So this is my first post, but my second full day of juicing. It's about 1 in the afternoon and I need start thinking of what I'm going to have for my next batch of juice. But before I do, I thought I'd take the time to post on my new blog. I've never blogged before. Never wanted to. Never felt I had anything worthwhile to say. But I'm kicking off a grand experiment in juice fasting and I thought I would track it all online.
Bear with me as I have a tendency to ramble, in speaking and, alas, in writing as well.
I took the day off (again) because I'm still suffering from gout. I've been battling this painful malady for about 6 or 7 years now. I'm 35 - way too young to have gout - but I've been eating whatever I wanted, for the most part, and paying for it with toe, ankle or knee pain, among other disorders that fatties like me have brought upon ourselves. The gout, the chronic fatigue, the poor sleep, the way I look like a sausage in slacks and a shirt...they're all reasons to lose weight and eat more healthfully, but the real revelation came when I began thinking about my family's health history. My mom is a diabetic. My grandmother and my aunt had cancer. My grandfathers both had heart disease. My dad suffers from kidney stones, gout and sleep apnea. My dad's younger brother recently had a quintuple bypass. Obesity is common in my family and so are the health problems associated with being overweight and eating a poor diet. I've battled with my weight since my mid-teens and tried many times to get healthier with little success.
Anyway, back to the juicing. The UPS guy delivered my new Breville BJE510XL Ikon 900-watt variable speed juice fountain on Wednesday. I couldn't wait to try it out. I had some celery, gala apples and carrots that I tried first. The juice was good. Not great, not delicious, but good. I was more impressed with the performance of the machine than I was with the juice itself. I made another batch that night and let the kids try a small cup full. They liked it, much to my surprise.
Yesterday I made a batch of juice in the morning. Carrot and apple. I had used all the celery the night before so I had to keep it simple. At work, I had a handful of red grapes, a few chunks of pineapple and a few chunks of cantaloupe. No, not juice, but I'm counting it. Yesterday night my fiancee and I went to the farmers' market and bought some white peaches, some plumcots, a pair of Israeli cucumbers (though they looked like any ordinary cuke to me), some kale, komatsuna, and collard greens. While I was at the scout meeting with my soon-to-be stepson, she was nice enough to buy several 2-lb. bags of carrots (at $1 each! Great deal!) some more celery and a couple pints of strawberries. She also bought a few plastic 32-ounce bottles with lids to store our juice in. After all, she's joining me on this juicing adventure and we are encouraging each other as we go.
Last night we juiced up one whole cuke, a couple leaves of kale (they were HUGE), an entire 2-lb bag of carrots, about 2 cups of red grapes, and 4 gala apples. It made about 40 ounces of juice, which we split almost evenly. It wasn't horrible. I took about 10 minutes to drink my 24-oz "dinner" and then watched an episode of Sopranos with my woman. We just finished Season 1. I'm really enjoying it.
This morning I decided to use the komatsuna greens in my juice. So I grabbed about 2 cups of cherry tomatoes, 6 large carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 2 gala apples and one bunch of the greens. The result was wretched. It was only after choking down the 24 ounces that I looked up this new vegetable online. Komatsuna is also known as Japanese mustard spinach. Lovely. Wish I had known that before buying.
Needless to say, I still have far to go in my juicing endeavors. Sure, I could follow others' recipes, but I think half the fun of this juicing experiment will be developing my own concoctions through trial and error. I've decided that no matter how off-putting the juice is, I'm going to drink it and remind myself of the health benefits. With the price of produce these days, I can't afford to throw anything out.
By the way, I weighed myself Wednesday afternoon. 265 lbs. I am looking at that number as I type. I've already deleted it half a dozen times but I've decided to post it.
And now, to go juice my lunch.
