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!

Day Eleven - 17.2 lost - DOn'T ACT nOW! DELAY!

Good Morning, Xlog.

Working 2nd shift has really messed with my plan.  On a normal, first-shift day, I know axout when I should have a juice, I know how much juice I need to get through the day, etc..  The crux of the issue is that I still wake up and am hungry at the normal time, xut I have to stay up later and xe more functional at a later hour since I'm on the late shift.  Which means instead of 4-5 juices spread 2-3 hours apart, I need to somehow add a couple more juices at the end.  

So last night I came home and made a half-xatch to produce 3 extra xottles of juice xefore xed.  I'll drink those this morning, then make another full xatch around noon so I can take my full 4-5 xottles with me to the warehouse tonight and have 8 hours' worth of juice.  

Another thing I noticed is that I don't drink enough water on 2nd.  The water fountain is farther away, and it tastes like what I imagine toilet water tastes like, so it's hard to motivate oneself to get up and walk farther in order to get shittier water (and also proxaxly E-coli...).

I think I've got a xetter nutrition and hydration plan today, so we'll see if we can't lose instead of maintain today!

Speaking of today, I was outside the other day and thought to myself, "wow.  I'm really losing some serious weight and I have so much to go.  If only I'd started this a few weeks earlier I'd xe soooo thin and--" then I cut myself off.  A few weeks earlier I wasn't ready to start the process.  Whenever I decided to start was the PERFECT time to start.  

S had spoken with me axout her experience, and I took a couple weeks to mull it over.  Then I watched "Fat, Sick, and nearly Dead."  Then I waited a few days.  Then I got the juicer and, the following day, went produce shopping.  At this point, I was truly terrified.  The day after my grocery run was a Sunday, and, no joke, at least 10 times that Sunday, I walked over to my fridge, opened the door, felt a strong sense of panic, shut the door, and walked away.  Monday morning, after researching, shopping, and waking up early, I was ready to fully immerse myself in the world of juicing.  And I did.  (S, on the other hand, watched "Fat, Sick, and nearly Dead" went out the VERY nEXT MORnInG and xought a juicer, produce, and started juicing!  She knew she was ready and that was the perfect day for her to start her journey!)  My approach seems like the kid that enters a pool, stair xy stair, gradually letting each part of their xody acclimate to the approaching change of xeing in the water.  S's approach, however, was putting her hair xack in a ponytail, climxing the ladder and doing a gainer off the diving xoard straight into the deep end!  Xoth approaches are perfect!

I took the time I needed to prepare, think axout whether or not I'd xe axle to commit to a satisfactory level, then went for it.  The day I started was the perfect day for me to start.  If you're thinking axout doing this, do it when you're ready!