Juice, juice, and more juice.

Day 2: Dinner

Dinner on day 1 I decided to try the "Mean Green" juice from FS&ND. I plan on making this my go to juice for the majority of my meals.

Mean Green Juice

·         Serves: 1

·         Calories: 310

·         Protein: 10 gm

·         Fiber: 2 gm

·         Total Fat: 1.5 gm

·         Carbs: 57 gm

1 Cucumber, 4 Celery Stalks, 2 Apples, 6-8 leaves Kale, 1/2 Lemon, 1 tbsp Ginger

Here's what I learned: Most importantly it tastes pretty good. It's light and fresh tasting. Not overly vegetative. Other things you learn: The amount of juice varies greatly from item to item. The cucumber produces the most juice by far, then the celery and apples, and finally the kale, lemon and ginger. You can use that as a basis to help tell what other items may produce. Since I have a large opening on the juicer I fortunately don't have to do a lot of prep. On the celery and cucumber, I cut of the ends (leave the celery leaves) and rinse them off and that's all. Apples go in whole depending on size. Kale is rinsed and put in whole. Lemon is cut in half and put in rind and all. Ginger is just a piece of ginger root broken off and dumped in. 

If I want to vary this recipe some I may try a zucchini, or some spinach. Anything green really. I tried using broccoli stalks but the juice to broccoli ratio is not worth it.

I decided that to make sure I juice every meal, I make my breakfast and lunch for the next day when I make my dinner. For breakfast, I make just basic apple juice. It takes about 6 small apples and I'll throw in a carrot or some ginger to vary it up. (Apples give you more energy than coffee.) For lunch I usually make extra of whatever I have for dinner that day. I wake up in the morning, grab my 2 pre-made to-go bottles, some water and i'm out the door. It's actually saving me time, energy, dishes, and effort in the morning. 

Before I go any further, let me say that it is very important that you clean you juicer and any cups as soon as you are done with them. The pulp and fibers from the juice will get messy if you let it dry.

Day 3: Dinner - Wow this tastes really good!

For dinner on day 3 I decided to pull inspiration from something that would normally be in my pantry, Pacific Foods Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup. 

I put together 4 tomatoes, 2 Red Peppers, 1 Sweet Potato, 3 Carrots, and some Tabasco sauce (I didn't buy any peppers :/)

This is the juice that made me think I could do this! I would want to drink this juice even if I wasn't juicing. I immediately doubled up my recipe and made it for lunch the next day. It was even better with time.

So if there's something you like like salsa, tabbouleh, or squash soup, whatever. You can probably come up with the same flavors in juice. And it's not as weird as you think that it may be cold or in juice format.

No Food

So the questions you're probably asking are "How do you feel?" and "Are you hungry?".

I feel pretty good. The one problem I'm having is that, in addition to cutting of food, I also stopped soda and coffee cold turkey. I drank 1-2 cups of coffee a day as well as a soda or two. I'm having caffeine withdrawal more than anything. I am drinking decaf tea at work to wean myself from the coffee and simulate the same routine. They recommend no strenuous exercise if you're juicing your diet. I've been fine with my normal daily routine which isn't very strenuous but when I had band practice on Wednesday my shoulder was definitely getting sore. I do feel my playing was on point however and I could focus better.

I am not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be.  It's mostly mental if anything. I hear people talking about food or see a commercial and I definitely get hungry but no more than when I was eating regular food. If you think you'll be hungry all the time, I would just make extra juice or drink smaller portions more often. I also "cheat" with raw almonds for a snack and some varied nutrition.

Next: Cheating...