Juice Fast 2013: My Juicy Birthday

When I woke up this morning, I felt pretty awesome.  It was day 26 and I was ready.  Zulema had given me a birthday present before going to bed.  It was a heart rate monitor. I was stoked because I'd been wanting one forever.  I'd started setting it up but it was late and I figured I'd save it for the morning.  I got it all set up and checked my resting heart rate.

55BPM, Nice.  I didn't know what my resting heart rate was supposed to be so I googled it.  I searched "resting heart rate 31 year old male"  and here's what I got:



"Anything between 60-80 is normal.


Below 60 can be fine if the 31 year old male is a well-conditioned athlete."

...what?!  It's just so nuts because of how I looked a year ago today.

Last year, I'd already been losing quite a bit.   I was 286.8, down 19.7 lbs from the 306.5 lbs I started at on Jan 4th.  I'd just completed a 20+ mile bike ride to celebrate my Birthday and further train for STP which wasn't coming for another 6 months at least.


Today though?  I woke up with a resting heart rate of a "well-conditioned athlete".  I tested my blood sugar and it read 101 (no meds of course).  I hopped on the scale and it read 223.6, down 23.4 lbs from the 247 I started at on Jan 1st.    63.2lbs down from a year ago today...

Today, I did P90X: Legs & Back and I must have been so hyped from it being my birthday and the way I looked and felt.  I was just bursting with energy, and Legs & Back is usually a routine that has me dying.  That isn't to say I wasn't feeling like I was gonna pass out at some points, but I'd just hit pause, calm down, and jump back in with more.

We went out to get more juicing supplies and get prepared for my big Juicy Birthday party that was going down later.  We'd already gone out prior to me doing my P90X routine and got a bunch of things, but I sent Zu out with Liz to get the rest of the stuff while I knocked that out before everything got started.  Zulema was going to make Chili since I'm really the only Juicing at the moment and I got the sudden urge to try my hand at making Hummus from scratch.

I basically knew the majority of the ingredients but was unsure just what quanitites and how it all mixed together so I decided to google it out on the computer in the livingroom.  I open up chrome and it defaults to google. It kinda looked funny.  The logo was all changed up like they normally do it when something special's happening.  I look at it and say to myself "who the hell's birthday is it today? The inventor of birthday cakes?!"

Curious, I hovered over the logo to see and...

...my mind...

Anyway, we got everything prepared and the party got under way.  It was awesome seeing friends bring things to juice and trying out our concoctions.

 We got serious, setting up our masticating and Centrifugal juicers.  Zu started out by making everyone something tropical and fruity with some greens in it.  They all loved it of course.  Then we made them a batch of mean green, and they also dug it pretty well.

 My Hummus was a huge success.  I made everything from scratch even down to the tahini.  the only thing I didn't do was like soak chickpeas or anything like that.  I had Zu pick me up a can of organics while I was working out.

It was a definite blast having everyone over.  It really speaks to the amazing amount of support I have from my wife and friends for doing this.  So all in all, I say this was a great Birthday!

Juice Fast 2013: Day 24

I know it's been a while since I've really said anything.  Well over a week now.  Things are about the same, just taking things day by day on the fast.  My routine has become watching 2-3 episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia while I take at least an hour to make my juices each day.  I don't really get my breakfast in until sometime after 10 but at least it's consistent for the time being.  In fact, I think my whole eating schedule has basically shifted back about 1-2 hours to compensate overall so there doesn't seem to be too much harm there.  I think the only issue I really need to work on now is sleep.  I need more of it as to not be counterproductive to my progress.

To try and streamline the time it takes me juicing, I've basically been doubling up on batches of juice.  So I essentially have mean green all day.  I've only in the last 2 days been making 2 slightly different juices just to spark up some variety and get some different nutrients and flavors in.  I want more beets.  I definitely don't wanna make beets just a weekend thing.  I also need more wheatgrass.  Waiting for the stuff to grow back is a pain in the ass.  I think for the perfect way to keep it cycling, I'd probably need like at least a dozen sets.  That's just too much space to take up.

The weight tracking is going about as expected.  The massive weight jumps are slowing down.  There's always peaks and valleys.  It's way too easy to get caught up in the numbers when working on health and weight loss.  It usually ends up being everyone's eventual undoing when they don't see the numbers constantly going down.  Earlier this week, I fell victim to the numbers when I noticed my weight creeping up by a pound or two prior to my weigh in on wed.  I figured I was still going to have lost for the week but I was becoming upset that it wasn't as big as the previous weeks.  I had to sit there an think about it for a sec.  I remembered that every week wasn't the same in past fasts.  Then I noticed that at this current point, my large shirts are draping over my stomach.  That's something that hasn't happened until now.  I had to realize that now I'm back in on the heavy resistance portion of P90X and I'm hopefully building more muscle.  I'm trading fat for muscle.  So that made things better for sure.   Then wed came and I was down another 1.8lbs! That's great!

Another thing that's been really great are the numbers of people being inspired by what I'm doing.  I was happy last year having so many of my friends and family ask me about juicing or telling me they got juicers and were going to give this a try.  It made it feel even more rewarding when they would tell me how it worked for them.  This time around seems even cooler.  I'm getting so many friends and relatives hopping on board and it's just wonderful seeing so many finally start to wake up and realize they're capable of making changes in their health.  It definitely brings me joy to be able to share my journey and help them all get started.

My birthday is coming up in 2 days and like I said before, I spent a good portion of 2012 thinking about how I was going to give myself a big juicy steak for my birthday as a "reward" for working so hard and changing my life around.  It wasn't until deciding to start this fast that I realized the real birthday present I gave to myself was the ability to not care about it, and most importantly not make that the "reward".  My birthday present now is a 31 year old me that looks and feels younger, smaller, and healthier than the 30 year old me... Hell, even better than the 21 or 19 year old me.  My other birthday present is all the people that have decided to get into juicing or at least changing their health up positively as a result of seeing me.  For once, it  feels like I've actually made a positive impact on the world.  One that's actually useful and I can feel proud of.  It's pretty much this one thing that keeps me going these days.

On the P90X front... I'm into phase 3 of the workout.  Today will be day 157 (day 67 round 2) and I'll be doing some Yoga X.  Getting into to the heavy resistance routines while on the fast has been interesting.  While the first week of the fast, I was finishing up phase 2, I was just getting on the fast so I didn't notice much of a difference in energy levels.  It's kinda hard to say now though.  I guess it's about the same as before I was on the fast so to speak.  Some days I have the energy and some days I don't, but the improvements still seem to be there and that's what counts.  last week, I had moments where I was definitely feeling like I wasn't performing as well as I had in the past, but then I'd move on to another move and blow my friggin mind with how much I'd improved.  I've been doing more and more chair dips, but I started doing chair dips with a leg raise now.  I think I might even be ready to rock chair dips on 2 chairs next.  Here's a clip from last week's Shoulder's & Arms:

So, I said before that I'd been focussing a lot on green juices and mean green variants this and last week.  So I'll share one or two of the recipes I've been doing.  These were recipes I created early last year when I was in Cincinnati taking care of my mom. They're still awesome!

 Berry Lemon Zinger:
1pt of your berries of choice (strawberries pictured here)
1 cucumber (peeled to hide cucumber flavor)
4-5 handfuls of greens (spinach, or lettuce.  mixed greens pictured here)
2 pears or apples
1-2 lemons or limes (depending on your tartness tastes.)

Mean Green Honeydew Surprise:
4-5 handfuls of spinach/baby greens or 6-8 leaves of kale/collards
2 apples (granny smith preferred)
1 lime
1 cucumber
1/3-1/2 large honeydew melon
4 stalks of celery

Juice Fast 2013: I spoke too soon...

So, last time I was remarking at just how well the first week had gone.  How I had virtually no issues going on to the fast and even in the presence of food only mere days of putting an end to chewing myself, I was totally fine and unphased...  Haha, well it's funny how things work out.  I would've grown to eat those words, except, I'm on a fast and I CANT EAT A GODDAMN THING!!!! ARRGH!


So the weekend came around and we needed to get more supplies.  I'd finally started looking pretty low on things. Especially greens.  Luckily, the night before, we ran out to grab a couple things just so I could have a juice in the morning that wasn't just completely fruit.  I'd also gone pretty much the latter half of the week with no beets and I was really feening for them.  We grabbed some golden beets because they seem so exotic to me.  I always find it special when I can make a beet juice that looks like it's just carrot juice but it still tastes like the awesomeness of my full beet concoction.  This one, I decided to call Yellow Beet Road.

Yellow Beet Road:
1 Cucumber
1 Golden Beet
4 Carrots
2 Apples
1-2 Oranges OR 1 Grapefruit
1 Lime
Below fills two of the 32oz mason jars pictured left

We were pretty ready to get our day going and Liz hit us up to go make our big costco run for supplies.  She also wanted to go hit Value Village for some shopping and just make a day of things.  Zu and I got ready and we all set out toward Value Village.  When we go to 2nd hand places like value village or goodwill, Zu's always handing me weird shit and saying "here, put this on".  I usually oblige and often times hilarity ensues...  

Well... Saturday was really no exception...

Although, this time, putting on a women's faux fur coat actually kinda looked pretty pimp not gonna lie.  

I'm usually bored to tears when it comes to places like this because I rarely care about buying clothes.  It's just a guy thing I suppose.  However, that day I'd been feeling a bit curious.  The fast has been working it's magic.  I decided to go look at some jeans.  I wanted to at least grab some more pairs of 38s since I only actually have one pair that are size 38.  Everything else I have are 40s.  I was also feeling a bit ambitious, and grabbed a pair of 36s.  I start out by trying on this pair of 38s from the gap.  They were only $4.99 and half off to boot so I definitely figured what the hell.  Yeah, they didn't fit very well.  I still have pretty thick muscular thighs.  The kinda looked like I would've exploded the thighs out or something.  That's cool though, relaxed fit is more my style anyway.  I put on the next pair and those were fine.  

Then I get to the 36s.  I slip 'em on and they fit perfectly.  Ho-lee-Shit!!  Now, I can tell you the last time I was able to fit into a pair of 36s... 7th grade.  Back when I was 12. Words really couldn't decribe how happy I felt about that.  That got me going, and I kept trying on different pairs of 36s.  I ended up getting like 3 pair.  I also got a leather jacket that fit!  Never really had a leather jacket, and every jacket/coat I own at this point is just simply too big for me now.  

I was feeling on top of the world.  I think we all got a little too carried away there because I hardly had any juice for the day and now it was nearly 3pm.  My energy just sapped from me in an instant, and I was no longer really in a good mood.  We finally take off and everybody wanted to go to this mexican place next door.  I figured I'd be alright with my juice.  I wasn't.  We got in there and I'd nearly wolfed down all my juice before they even finished placing their orders.  They offered to take the food to go, but I was stubborn and just out of it.  Man, I never felt hunger pangs like that in a really long time.  I think it was just mainly due to not having had anything in a long period that day.  Thankfully for me, my juice kinda finally kicked in and I  snapped out of it.  My energy came back and I was no longer really being affected by all that awesome smelling mexican food.  It wasn't until AFTER we were getting ready to leave that I even discovered they had Coconut water.  So I grabbed some of that and I was back to feeling awesome again.   

The rest of the weekend played out pretty lazy for me.  I didn't end up doing Yoga X to end my recovery week. I didn't really get beyond making any other juice than the yellow beet road juices I was making for myself and Zu in the morning.  Zu never really drank hers so I pretty much had the heavier fruit juices all day.  It felt really good to get some greens going again on monday though.  I made a huge batch of mean green and just had mean green all day.  I decided to give wheatgrass a shot since I read that was also a complete protein.  The spirulina flavor was starting to get to me and I figured I could definitely make wheatgrass blend in more as a flavor.  Also a piece from my Breville is busted and we've lended out the other breville, so I'm using the Omega masticating juicer until we get the part replaced.

The masticating juicer is really the better juicer overall.  It gets way more juice, especially from greens.  The pulp comes out so dry proving it. There's less oxidation so I'm actually getting more of the micronutrients than I would in a centrifugal juicer.  There's no friction heat present either, also a plus for micronutrients. The only big issue is that it just takes forever.  Where, I can make all my juices from prep to cleaning in about 25-30 minutes using a centrifugal juicer, it takes like almost an hour or more to use the masticating juicer.  It's the only way I'm going to be able to effectively juice wheatgrass though, so whatever I guess.

Monday, I started Phase 3 of P90X and I'm finally back on the normal resistance routine schedule.  The whole time I just felt like I didn't have the energy.  Like I was drained and felt weak.  I'm thinking it was more of the "muscle confusion" stuff that P90X aims for.  The strength was there and the energy was there, I just needed to act.  I don't know why I felt so sluggish, but work was getting done.  I did 12 Diamond pushups thinking just how I just don't have the energy today.  It didn't really dawn on me until I went to go write it down that I'd done 12 Diamond pushups with absolutely NO modifications.  I just kinda banged them out and went "man I'm tired".  When I looked at the previous entry from a month ago, I wrote that I'd done 10 diamond pushups on my knees.  I've only ever been able to do diamond pushups on my knees and then I just banged out 12 like it was nothing?!  When I was "Tired"?!  Holy shit!  I wasn't able to bang out 30 regular pushups like I had been, but that's okay.  That diamond pushup thing made my day.

Juice Fast 2013: Week one in review...

Man... it's been kinda tough getting this blog out.  Things have been somewhat busy.  At least, I've just been too occupied in other things to really hunker down and write about the week.  I mean, hell, it's almost the end of week 2 of the Juice fast now ;-P.

As for the juice fasting this week, it's been pretty awesome.  My official weigh in on wed was 232.8!   Down  14.2lbs since the first of the year.  Take THAT holiday weight!  I'm actually busting back down to the weight neighborhood I was at after I'd finished my last fast back in may.  Except this time, I have a lot more muscle with me and it seems like the fat is continuing to burn.   Awesome!

What I find kind of remarkable about the fast this time around is how easy it was for me to get into it.  I haven't really had much of a serious struggle or difficulty with it this time around.  Sure, I still have some issues here and there but they're all really, really mild.  I haven't had any migraines (YES!!!) or any real headaches for that matter.  I've had a couple of what I'd call "fogs".  Just some super minor headaches that have lasted maybe half an hour at the most.  Not even painful in the least.  A little bit of fatigue here and there, but in general not much.  The energy came really quickly.  I've had no heavy detox days to speak of.  The biggest thing is my ability to cope with it.

I was a little apprehensive leading up to this fast because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go through another one.  Like I'd mentioned before, I was actually looking forward to just finally maybe having a "whatever I want" meal for my birthday to celebrate how far I've come.   If I was in the middle of a fast for the month, I can't do that.  Back in september, after my friend's wedding, I felt like I needed a quick fast to get back on track with things, but I cracked after the 2nd day.  Back then, I just figured it was because I didn't have the support.  Zulema wasn't really fasting with me so maybe that was it.  Well... Zulema's not fasting 100% with me now and I'm doing fine.  I think it was all just clearly a matter of being in the right state of mind.   For some reason, I'm in the proper state of mind for a juice fast in January.  Food hasn't really bothered me.  I still can't help sometimes getting weird cravings for things when commercials come on tv.  It happens.  It's always intensified when fasting, but it's been really subdued this time.

What I find funny are the ads that have gotten to me the most when they do are for like Taco Bell and KFC.  I haven't had either of those things in over a year and a half at least.  Or McDonalds...   It illustrates the power of mind, because when I'm on a fast and I see these commercials I can visualize the taste of the thing on the screen.  Even if it's some brand spanking new thing they're selling that they've never sold before.  The brain just manufactures what the thing tastes like and there it is in my mind vivid as ever.  So now what I'm stuck with is nostalgia.  I've been doing enough of this stuff to completely change my taste buds, so even if I wanted to go cave and dive into it, it probably wouldn't even be half as satisfying as I'd imagine it's supposed to be.  Last year, and the year before, those thoughts invaded my mind and tormented me for the remainder of the night.  This time, whatever, it's pretty much forgotten the moment the commercial ends.  Wow.

My P90X recovery week has been pretty good as well.  I'm kinda itching to get back into the resistance stuff next week.  The progress is pretty sweet.

Day 144

Day 1

It's amazing seeing some of my improvements in flexibility.  I've never been able to touch my toes bending or standing without bending my knees.  That was even before I grew a belly.  The time I stopped being that kind of flexible had to be in early grade school.  Like 2nd or 3rd grade at least.  Now I can bend over and touch my toes without bending my knees... WHAT?!  That's crazy!  I'm still a long ways off from being as flexible as really any of the guys in the P90X videos, but man, thinking about where I was when I started, to where I am now and it's nothing short of astonishing.

I haven't gotten too wild with the juicing recipes this week.  Mainly because I'm trying to not go crazy on spending on produce because I was broke as hell all week... Thankfully, I did a good enough job prepping out the gate, that I still have a good bit of stuff left and I've been doing pretty good with mean green, workout mix, and soups.  I'll freestyle a little new thing here and there, but the recipes are generally derivatives of either mean green, apple, beet, carrot, or something in bewteen.  I ran out of beets early in the week so I'm actually kinda missing them a lot.  I'll pick some up this weekend when I re-up on everything.

I've been really digging a couple of these raw soup recipes someone shared in the juicing only facebook group I'm a part of.  So far, my absolute favorite is the raw carrot corn soup.  I've also had a good time with the tomato basil soup as well.  The recipes can be found here.  I've basically been doing the recipes minus the oil.  This corn carrot soup pictured above...  OMG, I swear it's like having some soup made with heavy cream.  The flavor is just amazing.  So super simple.  Corn. Carrots. Salt. Pepper.... Wow.  To imagine something so simple can taste so good AND be ridiculously healthy for you. My mind...

When I first heard about it, I definitely wanted it but I wasn't sure how I'd find fresh corn this time of year.  I ended up going for frozen corn, but I really wasn't wanting to at first.  I don't quite know why I was so reluctant to go for the frozen corn.  I think maybe it was just the thought of it not actually being fresh.   Once I got the corn thawed, I tried to juice it.  I figured I'd need to break out the masticating juicer, but when I started juicing it, nothing was happening.  In fact, creamed corn was just coming out of the other end and NO JUICE was actually coming out.  So I kinda had a little genius moment and stuck the corn in the nutri-bullet with some water.  I blended the shit out of it and then just strained the juice out.  That did the trick and boy am I so glad I did that because that soup is heavenly.   Anyway, here's to another successful week of juicing.  I'll catch up with you soon!

Juice Fast 2013: Anniversary

Yesterday marked an anniversary of my largest juice fast and weight loss journey.  When I started last year, I was 306.5lbs.  It was somewhat of a disappointment to be back up there because I'd reached a lowest weight of about 289 toward the end of my initial fast and being under 300 for the first time in like 2-3 years was a huge thing for me.  That said, I knew I was going to go into another juice fast and I knew I was going to go for at least 120 days.  I had it in my head the whole time that I was going to lose 100lbs.  I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to lose, or how I was going to look.  I just kept hopeful that however it turned out, it was going to be epic.  Well... it did turn out to be pretty damn epic.

Fast forward to today (Jan 5) and I'm currently weighing in at 234.8lbs!  71.7 lbs lighter than 1 year ago.  Now, my "official" weigh in days are Wed.  So I marked this weight down with an asterisk.  Things happen.  Both gains and losses all the time.  So, I'll mark my official weigh in on wed and we'll see where I'm at, but I'm still pretty stoked currently.  

Yesterday went pretty standard.  Zu and I made a mean green and a beet juice.  That's our usual go to combination for the day.  I dropped some spirulina in the mean green to help me out with my P90X activites.    I hadn't taken a progress pic in like a month, but I took one yesterday.  This is Week 7 round 2:

I was on Back & Biceps for the day.  I probably should've made my workout juice but I didn't.  I think it probably would've made a big difference energy-wise.  I think the reason I had so much more energy during plyo the previous day was because I had my juice later in the afternoon.  I thought I had the energy because I felt a little bouncy and wired, but of course, I didn't just jump and do my routine when I felt it.  I waited a couple hours.  Perhaps that was a bad idea.  I got through it, but it took a long time.

After all that lifting, Zu and I settled down with some tomato "soup".  I, of course, added some spirulina for the extra protein boost and to help not feel sore in the morning.  This pic is pre-spirulina of course.  Spirulina basically just turns everything into a dark green, almost black looking mess.  It doesn't look very appetizing, that's for sure.  I was all satisfied and ready to just relax and close out another good day of juicing when things had to go and get tough.  My roommate ordered some pizzas and a friend came over to watch movies.  That's usually really tough to deal with, and last night was definitely no exception.  I got hit with my first serious bout of hunger pangs as a result.  It's funny, because I haven't had pizza in forever.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I actually had pizza of any sort.  Definitely not within the last 6 months.  It was a rough night, but I got through it.  I just kept sipping water and trying to move beyond the smell.  It eventually went away.  After two movies I went back to my room and busted out Ab Ripper X.   Another successful day of juicing down!

Today, I started out with this, which I'm calling "Everything but the kitchen sink". Because I feel like I've put damn near everything in this guy.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink:
6-7 Leaves of Kale
2 stalks of Broccoli
2 Cucumbers
3 Red Delicious Apples
1/4 Pineapple
5 Carrots
1 Beet
1 Lemon
1 Lime
1" piece of ginger.

Juice Fast Day 3: Juice 90X Juiceometrics

Yesterday was pretty good.  Zu made the first juice.  She runs a page on facebook called Crazy Juice Lady. On it, she'll share random recipes she or I come up with, and offer some random tips about juicing. Now that we're back on (she's juicing and doing one meal a day) she's dusting off the old site and getting back with the posting.   She posted the juice she made yesterday which she calls "I needed to use that pineapple"

I needed to use that pineapple:
5 carrots
1/2 pineapple
1/2 bunch chard
1/2 bunch purple kale
1 cucumber
3 granny smith apples
1 lime



Of course, we both try to make enough for us each to have close to 32oz each so we can basically roll with two big containers of 2 different juices and just drink half a bottle during breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, late afternoon snack.  Then I'll usually finish off with a "soup" dinner.  Before she took off, she comes to me and told me we were running out of veggies.  I was pretty puzzled because I grabbed a crapload of items.  The things I hadn't bought in bulk yet were cucumbers, celery, and kale, but I did have a lot going on.  I can understand though, we're both diabetic and she was worried about having nothing but fruit, but even though we're diabetic, usually when we're fasting like this, our blood sugars are super controlled.  Like to the point that when we take our insulin, we're in constant danger of always being in super low blood sugar mode which is no good.  Even still, I think I'm the one that ends up getting a little more creative and adventurous with the juicing.  I think a lot if it just stems from me being too lazy to go out and get more ingredients.



I told her I'd make a juice and bring it in the afternoon.  I went to go check my tub to see this apparent lack of veggies and there was no real lack.  I mean, sure there wasn't as many greens left, but I still had plenty to freestyle a juice.  So I gathered them together and got to work.

I think she was weary of the broccoli.  She didn't know if it was going to taste good so she decided to leave it behind.  I can understand that.  We had a fairly negative experience with purple cauliflower so I could see how she'd be hesitant to want to jump down that neighborhood again.  Well, I put all this stuff together and I added another ingredient... Spirulina. The result was....   dark...

The Juice looked more like the first green juice above, until I added the spirulina.  It tasted pretty alright though.  Now, why did I add spirulina?  I'm still maintaining my P90X workout regimen which is HEAVY activity.  When juicing, while you're still getting a lot of protein from vegetables, it's usually recommended that you don't do a lot of super heavy activity for your activity.  It's usually more recommended to keep it down to cardio activities like walking, jogging, riding, or even swimming.  Not typically, is it recommended to do any major weight lifting or resistance training.  I wanted to be 100% sure I was getting enough complete protein so I don't have to worry.  I've found in my research that a lot of complete proteins from veggies come in the form of combinations of foods, usually adding beans, legumes, and nuts.  The very things I'm not touching during the fast, so I decided to start looking up things that had the right assortment of amino acids that could be considered "complete" proteins.   On the list, I found spirulina, chia seeds, and wheatgrass.  I decided to go out and grab the spirulina because it has ridiculous amounts of protein.  Like 4.8 grams of protein per 6.9 grams of spirulina.  It really is like 60%-70% protein.  It also tends to give everything a slight seaweed aftertaste.  It actually tasted really familiar though.  I'd been a long time fan of Odwalla's Superfood smoothie.  It pretty much tasted along the lines of that, except mine was probably 100 times healthier with way less sugar!

I did Plyometrics yesterday. I'm hoping to at least eek out the first 5 days of week 7 and skipping yet again on Kenpo X.  The holidays definitely make it tough trying to keep up with P90X.  It's mainly more due to wanting to hang out with people.  I stay pretty isolated here at home so I get some major cabin fever happening.  I actually didn't end up making my workout juice because I made that "Better than Superfood" juice pretty late in the afternoon (Ha! I just named it!).  As it turned out, I had way more energy for Plyometrics this week than I even had last week.  I still had to pause a lot between routines though.  My heart was racing a mile a minute between them, but I still had the energy and that was awesome.  Another thing I noticed with that Better than Superfood was that my arms started out pretty sore from the previous days' Chest Shoulders, & Triceps routine, but after I started drinking that juice, the soreness started going away within 30 minutes.  Sometimes it really amazes me how quickly these juices can act.

After all that jumping around, I settled down and went on to make a "soup" juice.  Someone in this juicing only group I'm in suggested following a recipe for a soup, instead only juicing the ingredients and not cooking anything.  I figured I'd give it a shot.  BTW the recipe is here(obviously, I skipped over the butter and sour cream).  The key to warming a juice is to keep the temperature below 118°.  115°-116° is perfect.  You only want to gently warm the juice so you don't kill off the micronutrients which are the whole reason you're juicing in the first place.  What I like about this, is it usually tends to thicken the juice just slightly enough and give it a creamier texture.  It feels so fulfilling and sort of hits the spot at the end of the day, which is usually when hunger pangs like to rear their ugly head. It was okay.  Not my favorite.  I think I may have added too much orange juice and maybe not enough onion or garlic.  I added a little salt and spirulina, that definitely gave it a bit more of a savory "soup" taste.  Tonight, I'll go back to my tried and true tomato soup.

Juicefast 2013... The beginning.

Here I am... 60.5lbs lighter than I was on this very day a year ago... I don't really have a picture of myself when I started the 2012 juice fast.  It never occurred to me to take one.  I just wanted to get started.  Hell, I even forgot to take one now, but it's no biggie. I can take one tomorrow maybe, or, I have plenty from only like a week or so ago that can serve well as a "before" pic.

I thought about maybe just continuing with what I was doing and not jucing this month.  My birthday is on the 26th and I've been dreaming of maybe having a big juicy steak ONE time this year... on my birthday.  Hell, I earned it right?!  I've been kicking ass and taking names and I at least just want to have one day a year where I can just do whatever (within reason mind you) and a birthday seems a good day for that...

...yet here I am...  Juicing again.  That basically means that I'll get a big 'ol birthday juice...   Meh... oh well...


Did you just see that?  I think this proves that I've accomplished something phenomenal.  The fact that I can honestly not give a shit if I had a steak on my birthday, or any day for that matter because I dunno... I just like being healthy.  That's just, wow.  I tried to not let the holiday period between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year affect me too much, but honestly, who can do that?  I certainly backslid a little, but when I really look at it compared with last year, it's hard to believe just how little damage I did do.  I did a million times better this holiday season then I've ever done. EVER.  I noticed each time I went up like 6-7lbs but by the following week, I was back down.  Wow.

Anyway... back to the fast.  I had to get prepared.  I really did kinda wait until the last possible moment to get everything together but, I got it together nonetheless.   I was out on New Year's Eve collecting all the produce I needed to be going for a while.  This time around, I brought another friend along with me, Liz.  She's going to give it a serious shot this time around and that's cool.  So, we went out hitting up various grocery stores and costco and got a haul of produce.

I got all my stuff together and I knew this time around there's not enough room in the fridge or kitchen for all the produce, so I'm using nature's great icebox and storing things outside.  Although, right now it's below freezing so I'm doing the next best thing and moved everything into the garage.  Hopefully things won't freeze and get damaged in there.

It worked out pretty well. Everything's staying fresh and I have the added benefit of cold juice right when I make it.  The first day wasn't too bad. I started off with a random freestyled concoction.  Basically, I wanted to make a beet juice, but I had a couple golden beets so I wanted to make it a golden colored juice.  I rounded up my ingredients and busted out "goldfinger".

Of course, the cucmber and chard still made the juice overwhelmingly green, but in separation, the gold poked through.  It was pretty tasty.  For lunch Zu made a Mean Green and that had me set for most of the day.  As the afternoon went on, I kinda started feeling the drag of the cleanse.  I got a bit of a mild headache... more like a "fog" but nothing too terrible.  Though, I think there were other things contributing to the headache rather than the detox.

  I skipped out on my P90x routines a lot this week, but I decided to start my first day with Chest, Shoulders & Triceps. I hadn't done any P90x routines on a juice fast and they're pretty hardcore. I needed to make sure I'm getting a good amount of calories in so I can burn them without doing too much damage to myself.  To do so, I whipped up my favorite workout juice.  I think when I discovered it, it was called "jogger's paradise" or something to that effect, but I've since taken it and made it my own.  I call mine the "biker's mix".  It usually consists of sweet potato, pears, carrots, oranges, a lime, and sometimes pineapple.  It's definitely a carbload of a drink, but it's perfect if you're set to burn a lot of calories within a short period of time.  A 32oz bottle of this stuff has taken me through countless 50-70mile bike rides with no trouble.  It's like Jet fuel for me.  Well, I got through the routine, although I'll admit, it wore me the hell out.  I felt a bit more worn out than normal, but I still got through it and felt pretty good.   I usually get used to making my tomato "soup" juice to close out the evening because it gives me that sustained "full" feeling, but I didn't have any of the ingredients and I didn't actually need it so that's good.

I think I may have already started burning through my holiday weight gain.  That makes me happy.  Numbers can fluctuate a lot day to day so I'll wait until my official weigh in next week to see what actually happened.  That's it for now.