What have I been doing....

Well as you can see it's been a long freaking time since I last blogged... What have I been doing you may ask.  Well nothing that fantastic.  2012 was not one of my favorite years. I spent to much time and energy working and was stressed out to say the least.  The unfortunate thing about me and stress is I eat.  A lot.  Cheese, chips, pizza, DESSERT, SUGAR.  All the oh so not good for you foods.  It's like the more stressed out I get the more I talk myself into eating crappy foods and out of eating what makes me feel good.

I feel like a broken record and like well a yo-yo.  Eat crappy for years, vow to lose weight, loose nearly 60 pounds!  Feel great, decide it's ok for me to indulge in a cookie that leads to 12 and everything is out the door.  All the hard work, all the good choices, flushed down the crapper.

So here I am back up to 180 pounds!  Yikes!  Seriously no good. On my small frame I look like a sausage.  But you know what, I don't feel hard on myself.  I really don't.  I made some bad choices or some bad and stressed out choices and it got me here.  It's not a mystery how it happened.  How I let it happen.  But I also know I can lose it because I have before.  That one thought or realization makes me feel lighter and happier about the whole thing.  I know I can take it off.  I know exactly what it is I need to do to get it off of me.

So this is my plan.  I have created a large 100 day calendar and it's smack on my fridge. As of today the 6th of January I am starting my 100 day juicing and raw food diet.  Everyday that I stick to my goal I will get a sticker and at the end of the 100 days I will reward myself.  I am not sure what the reward will be yet but I will give myself one.

I am super excited to be starting these next 100 days.  I will be checking in as I go along probably with juice recipes and the trials and triumphs I have along the way.  

Juicing for Health and Weight Loss!

So over the years I have juiced for cleansing. I have gone on juice cleanses maybe 4 times before now always lasting around one week. Unlike fasting or the Master Cleanse where you are only consuming lemon, maple sugar, cayenne and water on a juice cleanse/fast/feast you are juicing wholesome fresh nutrient rich juices. So after my trip to Nevada a few weeks ago I started juicing. Unlike other cleanses I have done I wanted to keep some fiber in my system to help flush things out. (sorry but it's true and VERY important) So instead of only juicing I have been having a green smoothie for lunch and 1 tbs. of pshylium husk in my morning juice.

Green Super Lunch Smoothie

1-2 cups spinach leaves
1 banana
1/2 cup blueberries
2 tbs. hemp seeds
1 tsp. maca powder -optional
1/2 tsp. chlorella
1 tbs ground flax seeds
Unsweetened Almond Milk

400 calories
High in Omega Oils, Vitamins A, B6, C, High in manganese, magnesium, potassium, high in Fiber and contains around 13grams of protein. Not to mention all the greens and chlorella help to remove heavy metals from the system.

Now you may be thinking that sounds gross, drinking greens! But I can assure you that it does not taste like spinach in fact it is delicious!

So my daily routine for the first week was some kind of fruit juice for breakfast like cantaloupe juice (my personal fav)or a nice apple, fennel, ginger or a carrot, apple, beet juice. Really the sky's the limit depending on your personal likes. For lunch I would have my Super Smoothie then I would have a light afternoon juice usually something like apple, cucumber, celery, kale or apple, lemon, red cabbage (pink lemonade:). And for dinner a nice vegetable juice like parsnip, tomato, cucumber, celery, red pepper, garlic/ginger. An important thing to remember with juicing is that you want to limit your intake of sweet root vegetables and fruits in the afternoon evening as the sugar found in these foods will keep you up. And drinking lots of water and tea in between. You may be surprised but you do not feel starved and after a few days you are quite use to "eating" this way.

Once I had finished about 10 days of this I started adding in a raw meal for dinner instead of juice. I would have my favorite raw zucchini pasta with a raw marinara sauce or a big vegetable salad. Two days ago I had my first "cooked food" eating a nice bowl of vegetable soup. So far I am down 10 pounds, and feeling fabulous! When you add juicing into your life you are adding soo many vitamins and nutrients that you are brimming with energy! To make my point last week my partner had the flu everyone at work had the flu and I just sailed on by without getting ill:) I plan to stay on my course having a juice for breakfast, a smoothie for lunch and either a raw or cooked meal for dinner.

As I sit here writing this I have been thoroughly enjoying a glass of fresh papaya, guava, apple juice. I can say it is amazing!! High in Vitamins and contains around 8 grams of protein. Now that's good breakfast.