My Juicing Journal: 5 Days Left!

25 days ago (and then some) - I started on a 30-day Juice Challenge and while I had cheat meals once in awhile (along with regular meals but smaller portions) - I wanted to share some things that have happened!  And I still have 5 days left!

1. It was super hard at first.  Mostly on my bowels.  I wasn't expecting this at all and am grateful I had a few days off from school at the time because there's no way I could sit in class or get to the bathroom quickly enough.
1. Then again - since I haven't had such horrible "sessions" since then - I'm guessing I'm feeding my body better and that makes me smile.
2. I no longer juice at night out of fear.
2. I have more energy.  On days I didn't get enough sleep - I drag my arse out of bed and have my juice and feel loads better.  Ginger really puts a bit of kick into it!
1. I don't drink coffee or even tea very often - so I don't have that wake-me-up that coffee-lovers have in order to actually wake up and be civilized.
   Juicing has become my coffee.
3. I feel better.  I feel more alert and sharper when I've juiced.
4. I juice only breakfast despite wanting to juice 2/3 meals a day (and I'm okay with that)- but had a much smaller portion at lunch time and drank more water in between meals and felt just as satisfied.  
1. Sometimes I juiced supper if I wasn't in the mood to eat.  This way I have something in my belly.
5. I'm wearing jeans I couldn't wear 6-months ago - not even the month before I started.  I know and I'm sure - if I had strictly juiced and didn't eat meals (regardless of portions) - I'd be a twig.  But I didn't want to lose weight too fast nor feel as if (or give the impression of) I was starving.  I know it's not easy to go from a regular naughty eating habit to just juicing and it's what makes a lot of people quit making juice.
1. I've lost some weight - I'm guessing about 2-3 kilos.  I just stood on my scale and the batteries are nearly dead apparently.  And it takes those flat disc-style batteries - which I don't have.
6. I washed my juicer immediately before drinking my juice.  Instead of putting it off and having the fruit bits stick on (forever) - I just did it.  It also helps that my dishwasher is on bed rest for awhile.  
7. I have found ways to bond a bit more with my children.  I do NOT encourage my children to juice fast whatsoever.  What I DO encourage is that they get to make juice with me and drink some with their meals.  It's the funnest way to see a cause and effect (push the fruit or veggie in and out comes juice!) and also a great way to get them to have some veggies and fruits in their diet.  All three of my children have tried making juices and only V-Man and M-Girl seem to enjoy drinking them...usually a couple sips here and there - that's it.
8. I'm spending more time in the produce section of the grocery store than ever before.  Not a lot of my family members like fruits and veggies - so I'm alone in that category and buying one or two apples for me alone seems so silly.  But with juicing - I need more than that - and have been buying fruit by the kilos (especially when on sale).
9. I'm not enjoying pop/soda anymore at all.  Once the buzz is over - I feel like a train wreck and it just sucks.
10. I'm drinking more water.  I'm not a fish by any means - and I have a lot of friends that drink a lot more water than I can imagine to drink - but my water drinking has increased and I think it's doing my body good!

M-Girl helped me out today and sweet girl saw me pop in a carrot and immediately imitated me.  In the third photo at the top - she tried to push the black tube in but was doing it upside down (and machine was off anyway). :)

Testing!

I realize it's a bit premature to celebrate 25-days of  juicing and because I should probably have finished 30-days by now (missed some days) - but I'm quite proud of how far I've come and I'm at that point in my juicing experience where I honestly miss it if I don't juice.
You feel miserable without your latte or coffee or donut in the morning?  Me too - juice version.
You need to vent at the gym and you miss your gym time and get all crabby?  Yeah same here...I also get crabby when I haven't juiced.

On Saturday (oh tomorrow) - I'm going to my first sport event in Finland ever.  For the sake of participating.
Badminton.  Seriously.  It's a tournament - so that's a bit nerve wrecking, seeing as I haven't played competitively in ...*count my fingers...dig out the calculuator...JEEZE 15 years.

15 YEARS

I'm hoping that playing every now and again (it's obviously not an everyday club) will help me sleep better because I'm still battling with insomnia and waking up between 3 and 5 am (when I don't have to!).
I figure I'll play once a week or once every two weeks - because it'll take me that long to recover from muscles burning and so on.

I'm done for the day blogging.  Everyone is back home now and I think I'll just go crash with them.
Have a lovely weekend and Happy Easter if you don't hear from me again via this blog this weekend...I'll be quite busy prepping food for guests. :)

And thanks for your support - near and far.  Every word means a lot.
<3
BIMU

My Juicing Journal: Days 5-8

I can't say right off the bat that I've lost "a ton of weight" with this juicing business because the point of the 30-Days Juicing Challenge is to just try to make juice everyday and get used to it.  You still eat - there's no fasting and I'm SO freaking cheating when it comes to "eating healthy."
I'm a stress eater - totally.  I don't drink coffee, I don't smoke, I enjoy about a glass of wine a week with friends - that's about it.
Based on a super quick try on jeans with a friend at the shop - I'm having to go UP a size and of course can't find anything that fits or isn't ridonkulously expensive...and do NOT get me started on how much I hate skinny ankle hugging jeans....

What I do love is all the bad stuff!  Chips, greasy food, take out, Pepsi...oh I'm a Pepsi girl 100%.  Coke is acceptable in public when Pepsi is not available.  But never at home.

Anyway, I went on a bit of a rant there...

So I haven't made time to juice and that's totally my fault.  And been busy with school, kids and so on.  But tonight I had a mandarin - so I feel slightly happier!

I'm going to get back on the juicing wagon - as those days 5-8 (well all of them) - I became more aware of what I ate because I juiced and didn't dig into ginormous portions.  I ate reasonable portions, felt relaxed, energetic and not so overly sensitive to every little thing my kids did to make me go nuts.

I found on the days I don't juice - the biggest thing is that I feel exhausted - borderline lethargic!  Sure I'm waking up once or twice in the middle of the night because M-Girl is (done nursing but she still wakes up and needs to pinch my belly chub) and even if she isn't - my body is programmed to wake up at least once or twice in the night (specifically from 3-4am...)...damn you biological clock!

I'm currently on day 5 of not having juiced (yet) and I'm running on very little sleep.

Not sure about you - but I'm a freaking psycho when I don't have sleep.  I really am.  I'm Momster...I'm Wifester (and that doesn't mean "Mom/Wife + Hipster"  it means "Mom/Wife + MONSTER)...generally not pleasant to be around at home.

In public, I'm pretty sane and quiet.  But right now I'm pretty sure my blood is boiling because A-Man decided to throw a complete shit fit and set his sister off and back and forth for about an hour. Of course this happened downtown and while getting to the bus stop and while waiting for the bus and I'm just DONE for today.

Which is probably the only reason I'm going to write what I'm writing next:

I'm going to go down to 1 meal a day and juice the other two.
I'll drink loads of water, loads of juice I have made, the occasional Oatly Chocolate "milk"/drink and eat more fruits and veggies.
Not quite vegetarian - wouldn't say that no.  But breakfast and lunch will become my personal juice fests with some bits of fruit to replace the cravings of naughtier food.

Will I skip bread, rice, potatoes? No.
I'll still consume - a reasonable portion - once a day as part of my supper.

I figure I'm in school from 8am-2pm anyway - so not a lot of exercise happening then and there's not a lot of time for breakfast usually.  Lunch time is 30 minutes so I could bring my juice to class and do some knitting or colouring to de-stress... and then I can sit down to supper with the kids and SH.

I'm sure I'll probably cheat here and there (example: tomorrow - going for Nepalese for dinner with a knitting group to celebrate someone's birthday - well that can be my 1 big meal) - but I'm really kicking Pepsi and Coke away and starting my clean slate now.

I will continue to use the 30-days challenge site as a guideline and for ideas and recipes (still can't find my Jason Vale juicing recipes book...pretty sure the monster under the sofa bed ate it) - but we'll see how this all goes!

Credit: Google Search

May the odds be ever in my family's favour...they're probably going to need it.
BIMU

PS I bought some new awesome (on sale!) purple jogging sneakers...I need to get on that too.