Introduction

Me in December 2011
out of my boot for a week

Everyone always says I should blog about my dating.  Well I may during this time but this is about my 30 day juicing fast.  Even though I have a group on Facebook to keep me motivated I wanted to share pictures of the drinks I make as well as the amount of juice they make.  I also wanted to share what I am feeling during this time.  I mainly decided to do the juice fast because I had gained weight again after foot surgery.  I could no longer fit in my skinny jeans and after two months my foot that had surgery still hurt and the one that wasn't operated on was starting to hurt.  I was sick of cortisone injections and putting topical noninflammatory on my feet as well as taking 500 mg twice daily of Naprosyn.  In addition I know my cholesterol has been up because of my weight and I really am sick of feeling tired every morning.  Running/jogging helped but without it I haven't had any good endorphin releases.   As a matter of fact I read in Christopher McDougall's book Born to Run that the same nerves in the foot are related to the nerves in your genitals. Therefore I have not wanted to date or have fun to release any good endorphins.  A guy flirts with me and I pretty much shut down in most cases or as my boss says I can act like a bitch.  So this blog is actually starting on day three of my fast.  I had actually started juicing the day after Christmas but just in the mornings.  Today is day three and I woke up this morning feeling a bit of stomach upset.  I decided to stay in bed a few extra hours and then get up and make juice.  I do admit my feet are not hurting as bad as they did.
    Ok so here is a video of my juicer, its an Omega 8004 I purchased after watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead a film by Joe Cross.  He is using a much more high end model that can be purchased on his website but after watching many YouTube videos comparing the juicers I decided to get the Omega 8004. The price was right and the amount of juice it makes is amazing.  Watch this video and learn about both the juicers. The only thing I dislike is doesn't do so well for the citrus fruits or the tomatoes.

Ok so today I will show you what fruits and veggies I set up for my juices todayand how much juice I got out of them as well as their taste, texture, and if I would make them again. The great thing about this was learning how much juice each recipe gave me.  I have been using recipes from The Big Book of Juices.  Over 400 recipes to try including smoothies which I can using my omega 8004 with the blank to make.  I still may get a citrus juicer but haven't decided yet.
I made three juices so far:

•  Carrot apple kiwi
• Grapefruit strawberry tangerine orange
• Kale apple celery and lime
• Tomato parsley lemon and half stalk of celery

My first juice is comprised of apple (2), kiwi (2), and  carrot (3).  It had a slight orange color to it. It actually mad a bit more than 8 ounces so I took a taste.  Very smooth and thicker than an apple juice.  I think it will be yummy when I eat it shortly.

Juice two was comprised of a grapefruit a handful of strawberries and three cutie tangerines with 6 tablespoons of orange juice.  i used simply orange because it is pretty close to organic fresh squeezed juice.  It did make about 16 ounces of juice.

Juice three was a mean green juice.  5 large leaves of kale, two apples, three stalks of celery and half a lime.  I have made this one before and it tends to get frothy when you crunch up the kale.  Due to the frothiness it looked like more than 16 ounces but I think it was more like 14.  This has a clean fresh taste.

Juice four was a version of parsley salad.  One large bunch of parsley, half a lemon, and a pint of grape tomatoes.  This one came out thick. The juicer does not do a good job on tomatoes so I actually watered this one down quite a bit.  It was almost a sauce.  It made a bit over 8 ounces so i watered it down to about 12 and drank four and filled my bottle.  I would say it was thicker than V8 by a long shot.  However, I admit the parsley taste was refreshing.
There you see it all the nice juices as well as the final product.  Yes the colors aren't always beautiful but so far the tastes have been good.  Total prep time was about an hour. This included cleanup of my juicer.  I did have some carry over between juices but I wanted to see if I would have time to prep juices in the morning.  I think I will have to fix them the night before on weekdays.