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"
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.
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