Day Three

Last night, all I wanted was something completely unhealthy.  I wasn't really hungry, but I craved pizza, cheeseburgers, corn dogs, onion rings, etc.  I've never been one to crave the sugary sweet things that some people do.  No, I am a grease junkie.  Anyway, last night was pretty difficult.  I was talking with my fiancee about it and she suggested that we watch the documentary Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead a second time for inspiration.  And so we did, and it helped a lot.  First, it reminded me why I need to lose weight and change my eating habits.  Second, it kept my mind occupied, and that is actually pretty important.

The hardest thing so far has been battling my psychological addiction to unhealthful foods.  Let's face it; juicing doesn't keep a person full for very long.  Every couple of hours my stomach is growling.  And when I feel hungry, my brain reverts to the old "quick, easy, hot, greasy" mentality.  It's going to take some time to change my way of thinking about food.

I'm still not feeling too bad, really.  I was prepared for the worst: headaches, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue.  I haven't experience any of that.  I actually feel pretty good.  Had a slight headache today but nothing major.  My foot/ankle is feeling better too.  I'm moving around on it more.  Eventually, I'll get the range of motion back and it'll be almost like it never happened.  I say "almost" because gout has a funny way of permanently affecting the joint it attacks, usually in the form of reduced flexibility.  But for now I'm happy that it appears the gout is subsiding.  Believe me, once this attack is over, I'm going back to consistently taking my allopurinol.  I hope that one day I won't have to take it at all.

Breakfast this morning was around 8:30.  Plums, strawberries, red grapes, carrots, celery and apples.  Approximately 20 oz. for each of us.

Lunch was 11:30 and consisted of apples, carrots, green grapes, cucumber, celery, kale, collard greens, and komatsuna.  Again, about 20 oz.  It wasn't bad.  Wasn't very good either.  Let me tell you, putting something like komatsuna, which is also known as Japanese mustard spinach, into your juice isn't ever going to taste good.  I don't care how much fruit and carrots you add.  But I paid for it, and I'm going to drink it.

The better half and I stopped by Tacoma Boys this afternoon.  We bought $68 worth of produce.  I got some good stuff too: radishes, pineapple, roma tomatoes, mangoes, kiwis (4/$1!), a sugar pumpkin, ginger root, lemons, romaine lettuce (just $1/head!), and some granny smith apples.  The real deal of the day was the strawberries for just $5 a flat.  If you don't know, a flat is EIGHT pints.  It was like stealing, I'm not even kidding.  So we bought two flats and now have a ton of strawberries that we need to do something with tomorrow.  We'll probably freeze them in quart bags for future juicing.

Stopped by the Tacoma Mall so the fiancee could do some clothes shopping.  While there, we stopped at Jamba Juice and treated ourselves each to a drink called Apples N' Greens.  Delicious!  Made with fresh apples and a green veggie medley and then blended with ice, it was a welcome change to what we have been drinking for the past three days.  It was her treat, and I appreciated it immensely, especially being so close to the food court.

Our local Fred Meyer is selling 2 lb. bags of carrots for just $0.99 each. I never thought I'd be so excited to buy carrots, but when you're trying to juice on a budget like I am, seeing a steal like that is worth mentioning.  I bought 4 bags.

This evening, I juiced up an all veggie blend and then used the pulp in a hot soup.  Hey, it's World Vegetarian Day, after all.  I bottled the juice for tomorrow, but we ate the soup tonight.  With all the pulp added, it had the consistency of thin chowder.  I thought it was a bit bland.  T said she loved it.  It definitely satisfied our bellies and broke the monotony of drinking cold juice.  At T's suggestion, I'll post my recipe here:

4 carrots (you juice two and cut up the other two)
1 bell pepper (you juice half, and cut up the other half)
8 roma tomatoes
4 stalks of celery (you juice two and cut up the other two)
1/2 sweet onion (juice 1/4 and cut up the other 1/4)
8-10 sprigs of parsley, stems and all
2 cloves of garlic
1 cucumber
2 big leaves of kale, chopped up small for adding to the soup, not the juicer.

Juice everything except for what you're going to cut up and put in the soup pot.  I put a tablespoon of EVOO in the bottom of the pot and sauteed the carrots, celery and onions until soft.  Then I added the pulp, being careful to take out as much of the big chunks and stringy crap as I could.  I added about 4 cups of water and brought the whole thing to a boil.  I seasoned it with some organic no-salt seasoning from Costco and let it simmer for about 20 minutes before serving.

Finally, tonight we went to see a movie (Dream House, and I don't recommend it at all) and so we stopped at Trader Joe's along the way and picked up a bag of sugar snap peas to snack on.  I found it amusing that two adults sneaked veggies into a movie, not to avoid the high prices of the popcorn and candy, but to avoid the concessions altogether.  I also picked up some more lemons (they were a better deal than the ones I found at Tacoma Boys) and some sweet potatoes.  Our fridge and countertops are now full.  The juicing possibilities are endless.

I'm tired, so I'll sign off.  I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's breakfast.  It'll be a fruit juice blend to really energize us for the rest of the day.  Again, if it's a winner, I'll post the recipe on tomorrow's entry.