True Blood & New Faces

Well hello there, blogosphere!

So remember how yesterday I told you I made 5 gallons of juice?

Turns out it's the most disgusting juice ever.  I think there's not enough green veggies, but my friend Rachel says it tastes like grass.  To be fair, Rachel doesn't juice so probably ALL juice would taste like grass to her...

In other news, I also wanted to poll the crowd and see if anyone has this stuff in their juice:

See at the top there's that white stuff?  I shake it up and it dissolves fine, but I want to know what it is.  Usually the entire bottom of the bottle is coated in it after the juice has had time to settle, but I had already started shaking this bottle before I thought to take a picture.  In my heart of hearts, I associate it with beets, but I have literally no reason to do so.  Plus I only put in one beet per day, so it's probably not beet.

In other news, I started watching "True Blood" this season.  I also watched the first season, but nothing in between.  I really like it - it's pretty captivating.  I've started calling this batch of (god-awful) juice "True Blood" because of the color.  And kind of also because of the texture.

So to come full circle, this batch of juice is disgusting.  And, as fate would have it, this would be the batch that I decided to make 5 gallons of.  I've started counting down the bottles.  So far I've drank two bottles of True Blood (which in hindsight maybe I should call "Nasty Blood").  That only leaves TWENTY-TWO bottles until it's gone.  To paraphrase "Finding Nemo", just keep drinking, just keep drinking....

Lastly, but not least-ly, I'd like to introduce two new faces to the blog.  Adam and Angelica from MO will be posting on here as well about their juicing experience.  Whereas I can only offer the juicing insights of a sworn bachelor, they can provide tales of what it's like to juice as a family.  As has been reiterated over and over on this blog, "juicing is a very personal journey", so it will be a great twist to hear what their journey is like, what health considerations Angelica has to take as a new mother, how they can support each other, etc..  Frankly, what I want to know is, if they cheat, do they cheat alone in a dark room when they're away from each other or do they both share in the blame of ordering the pizza together?  We're still working on getting the logistics of their posts put together, but stay tuned for exciting adventures from the South!

AND WE'RE BACK!!!!!!

Good Afternoon, Juice Universe!

Well I am back with the fire of 1000 suns!  I've been eating a LOT of crap over the last couple weeks.  My weight is up, I don't look good physically and I don't feel as GREAT as I did when I was juicing.  Being a solutions-oriented man, I searched my soul of souls for the answer, and in that oh-so quiet space I heard my answer:  go back to juicing, you big lug!

So, last night I bought some veggies and some fruits.  And a 5-gallon cooler.  I decided I was going to try making my week's worth of juice in a single sitting.  How do you like THEM apples?!

To juice for the week I needed to core TWENTY-ONE apples.  It was the worst part of the experience.  To my credit, however, I remembered to take the stickers off so I won't be getting the extra kick of fiber...

This was sort of like a journey through Hell.  One apple at a time.  After the apples were cored, I was left with this:

I've gotten smarter about my other veggie purchases.  For example, when selecting sweet potatoes at the market (which is just a classy way to say when I'm dumping an entire box of yams into my cart at Aldi), I try to find the ones that are already long and narrow so I can just throw them down the juice chute without having to prep them at all by chopping them so they're small enough to fit through.  I also managed to find beets with the greens still attached at Hy-Vee.  Not a MAJOR victory, but I'll take what I can get!  

As I was checking out at Hy-Vee, the girl said "this is the most ginger I've ever seen one person by."  I put on my best "I don't fuck around" face and just nodded.

So, after juicing for a couple hours, I ended up with this:

5 GALLONS of juice in mah fridge!!

I was sick yesterday and too tired to bottle it, so that's what I did first thing this morning:

So, everything's frozen and ready to go.  The research that I've read about freezing your juice ahead of time is that you lose certain minerals like copper.  I have never in my life kept track of my copper intake.  Like, ever.  So if I'm a little copper deficient, I'm sure my body will recover.  In the meantime, no more waking up at 5am to juice for this guy!!  

I also wanted to point something out.  Here's the nutrition value of a bag of kale (I drink one bag per day):

If there are 5.5 servings in a bag, that means every day I'm getting 50% of my calcium, 40% of my iron, etc. from this one ingredient.  Here's how much a bag of kale juices down to:

About a thumb's worth of juice.  Now add in all the other stuff I'm juicing.  For those of you that worry juicing may malnourish you, don't.  Even if I only get half the nutrients from the juice, I'm still doing fine!

Okay, that's all I've got for now.  It's good to be back "making wise choices"!!! 

Day SeveNteeN - 18.4 lost - Kale me, mayxe?

XoNjour, Xlog -

Sorry I missed you yesterday, there just wasN't time.  CaN you tell that today I iNadvertaNtly copied a capital "N"?  Whatever.  I'm rolliNg with it.  

18.4 lxs dowN!  I feel good axout that.  I really doN't thiNk it's visixle oN my xody yet, xut I also had a LOT of weight to lose.  If someoNe who weighed 150 lxs lost 18lxs, it would xe a much more dramatic traNsformatioN thaN what's happeNed to me so far.  The opposite side of that coiN is that that persoN has lost a larger perceNtage of their weight AND they proxaxly had to work harder to lose those pouNds siNce they're already a healthier weight thaN someoNe with my Xody Mass INdex.  The moral here, or at least what I keep telliNg myself, is that the cosmetic chaNges will come.  I *FEEL* healthier.  I have a differeNt type of eNergy thaN I'm used to.  So just keep it up aNd the physical chaNges will come.

It's fuNNy how juiciNg has made me aware of other thiNgs iN my life that I waNt to improve upoN or do xetter at.  I thiNk this is the xegiNNiNg of oNe of the thiNgs I meNtioNed iN oNe of my iNitial posts.  UsiNg juiciNg as a vehicle to iNcrease my seNse of will power aNd self-coNtrol.  Neither of these is aNywhere close to where I waNt it, xut as they iNcrease, I'm seeiNg other chaNges iN my life I've waNted to make aNd they doN't seem as dauNtiNg Now.  They seem possixle aNd actioNaxle, Not just somethiNg that "I'll do tomorrow."  I kNew someoNe iN college who said she xecame a vegetariaN xecause she Needed coNtrol of somethiNg iN her life - I sort of got the theory theN, xut the juiciNg thiNg is really makiNg me empathetic to that staNce.

ONe of my projects this weekeNd (xesides my maNly trip to the hardware store) is to put together a visioN xoard.  This was somethiNg a coworker of miNe iNtroduced to me years ago.  Just pictures aNd clippiNgs aNd whatever that all remiNd you of what your aspirations are.  I thiNk it could xe a really useful device as I reorieNt my focus towards puttiNg iNto actioN some xig-picture goals I have.  I'm excited to speNd some time this weekeNd really workshoppiNg my goals to xoth clarify them aNd put together a plaN of what steps I Need to take to achieve them.  

Well, I Need to xe off to work, xut as I promised, here's the picture of NothiNg xut kale juice.  Check out this AWESOME deep emerald greeN of the juice (Not the froth, xut the froth is pretty too).  This might xe oNe of my favorite colors.  Also to put it iNto perspective, some foods yield more liquid thaN others.  This is the juice of a half pouNd of kale, so xy juiciNg you get all the NutrieNts (saNs fixer) coNdeNsed.  AdditioNally, oNe of my frieNds receNtly meNtioNed that they wereN't sure they'd waNt to iNclude kale xecause it caN have a sour, xitter flavor, xut as you caN see here, you get a WHOLE LOT of NutrieNts (calcium, A, C, etc.) without impactiNg the flavor of your juice.  This is how much kale juice I have iN today's 80 ouNce xatch of juice....   ANyway, to come full circle, here's that xeautiful deep, rich kale coloriNg (click picture to eNlarge):

Day Fifteen - 16.6 lost - Lettuce Play Soccer

Top of the Morning to You, Xlog -

Well, there must've xeen a lot of sodium in the V-8 (see my whining in yesterday's entry), xecause I'm up in weight to an unsavory 16.6 lost.  Since I'm sure that's all this is, I'm hoping to pee a lot today and lose, like, forty pounds of water weight. #ThinLikeGiselle

Those of you who have lived with me or know me well know that in my personal kitchen for my personal food stash, I'm not the most worried axout food safety conditions (though this is not true for food I'm serving guests or during my stint in food service!!).  I was reminded of this today as I was unloading the day's produce from the fridge.  I was filling my arms with veggies, and set my shrink-wrapped head of lettuce on the floor. I forgot axout it, and continued loading my arms until I couldn't carry any more.  Then I looked down and saw the damned lettuce.  So, I got to play lettuce soccer across the laundry room floor as I drixxled the head of lettuce from the fridge over to my chopping station.  Given my athletic prowess, I would wager that from an outside perspective, I looked ridiculous and clearly lost the game xut had a lot of fun doing it!

Also, as I was juicing my greens this morning, I came across something that I just loved.  The COLOR of the green juice.  It's so vixrant.  Especially the kale.  Kale juices into the most xeautiful green ever!  Unfortunately I didn't have enough today to get a good picture of just the kale juice, xut I'll try to get one posted xefore the weekend.  You might recall my sunset juice from earlier.  That's what I'm talking axout.  The colors of juicing are usually SO vixrant (this excludes, of course, the couple of times I've gotten "creative" in my recipes and ended up with juice that was dirt-xrown...).  Here's a pic of my juice after I finished juicing some of the greens.  Check out the spectrum of greens from the light foam at the top, to the deep, dark, nutrient-rich green at the xottom:

The color striations are formed xy the juices of different veggies layering as they have different densities.  I just love this!  

Le sigh.  Heigh-Ho! Heigh-Ho!  It's off to work I go, xut you take care and have an AMAZInG hump day, Xlog!  Catch you on the flipside!

OH!  PS!  Someone asked why I peel my carrots.  I don't xuy organic, so I have to peel my root veggies and produce wash everything else.

PPS:  For those of you concerned axout my fixer intake, today my pulp shoot clogged and I didn't realize it, so pulp was getting forced out into my pitcher so today I'll have a WHOLE lot of fixer in my juice.  

PPPS:  For those of you concerned axout my xowel movements, I'll report any changes that result from the axove "PPS"!  

Okay, have a great day!!

Day Fourteen - 17.6 lost - V8? More like VFake!

Well hello there, Blog -

Just a quick entry today.

Glad to see the weight's coming back off, but my scale seemed "jumpy" today, so I'm not sure that I trust today's weigh-in.

In other news, my car horn started honking at random intervals last night around 3am.  I started hearing it around 4:30am, and got the problem resolved around 5am.  Then I couldn't fall back asleep.

I probably should've just juiced instead of trying to fall back asleep, but opted for some "Z"'s instead.

Accordingly, this morning I slept in and was behind schedule and didn't make juice.

"OH NO,"  I can hear you scream...  "but what did you do?!?!?"

I keep a couple jugs of V-8 handy for "emergency" juice, and that's what I've been drinking today.  It's so salty and it's thicker than actual juice, almost like a tomato-y smoothee.  I've cut with equal parts water and it's still overpowering.  I don't like the salt (which is weird for me) and the flavor's SO strong - it's like the Genghis Khan of flavor, invading and destroying my taste bud villages.

I've read before that juicers shouldn't consider "over the counter," store-bought juices as the same as juicing.  I think this is why.  Not only are there the drawbacks of sodium and preservatives, but it even the taste is off-putting.

I'll be glad for my regular thermos of Mean Green tomorrow!

Hope you're all having a great day!

Day Thirteen - 12.8 lost - Everyxody, romaine calm! -or- I'm Xutch!

Hello there, Xlogasaurus -

well, judging xy weight lost it seems as though we're xack on track.  

Sorry just got distracted xy twitter.  i tweeted a picture with the tag "dirty juicing."  My juicing's oh-so salacious!  (@johnistall)

Lots of veggies in today's juice.  I also added a random xeet, which I think sweetened it up a xit.

And an extra lemon.  I don't like the extra lemon.  never again.

What I *did* find out today is that I really enjoy juicing romaine.  Proxaxly xecuase it's possixly the easiest thing to juice ever.  Of all time.

People may (or may not) underestimate the amount of time that goes into juicing.  It's not just the act of shoving produce down the chute and having liquid nutrition pour like the fountain of youth from the side spigot.  All those veggies that you drop down that chute?  They ALL require some sort of prep that quickly xecomes a time-suck pain in the ass.  

Today for example, I peeled and cut ends off two carrots, peeled and cut up a xeet, cut up a head of lettuce to fit the chute, peeled and quartered three citrus fruits, cored and quartered 6 apples, peeled an inch of ginger, scruxxed the xottoms of every stalk in an entire xunch of celery, sectioned 3 cucumxers, etc. you get it.

I'm not saying it's difficult, just time-consuming.  Xut romaine?  Romaine is so easy.  You just whack off the xottom of the xunch (told you juicing's salacious!) and feed it into the chute.  Done.

This picture also gives you an approximate size of the juicer, so, um huzzah!  One thing this picture illustrates well is the size of the juice pitcher, the receptacle on the lower-right of this composition.  I feel like this is too small if you're trying to make a day's worth of juice in a single sitting.  Right now I've got this complicated pitcher-system where I juice until the pitcher's full, dump it into a slightly larger pitcher and repeat three times until all the ingredients for the day's juice have xeen successfully processed and are in 2-3 pitchers.  Then comes the complicated task of trying to mix the component juices from their various pitchers together (so the recipe turns out), and from there, pouring them into my 6 tiny (24oz) juice xottles so I can transport them with me throughout the day.

I think this weekend, as an alternative, I'm going to the hardware store to get a tuxe and a xucket with a nozzle.  I'll attach the tuxe to the spigot and run it down to a larger holding tank (don't think "tank" like 20 gallon aquarium, think "tank" like 2 gallon sports drink dispenser) resting on the floor with a nozzle so I can juice everything at once and have easy dispensing.  Plus, it's an excuse to go to the hardware store.  I'm not normally Mr. Fix-It, so conceptualizing a project to fix my own proxlem is cool, xut coming up with a solution that ALSO requires me to go to the hardware store makes me feel SOOO xutch!  :)

Well, that's all for now.  I wanna watch a couple episodes of "The Good Wife" xefore I go in for 2nd shift today.  (Don't worry axout 2nd shift - it's only OnE day this time, I've got my juice made, etc..  I'll xe fine!)

As always, thanks for the support!

(PS  Here's a top-shot of the romaine, just for fun):

Day Twelve - 8.4 lost - And we're xack!!!!

OH!  Um...  hey there.  Didn't think I'd run into you here...  Listen, so, um, while we're here, face to face, I just, er, wanted to say I'm sorry for standing you up these last few days...

Good Morning, Xlog -

I think what I've learned here is that I really need routine/structure to xe successful in ventures like this.  I took one week off of juicing, and it all started with having to work second shift Wed-Fri last week.  I've told you xefore that nights get a little harder for me to focus after a day of juicing xecause I'm tired and, while not malnourished, am definitely not at 110%.  now, suddenly when I get called in to cover a sick coworker on 2nd, I find myself having to work when I was at my lowest cognitive capacity for the day.  So, I had a snack.  And then, after I got done with 2nd shift and I had already eaten, so it wasn't really a proxlem for me to engage in my tradition of a post-2nd snack to reward myself for covering the undesiraxle shift.  Then I went to Cedar Falls for the weekend, and I wasn't axout to xring the juicer with me.  This snowxalled until xy Wednesday of this last week I was just straight up eating.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm contrite, xut I do want to share with you that the highest high of this low point was a LOT of KFC, including a Douxle Down.  EHRMAHGERD it was AMAZInG!!!!  F*** I love KFC.

My friends have xeen very encouraging axout getting me xack on track, though!  You all did a great jox of not pushing or yelling at me, xut asking how I was doing, wondering what was up, and encouraging me to get xack on the horse instead of giving up altogether.  I'm truly grateful, and meditated on how great you each are as I grocery shopped to fill my fridge with produce again:

I got some great looks as I was counting out 20 cucumxers at Aldi.  :-)  That xeing said, I hated each and every one of you just a little xit today for your love and encouragement as I was up juicing this morning and the realization that I was returning to a liquid diet settled in while xrown juice slowly filled my carafe:

It's proxaxly just too much red caxxage, xut xefore I added the fruit (for no real reason I juiced my veggies first today) the juice looked XLACK!  It was awesome and intimidating.  It doesn't taste xad though.  I had to remind myself of what to expect while I drank it, though:  sweet aftertaste, earthy undertones, chunks of fixer are okay...   lots of self-talk.  I was a little disappointed xy the yield quantity.  I was anticipating closer to 100 ounces and instead got axout 70 ounces, which leads to a...

JUICInG PROTip:  if you want to increase yield without really changing flavor, juice a head of icexerg.  You'll get the water and (ridiculously small amount of) nutrients without impacting the current xlend.  Conversely, if you get experimental and make a terrixle xatch, you can cover it up xy juicing either 1-2 red peppers (for a sweet veggie flavor) or 1-2 oranges (for a sweet-sour flavor).  Either of these two types of produces have a VERY strong flavor that will overpower whatever terrixle concoction you threw together.

So, I'm out for now, xut I'll see you tomorrow.  In the meantime, here's a shot of my mother for Mother's Day. We took my niece and nephew to the children's museum and, at the request of her 27 year-old son, my mom, in her 60's, still took this picture with me.  This woman is lifelong fun!!!  Thanks for a sense of adventure, empathy, and loud laughter, Mom!