moved out.  I am feeling MUCH better today.

Next juice is a citrus beet juice.  I had a piece of leftover beet as well as grapefruits and oranges that needed to leave the house one way or another.

Citrus Garbage
2 peeled grapefruits
3 peeled oranges
1/4 beet
4 carrots
wedge of lemon
nub ginger

Enjoy the juice.

A Rare Saturday Post

Ate spaghetti last night.  Need to juice today and be strict.

I still have another 20 pounds to go.  I have lost 30 pounds since January 6, 2014.

So.  I made 2 juices for today and am planning to make chicken lettuce wraps for dinner.

Straw-Grapefruit Juice
2 pints of strawberries
3 grapefruit peeled
nub of ginger

And the next juice is another simple juice.

Carrot-Apple-Celery
4 granny smith apples
6 carrots
8-10 celery stalks

An update about the melon cucumber juice I made yesterday.  I did not like the taste and am not using an yellow melon any more.  The cantaloupe melon is much sweeter and easier to drink than the yellow melon.

Enjoy the week end.

Strawberry delight

It is strawberry season here in Florida and we are able to get these delicious berries right off the farm for wholesale prices.

Hubby brought home a flat of berries  I forgot just how much that was!!

So.  What do you do with so many berries?  Why you juice them, of course.

Strawberry Kale Delight
2 pints strawberries (I left the hulls on)
4 kale leaves
Thru the Breville

I ate a cheeseburger last night so this is my breakfast (half of it anyhow) and I will juice all the way to dinner

My afternoon juice is a melon and cucumber blend.  I had bought a yellow melon about a week ago and I knew it was time.

Cucumber Melon Delight
Whole yellow melon
2 cucumbers
Juice thru the Breville

Enjoy!!

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.  

New Juice

Daily gratitude:  Hmm. Tough one today

Every start of a new week, I am more determined than the last week to make this juice diet a success.  I find that my afternoon snack is the hardest juice for me to get down.  So, today, I changed it up to give my tastebuds something they want to taste.

Watermelon juice.

Read all about watermelon and its wonderful benefits here:  Watermelon

I bought pre-cut chunks

3 cups watermelon

1 lime

2 kiwi fruit 

Through the juicer.

The smell from this juice was so fresh and light.  I can not wait to try this in the afternoon

For breakfast I did pineapple and mango with the spinach.  I bought a few mangoes on Friday and they are ripe and ready.

Our morning snack juice is a green detox juice and I got the idea from the Raw Juicing and Detox Bar in Thornton Park when we went to their Grand Opening on Friday.  Click on their name above for their Facebook page.  Click here for their website.  Raw Juicing and Detox.  

The Green Lizard

Handful dandelion stems

cucumber

6 kale leaves

half a pineapple

ginger

turmeric

All ingredients through the juicer.

The Green Lizard is on the left.  Our Mango Pineapple Smoothie is on the right.

Enjoy your day.  My goal is 10 pounds by the end of the month.  I get my Nutribullet today.  Will report on it tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

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.

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.

Inspiration I use on a daily basis

I start my day by being on the internet.  After I read e mails and Facebook, I then head over to Pinterest to look at juice recipes.  I usually have an idea what I am going to juice that day, but I am always looking for inspiration.  I make a mental note of what I have in my fridges (yes, plural) and look for recipes that will have those.

As I explained before, I am juicing the fruit in the morning and then in the afternoon, all veggie with an apple or grapefruit for sweetness.

Here is the link to my Pinterest Juicing board: Denise's Juicing Board


And from there, I will look at websites and learn whatever I can about the juice diet.

A website I just visited today has the differences in the juicers as well as recipes for juice.

Juicing Juice

I also use my Kindle for getting juicing books online (usually 99 cents or free) and I look at some of the recipes.

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.

Hump Day

My daily gratitude:  I am grateful for the life I was able to live.

Another 2 pounds gone.  Now that these 12 (or 14) pounds have disappeared, I know I am going to have to step it up in my exercise program.

It is getting better week by week.  Easier NOT to cheat and only have the juices during the day.  Having a cheat day is also a great help as well. Seeing results is the biggest motivator.

About 3:00 or 4:00 pm, I had been finding myself with the incredible urge to eat something.  I had been eating a single serving size of hummus with some wheat thins.  The last 2 days, I have had a hard boiled egg. I think in order to continue the weight loss, I am going to have to get that under control.

Here is a recipe for a yummy green juice I made yesterday

2 peeled red grapefruit
1 lemon unpeeled
7 celery stalks
7 kale stems and leaves
3 green apples
1/2 bunch dandelion leaves
1 inch nub ginger
small nub turmeric
Run all ingredients thru the juicer

This is a refreshing juice that I had for lunch and for my afternoon snack.  This made enough for 4 - 9 ounce servings.

I have gotten in to the habit of making my afternoon juices after I come home from the Courthouse.  Then I am able to work and not have to worry about disrupting my work to make juice.  It also makes it easier for my husband o come home and be able to grab a glass of juice and then go back out again if need be.

Today I am making a beet juice and a sweet potato juice.  Will post more later.

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 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.

Inspired by the "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" documentary, my husband and I have set off to try and lose weight by juicing.  Both of us know it is time to do something with out lifestyle as well as the weight we are currently dragging around.  Both of us are relatively healthy.  I do have high blood pressure, but I have had it even prior to gaining the weight that I currently am at.  Other than not feeling good about ourselves and having the daily malaise of Fatness, we are doing okay.  We just want to make a change.

Enter the concept of juicing.  My husband, Matt, had heard of the Fat Sick and Nearly Dead concept and suggested I look in to it.  I did.  It scared me.    Eat nothing by juice?  And for 60 days?  Not sure about that.

We decided to do 10.  Here is our journey.