Boring 1990's Night Stands Get A Glamorous Make-Over

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In 1996 I bought a house with my then husband. We had a huge, brand new master bedroom and mismatched college kid, thrift store furniture to fill it. This was not acceptable so like the grown-ups we were trying to be, we bought a whole new bedroom furniture set. The marriage lasted two years unlike the furniture which I dragged around with me for 17 more years. When my boyfriend and I amalgamated our furniture as we shacked up it became apparent how dark, outdated, giant and clunky my 1990's furniture was. Piece by piece I sold off half of the set. I sold the massive bed frame and then the armoire. I put the dresser to use as a buffet in the dining room. We were left with the end tables. We need night stands so we can't sell them. They work, they are functional and they are sturdy. I decided to try my hand at spray painting to see if I could get them to match the rest of my current bedroom.



I bought two cans of black semi-gloss spray paint and one can of metallic gold spray paint. I didn't even bother sanding. I washed, wiped down and dried them. I taped off the outside and painted the inside with the gold spray paint. I learned to keep the can moving or drips would occur. I also sprayed the silver handles so that they were gold too. The result was a satin-like metallic gold finish. I let that dry overnight. Next, I took plastic bags, ripped them up and used them to tape off the center part of the night stands. I sprayed the outsides, the top and the face of the drawer with the semi-gloss black spray paint. The paint dries pretty fast, specially when you sweep super thin layers upon super thin layers. Round and round the stands I went until I was satisfied that they had even and thorough coverage. I left the stands to dry overnight one more time.

The result is so beautiful, I could NOT have purchased more magnificent, perfect side tables if I googled for a week straight. The colors match the temporary wallpaper I put up on one of the walls and the black/gold/crystal glamorous style I am going for in the room. I could not be more pleased with the outcome! See for yourself below:

Before and After - IKEA Bookshelves Get Hacked, Updated With Color

10:28 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments

I had to lose my job because of my illness. So far, it does not feel too different since I have been on disability for the last nine months. There IS a difference, of course. I am not getting a paycheck anymore and that lends a bit of extra stress on me. Both the bf and I are without a job and we live in a very affluent neighborhood, AKA rent is outrageous. Luckily the bf did get a severance package that is larger than the average person's annual salary so we can feel a little less hurried while looking for work. In the meantime we sit here in our living room looking around.

One morning I woke up to find the other half of the bed empty. I groggily walked into the living room, rubbing my eyes. I immediately tripped over a stack of books. Oh no. What now? See, every six months or so (this time I was lucky because it was a year stretch) the bf gets an itch and to scratch it he must rearrange the house. Now, this is not my style. I like stability and sameness. I am comfortable knowing things are in their place always and that place never changes. It takes time when one moves into a new place (we moved here two years ago) to put the things away in places that make sense. It doesn't make sense to have floor to ceiling glass walls looking out onto the gorgeous San Francisco Bay and then put the back of a couch up against it. It doesn't make sense to keep ugly dvd's displayed in stacks when there are perfectly empty television console drawers that were BUILT for just that type of storage. You get the idea.

So, back to the morning as I tripped over a stack of books. I finished rubbing my eyes and found myself lost in the middle of a forest of stacked books, dvd's, records, BluRays and video games. The bookshelf unit we bought a couple years ago was once again changed. This time it was stripped of all it's contents. Ok, honey, what is it this time? The bf had been up all night making up plans to bring more color into our living room. This is where we have one of those couple style clashes. It isn't really a clash though, not in my mind, because I want everything BLACK and he wants everything colorful. At least color and black match, right?! Earlier this year I agreed to get a lovely, sunshiny, yellow chaise from EQ3 and a rich, ink blue, velvet settee from West Elm. These go beautifully with my already existing graphic rug and black 1940's style club chair. I considered that compromise. Apparently he did not. He came out from behind a stack of pot holders in the kitchen to explain to me he wants to paint the dark wood bookshelves. Still trying to wake up, still trying to recognize my own apartment, now my head begins to spin. He holds up a piece of paper that is lifejacket orange. "What do you think of this?" No. Nonononononono!

I am all for trying out color but I had to explain to him I didn't want to live in a day care. These colors were going too far. I imagined my home looking like a circus or a preschool! I knew there was no going back the way it was, not after him obviously staying up all night conjuring up ideas. I said, "ok, let me pick the colors.". I sat down with Google and Pinterest and browsed and browsed. I came up with emerald green for the shelves and gold for the backing. He agreed and, boom, the shelves were out on the patio. We had bought primer, some rollers, a paint brush, a can of green latex paint called Chloroform and a little can of gold latex paint.

We went home and primed both shelf cases. Then, we painted two coats of the green paint. Once that was dried, we taped off the green and began rolling the gold on. That ended up a disaster!! The paint was really runny and dripped everywhere. It glopped and dripped and was sticky. No matter what we did, how gentile we were, the paint was obviously unevenly textured leaving drips all over the place. It was quite disheartening. The bf wanted to just rip the backs off of the shelves. After all, they are Ikea shelving so it is just cheap, thin, pressed sawdust basically! I did not want that to happen so I went back to the hardware store and bought scrubby sponges, sandpaper, gold spray paint, thicker painters tape and a bunch of plastic.


First, I went after the thick drippy bits that were still wet with the scrubby sponge. I waited another day to make sure the ugly, gloppy gold paint dried then I sanded it down to the best of my ability. Before I sanded the gold I did use the plastic and completely taped off all of the green so that when I spray painted the particles in the air would not settle on our lovely green paint job. After I felt it was sanded as much as it was going to get sanded I wiped everything down to get the dust out of there. It took two cans of the gold spray paint to fully cover the backs of both shelving units. If you do not already know how to use a spray paint can I will tell you that it is best to do lots of really thin coats. If you get hung up in a spot it will drip. I misted and misted and misted until both cans were empty. The result is not perfect because of the previous paint but it is not noticeable at all once the shelves are full.

I would take a photo of the finished room but it is not finished yet. We are waiting for the settee to arrive still.

30 Things You May Not Know About My Invisible Illness

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I hope to fill this out annually to see the changes that take place in my health, attitude and feelings. I got the questions from this website. If anyone sees this and makes a blog of their own answering the questions, please send me a link in my comments area. 

30 THINGS ABOUT MY INVISIBLE ILLNESS YOU MAY NOT KNOW

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel: Like maybe you are a little closer to getting what is going on inside me and that is one step closer to me not having to explain myself.

If you would like to donate to help me over the last hump of my treatment please go here.

Invisible Chronic Illness Week Sept 9-15, 2013

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There have been various occasions throughout my blog where I have mentioned that I am sick. I have an invisible illness. That means I am sick but it doesn't look like it. I am actually very sick, so sick that I can no longer work at this time. I can not even get out of bed on some days. I have terrible pain throughout my body and I have little energy. There are a lot of invisible illnesses out there and there are a lot of people suffering from them. The fact that these illnesses, many of them auto immune like mine, are undetectable to the eye, no one knows how many people are walking around in incredible pain and discomfort.

Those of us who have these illnesses do not want to be seen as sick so we go out of our way to hide it further. That is why there is an Invisible Chronic Illness Week, to raise awareness to the issue and just HOW BIG it is and how many people are affected by it. If I had the means I would love to have some sort of march where all of us get up and walk out into the streets. The ironic problem with that is many of us can not just get up and walk....anywhere...at all. Perhaps I will just hang a purple flag out my window. Purple is the color of Fibromyalgia. Or a blue flag, the color of Arthritis. In fact, I could probably hang a lot of colors out there. That is how my sickness goes. There are a lot of symptoms and often a lot of diagnoses. What colors have meaning to you?

The Invisible Chronic Illness Week is not only here to let people know how many of us there are but also to help understand us as well. There is a website that is full of info about how to participate as well as information about invisible illnesses and those who suffer from it. A meme has been created that allows a sufferer to share how they feel with those around them. The meme also helps us to document our progress, be it forward progress or sometimes backward. It is a series of questions to be answered. The questions can be answered annually to show changes and a continued insight into the author's journey through an unseen, often unspoken about life.

I am going to do that meme in my next blog.

Juicing Day 6 and 7

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I realize how last year when I did this same thing, I stopped blogging after the first 5 or 6 days. There is a difference between this year and last year. First, I am on completely different medications and that is because my illness has progressed and changed. Last year I remember feeling good, energized. I was able to get up and go to work...and work a whole 10 hour day before driving the two hours back home. This year I have been far sicker. I have not been able to work in the last nine months. I have a great deal of trouble getting out of bed even after my necessary 11 hours of sleep I get every night and the three hour nap I take every afternoon. Yeah, there is a big difference.

Last blog I faded out of the juicing so I did the same with the blogging about it. I didn't mean to leave it hanging like I did but I guess it took so long to write something I felt it was too long and didn't bother. I do not want to make that same mistake this time. I did the same stuff I have been doing the first 5 days. I woke up...very slowly and painfully... but that is my usual. I found it more and more arduous as the juicing progressed. The evening of day 6 I went to my parent's house for our weekly family dinner. I was a good girl and brought my own juice. I never felt hungary or too weak. I did feel a bit stupid and foggy in the head. I felt like I was floating down a surreal river that was my life. I noticed it the most the night at my parents. I had to actually interact with the outside world. At home I would wake up, juice, sleep, juice, sleep more, juice and then go to bed and have a horrible night's sleep (that part comes with my illness, not so much juicing).

Upon waking on the seventh day I realized I was more sluggish than usual. Far more and weak too. Getting out of bed that day was a nightmare. My pain was there as it always is but this time my muscles felt totally weak, almost useless. It took every tiny cell in my body everything it had to get me to the kitchen to make that day's juice. When I got there, I was out of breath. I thought...This is NOT why I am juicing. Every reason I wanted to juice: energy, feeling light on my feet, feeling clean, feeling the nutrients enter and revitalize my cells.....NONE of that was happening at this point anymore. I decided to stop juicing because it was no longer benefiting me at this stage in my lift or at this stage in juicing, I'm not sure what it is. My body just told me...no, this isn't working to our benefit anymore.

This does not mean I will not try it again next year. And when I do, I think I will call it a one week cleanse. This also doesn't mean that I am not drinking juice still, a few days later. When one comes down off a juice diet, one must break it to one's body slowly. What I did first is make a smoothie, instead of a juice. I added some different fruits than I had in my fridge because I wanted to use my frozen fruits. I learned the hard way that frozen fruits do not juice well. They turn to mush. For smoothies, frozen fruits are the only way for me to go because you must well know me by now and know that I must have cold juices and smoothies. I put in frozen strawberries, mangos, a cup of almond milk and a half scoop of protein powder (cake batter flavor!). My next meal was all juice. I felt weak again so I took a protein bar with me on my wak with my dog. For dinner I nibbled on a sandwich fearing my stomach was not ready to take it. My stomach didn't complain to the bread so I felt lucky. The next day I had a juice for breakfast but I put a dash of protein powder in it again. I had the other half of the sandwich for lunch and a protein smoothie for dinner. Today I feel much stronger, healthier. I had a juice for breakfast, a smoothie for lunch and Vietnamese spring rolls for dinner.

I am still losing weight which is great. It was not my intention on this juice cleanse but it is a common side effect. I am now focusing on losing weight because I just booked a trip to Hawaii for my and the bf's birthdays...in 32 days!!! I am going to eat healthy now and I will be supplementing that healthy diet with juices.

In the end I lost 11 pounds. I can't say I got much more from the juicing fast this year other than that. I am not disappointed though. I just chose the wrong time to do the cleansing. I will choose a more fitting spot in my life, next year, to give it a go again.

Until next year....Please write to me with any questions you have. If I have the time, I promise I will post a blog about high sodium fruits and veggies.

2013 Juicing - Day 5

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I made it to the halfway point! I do not foresee having any trouble finishing the last five days. I hope those are not my famous last words. Today I still made juices out of variations of the produce I bought two days ago. I am getting a little low but I can make it at least one more day on my last shopping trip which will make it half of day 3 and all of 4, 5 & 6. If I stretch it into half of day 7 then we are talking 4 days of juicing for $51.33. Don't worry, I will do the math for you. I am still good at some things despite my goofy, foggy mind. It breaks down to a little under $13 a day. If you think that is expensive, I would agree with you. Juicing is not a cheap business. I wish I could make it to a farmer's market at one point during this juicing experience. This would enable me to ensure I am eating local, organic produce and I usually can get it for much less money.

Learning:
Today I learned that papaya turns into a bit of mush making it more difficult to separate the pulp from the liquid. The result also makes the juice a little thicker than usual. Thick juice, like room temperature juice, does not go down my throat all that well. To remedy the thicker juice (and it was only slightly thicker) I used an extra ice cube or two and that watered it down enough.


I also learned a little more of what I like about using the straw. I am obviously a picky person. I don't like veggies, I don't like warm juice, I don't like it thick.... Well, I am going to add one more thing onto that list of negativity: I don't like foam! The only foam I will put into my mouth is the kind a Three Michelin Star chef put on my plate with the accompanying proteins that make a delicious second course. Did I trail off there? I might have gotten a detailed description in my head. I want you to know that this is not because I am starving but rather that I miss my favorite Michelin Starred restaurant, Cyrus. They closed last year. I try to soldier on with my head up high but it is all a facade. I miss you, Cyrus!


Ok, I went overboard there...back to foam. Every juice I make ends up with a layer of foam on top. I think I am probably increasing the amount of foam when I put the juice into the VitaMix to crush the ice into it. I have two ways of remedying the amount of me-foam interaction. One way is the straw, as I eluded to a moment ago. I pour a large glass of the juice and I stick the straw down through the foam into the actual juice. As I drink I swirl my glass every now and then in an attempt to incorporate the foam a bit more. I do not want to throw away the foam because it is still nutrients and it still costs money! Once I am down to the bottom of the glass I tip it to the side and drink as much as I can up to the frothy level. This typically leaves less than an ounce of foam. I take that foam and dump it into the VitaMix for the next round. The second way I get rid of the foam is to put the remaining juice I have made into a sports-type bottle with a lid. Every time I want to have a little from the bottle I gently invert it a few times. The foam gets incorporated enough for me to either drink or pour into a glass.

Lying:
I lied to you. I feel real bad about that. If it helps, I did not know I was lying to you when I lied to you. In an earlier 2013 juicing blog I was talking about my juicer. I said it is really simple to keep clean because you only have to rinse with warm water. I said I have never had to scrub my juicer as long as I have had it. Today I got to thinking as I was scrubbing my juicer....I DO scrub my juicer...every day! I am sure that if you are reading my blog here and perhaps you are following along you may have realized what you must do to clean your particular juicer. Mine, as I mentioned, is a Hamilton Beach $60 juicer that serves my purpose perfectly. To clean it, I take the parts apart and rinse everything with warm water until there are no particles on the surfaces. There is one piece that, no matter how long you rinse, will not come clean with just running water. I am talking about the sieve. My sieve is on the top and has the grinders on the base and the cone of it is a very fine mesh. I remove that and give it a rinse but there is always tons of stuff stuck in those tiny tiny holes. To thoroughly clean this part, and you want to thoroughly clean it every single use, I turn the cone upside down so the wide opening is facing the sink. I run warm water over the sieve and I use a scrubber with bristles to reach underneath and scrub the inside of the cone. I find this works really well at doing two things: One, it cleans the sieve off perfectly leaving no food particles. Two, it splashes specks of food all over the rest of my sink area.

Feeling:
I feel much better in my brain than I have in the past four days. Today I had to do some of the chores that I had laxed on while being weaker earlier this week. I did some laundry, walked the dog for an hour, cleaned and prepped a cabinet for spray painting. All that on top of making my regular juices, of course. I am getting down to about 20 minutes to make one 6 cup juice, including the clean up. As I was lifting the laundry and hanging it on the line I could feel that my muscles are weaker than they should be. It isn't to the point to be alarmed by any means, it is just a sensation that is obvious. My muscles got tired quickly. I didn't back down though. I worked at a normal pace. Now, my "normal pace" is pretty slow because of my Autoimmune diseases. The reason I wanted to use my muscles is because I am basically starving myself and it is relatively common knowledge that when your body thinks it is starving it begins to store fat and burn muscle. That is a bad thing if you are trying to watch your weight. My weight is not really a reason I am juicing, it is my health, but I don't want to be a big cow after I finish either. What would normally happen is the body burns muscle for fuel, your body loses muscle which is commensurate with losing a portion of your metabolism. After you finish the juicing you will find your fat to muscle ratio is worse off than before. You will be eating solid foods and eventually, fatty foods, if you are like me. The body will continue to store all that fat so at that point you may as well just duct tape the fatty foods to your stomach and thighs. It creates a bullet train for the fat to take over your body. I wanted to use my muscles today so I could send a message to my body to not burn muscle, I am using it!! I wasn't working out but any muscle use will help maintain it if only a little.


Weight Loss:
I lost 0.4 pounds since yesterday. That makes a total of 10.2 pounds in five days. I will not be surprised if the weight loss slows considerably or even halts. I think the shock to my body is over and it had re-calibrated it's self. I have found that every time you shock your body you can lose a large amount of weight right away that will last from 3 days to several months. What I mean by shock is really just doing something different than usual; Eating only ice cream every day, Cutting out all carbs, Drinking lemon juice with cayenne pepper, Limit the gluten intake, Eating only meat..you get the point. That is why when I am trying to lose weight and I hit a plateau, I do a little body shock to wake it up again and away we go!

Juicing - Day 4

10:26 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments

I find it to be true that it gets easier after the third day. I think a lot of things in life is like that. I recall when I would travel with my parents and brother for a month in Europe it was always the third day one or all of us used to have a melt down. Once that third day was over, it was like nothing ever happened. I wonder what it is about three days. Whatever it is, I am glad I am feeling less woozy and stupid.


I have been making more variations of juices with the produce I bought yesterday. I made two six cup juices in total today. Both were about half veggie and half fruit. Maybe a tiny bit more fruit. I used two containers full of kale in one and in the other juice I used two leaves of collard greens and a whole container full of the red leaf lettuce. I added some ginger to one and cucumber to the other. Despite the high sodium in cantaloupe I am still stuck with half a melon so I decided to use it sparingly in every juice. That way I don't get a lot of sodium on one particular day. What I mean by saying 'container' is the chute that I put the produce into. I fill it up, smash it down and place the plunger on top. Then I turn on the juicer. It is interesting to see what fruits and veggies each produce; how much, what color, how strong the flavor. I then dump whatever is in the juice cup right into the VitaMix to be blended with 8-10 ice cubes. Some other ingredients I used were grapes, apples, always a lemon in every juice, oranges, butternut squash and zucchini. Today's juices, because I tried to make it 50:50 vegetables to fruit, tasted, as one might imagine, more vegetal. I was alright with it because I made it really really cold with all the ice and the flavor is mostly an undertone so I tried to ignore it and focus on the citrus and fruits.


Learning:
Today I learned that just because I feel ok does not make me immune to a big dip in energy and concentration. I had to drive an hour up north to see my pain doctor and get my prescription. I had been drinking my juice all morning and felt just fine. I decided to leave my juice at home because I didn't want it to get all warm and gross in the car. I truly can not handle a warm or even room temp juice. I made the trip up just fine. It was on hour drive back down to my hospital that I started to notice I felt my concentration loosening up a little. I was not going to crash or anything like that. It was just a little zoning on the license plate of the car in front of me for a little too long. Once I got back to my hometown hospital to fill my 'script I noticed that I was getting winded unmistakably faster than usual. Just walking on the flat surface from my car to the pharmacy was making me weak. I should have brought along the juice. I learned I can not go two hours, probably one hour without sipping the juice. I did have water in the car but that didn't help my energy noticeably in any way.


Feeling:
The little snafu aside, I am feeling better than I have in the past three days. I forget I am even juicing. Here is a silly story because I am silly: I received a package that is a gift for a friend. I put it into my drawer of gifts to be given out. I saw some chocolate I had been nibbling on a month or two ago so I mindlessly grabbed it. I was walking around munching on it when I realized what I was doing!! It is either part of the brain fog or like I said, I am forgetting that I am juicing. Another thing I feel is sleepier at night than I used to. Problem with that is that I have to pee all night long. Makes sense, right? I am drinking nonstop all day long so I am also peeing nonstop all day and night long. Tonight I am going to stop drinking at 9:30 and I will see how that goes. Tomorrow I will adjust accordingly. I am so sleepy and comfortable at night I really wish it wouldn't keep getting ruined by my jumping in and out of bed half the night.

Weight Loss:
I lost 1 pound since yesterday. That makes a total of 9.8 pounds. I am pretty sure that my previous calculations may have been off. I am too lazy to go back and look but if you noticed that they were, let's chalk that up to the brain fog, ok? Thanks, I appreciate it. Tomorrow..half way there!

Juicing - Day 3

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They say that it gets easier after the third day. And I survived the third day so Hooray for that! I had to go to the store again today because I used up the rest of my produce this morning. I should have noticed how much I spent and bought because it only lasted 2.5 days. No matter because this shopping trip was exclusively produce for my juicing. Below I am listing what I bought today:

Bag of granny smith apples
Bag of assorted red/yellow apples, oranges, tangerines
Butternut squash
Green grapes (because that is the only color they had to offer)
A single bunch of collard greens
Four bunches of organic kale
Bag of lemons
A single bunch of red leaf lettuce (I hear it has a bunch of chlorophyl and antioxidents)
A cantaloupe
A green, striped, football shaped melon that was on sale ;)
A massive papaya
A cucumber
One single zucchini
And one potted, growing planter of Wheat Grass (claims to be a super food)
Cost: $51.33

I am bummed that I couldn't get kiwis because they add a lot of flavor to mask the vegetable flavors and it isn't too citrusy.  I came home worried that I may have bought too many vegetables and not enough fruits for my taste but I made a juice with most of the ingredients that I bought and it is fantastic. Here is what I made:

2 cups red leaf lettuce
1/2 cup butternut squash
1 oz wheatgrass
1 cup green grapes
1/2 canteloupe
1 lemon
2 granny smith apples
1 orange

I juiced all the above in the juicer then poured into my VitaMix with 8 ice cubes. I pulverized the ice in the juice. That made 6 cups of juice.


The fruit-heavy ratio of vegetables to fruit make it bearable for me to drink. If you have seen the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and you are familiar with Joe Cross, you may be shaking your head at your computer screen. Joe says it is best to make a vegetable-forward ratio to fruit. Typically it is suggested to be 60:40 veggies to fruit, but I am likely just the opposite with more fruit. If YOU are cool with more veggies, then I say go for it. You just have to google Mean Green Juice (that's what Joe calls his favorite juice) and you get lots of recipes that are heavy on the veggies. One thing that is a problem with Joe's recipes is the celery. I have extremely high Blood Pressure and I am trying very hard to bring and keep it down. Celery has high levels of sodium. So, if you are suffering from Hypertension or High Blood Pressure, DO NOT USE CELERY! Oh darn, I need to read up on the high sodium foods! Cantaloupe is extremely high in sodium too, higher than celery!! Ok, this is me, learning on the spot. I will look into high sodium produce and report back.


Shopping:
I went to the store and went willy nilly. I did not have a shopping list because I didn't know what was in season or what the store was stocked with. I just tried to get even amounts of fruits and veggies. I know that every single juice I make has some greens in it so I bought a lot of kale and then I bought less amounts of collard greens and red leaf lettuce. I want to make sure I don't hate those greens before I buy a ton of it. So far, I love the red lettuce because I didn't notice it at all in my latest juicing. Apparently, melons are in season. They were everywhere in the store so I grabbed two and a papaya that was the size of a melon. Now that I have already used half a melon, I wish I had grabbed at least one more. Hopefully my green melon has less sodium than my cantaloupe. In the store, I also made sure to pick up only organic greens. I didn't have a choice on the lemons, apples and oranges but fruits with a rind like citrus fruits are not terrible for you if they are not organic because the rind and pith gets the bulk of the poisons and you throw that part away.

Learning:
Every day I learn something new. I am not an expert at this by any means but the more I learn and write down, the closer I become, right? Part of juicing is drinking water. I have to admit that I have not been doing that as much as I should. They say..(sometime I should find out who these "they"s are!)..you should drink a cup of water after every juice. The problem I am having with that is I decided to slowly drink my juice through a straw all day long so I am rarely at a point where I finish my juice. What I have done to remedy this is put the water right into my juice in the form of ice. I put 8 or so ice cubes into the ViaMix with my 5 or so cups of already juiced juice. I don't know if this is too different from drinking the water by it's self but at least I am trying! Plus, I can't stand a warm juice, or smoothie for that matter, so I adore the cold, frostiness I get from adding the pulverized ice! If you do not have a VitaMix or other machine that will turn your ice into dust, you can simply crack a few in your hand with a spoon or, even easier (and less painful), pour your juice over ice.

Feeling:
I feel pretty much the same as yesterday. I am a little slow in the brain but I am not tired physically in the least. Yesterday I managed to do a bit of exercise by flying my kite (it makes me do a bit of running around on less windy days!). Today, the most I got was shopping at Lucky's. I hope to get a bit more exercise in the next seven days. We have had house guests galore for the past week so now perhaps, it is time to use the yoga videos since I have the floor space back!


Weight Loss:
I lost 1.8 pounds since yesterday making a total of 10.8 pounds lost in three days!

Juicing - Day 2

11:59 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 1 Comments

It is the end of my second day of juicing. By juicing I mean consuming nothing but juiced fruits and vegetables and water. I am getting enough of the nutrients that I need and I am not suffering at all...not yet anyways! Since this time around I have no job, I am home all day. So what I am finding is that I have a different groove. I wake up and make my first two 16 oz juices. Actually, I make four or five cups in the morning which I sip on all day long. Then I make another four or five cups in the afternoon and, again, sip away. This way I never have a sugar spike or low blood sugar. Last year, when I would chug one 16 oz bottle of juice I would get a bunch of energy then crash a little. When I crashed I would feel...well kind of stupid...groggy and I knew I needed another juice. I was sort of living one juice to the next. This way is great. Just drink slowly and steadily all day long and it is a different story.


The steady juice drinking can be done at work as well as when you are staying at home. I just use relatively large juice bottles and a straw. Yes, a straw. Once I switched to using a straw in my cup, I instinctually just slurp bits every now and again.

As far as recipes I am still going on my Costco run of fruits and veggies. I say veggies in the plural but really I only have one vegetable, Kale. I am ok with this for the first two days and maybe I will switch up my veggies when I go get more tomorrow. That's right, I am already out. No one ever really said juicing was cheap! It isn't because you are buying and drinking tons of fruits and vegetables and it needs to be organic. The reason you must have organic produce because you can not risk having pesticides and other toxins in your system. The whole reason one juices is because it streamlines the nutrients into your system. This way it does not have to be digested and sorted. The liquid sends the vitamins and enzymes and other wonderful things right to the parts that need it. Imagine if you were doing the same with the pesticides and other bad things?


I am using varying amounts of giant green apples, blueberries, black grapes, lemons (although I never go above one lemon per juicing), kiwis, and kale. I always make sure I use a couple cups, at least, of kale. The kale I am currently using is frozen, organic, chopped kale. I had to totally defrost it before I put it in the juicer otherwise the juicer disregards the hard, frozen bits as pulp. Once I let it defrost a ton of juice started flowing. The only problem with it is the bits get EVERYWHERE! It's like little, green, slippery confetti. The next time I go shopping, tomorrow, I will get some big, dark leaves of kale so I can do a comparison.


How have I felt? As I said, I felt pretty stead all day. I did a little exercise so I drank the 10 cups a little faster than usual and as you see I drank 10 cups, 2 cups more than I normally do. I was a little hungry tonight but not too terrible. I smelled the wonderful burritos and fish tacos the boys had. Boy Howdy did that smell good.

Yesterday I took a baseline weight of myself to track my weight as these 10 days go along. I didn't remember to take it until midday so I was likely at my highest weight of the whole day. I weighed myself this morning right when I woke up and tinkled...the lightest I will weight all day today. The difference was 7.0 pounds.

About Juicers

12:00 AM AirplaneFoodCritic 1 Comments

I thought it might be helpful to share a little information that I have gathered about juicers et al.

About my juicer:
I have a Hamilton Beach juicer that I bought for $60 on Amazon. I read about a lot of juicers before buying it. I learned that it is a good idea to start out with an inexpensive juicer because most people juice for a little while and then stop leaving them with a $200 juicer gathering dust. Once you find that you are going to be a juicer for life, then is the time to perhaps buy a fancy one.

http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-67650-Mouth-Extractor/dp/B000FHQJ6C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1377318644&sr=8-2&keywords=hamilton+beach+juicer

What are the differences between juicers? The more expensive ones are likely to be quieter and get more juice out of the produce than others. I juice a few times a year just for a drink and then I am trying to do a 10 day juice fast annually so I could justify getting a more expensive machine. I love my juicer and I have not found any problems with it so I am quite content having it and nothing fancier.

Cleaning your juicer:
I have heard a lot of people complaining about the mess the juicer makes but I do not find it to be messy at all. Well, I take that back, it leaves a messy looking sludge that covers not only the receptacle but the top parts of the machine as well. Some people like to keep the mess to a bit more of a minimum by lining the pulp receptacle with one of those thin, plastic produce bags. I do not bother with this because as I said, the rest of the machine needs taking apart and rinsing as well so why not get my hands a little wet and rinse everything in the sink. It is that easy too...the pulp just rinses down the sink. I have had my juicer for over a year and I have never had to scrub. A couple times I used some soap but most of the time just warm water rinses all mess away and I leave the parts to dry on the counter.



Prepping the fruits and vegetables:
I have also heard a lot of people talk about how long it takes just to prep the produce. They are pretty much right. The juicer advertises that you can put in whole apples but I like to cut mine up and remove the seeds. The seeds of most fruits, if they get into the juice, can give you gas and that would be one more weird variable we don't need to deal with. One also must remove the pith from oranges/lemons/grapefruit etc. I remove the fur from the kiwis too. I pull the grapes off the sticks, of course and then there is all the washing you must do. I do buy organic so I am not putting a bunch of chemicals in my body. It is important that you use organic. That means you still have to rinse them because of bugs and dirt.


How much do you have a day?
I am not an expert in this area but I did really well with 8 cups a day. I tried to do it cup by cup but the way it worked best for me was to have 4 containers of 16 ounces. I would make the juice for the next day at night. This way I don't wake anyone up with the relatively loud juicer whir. This was plenty for me. I was energized enough. I felt light and energetic. It was easy to take to work as well. I drank one 16oz bottle on my way to work, I'd have two through the course of the day at work and then I would have a dinner one while I made the next day's juices.

Time for the 2013 Ten Day Juice Fast

11:57 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 1 Comments

First of all, I shouldn't even call it a fast. I am not always hungry. Phew, got that off my chest. Now, to begin my first day blogging about my first day juicing I must go into the past. I read my blog from last year and I was happy to see some good information but I also saw some missing information. To not be redundant I will post more things that I felt were missing in the 2012 Juicing extravaganza. Things that I hope to provide this time, along with how I am feeling and what new things I have learned, is recipes. And this time I will give my wonderful readers a special treat! I will be finishing the ten days. Apparently I stopped blogging at 8 days. I guess I felt bored with it. I don't rightly know. What I do remember is that a lot of people were super interested in how to juice and it's affects so I hope to shed a bunch of new light for everyone as well as for myself next year.

First things first. I had to be ready for the juicing. About a month ago I thought I was going to do it "next Monday" but then some friends came over and we were going to go out to dinner. Then I thought ok, NEXT Monday but then things came up. You are getting the picture. I just was not ready and if I am not psyched up, if I am not totally into it, excited about it...I won't last. I looked on my calendar and it appears I have nothing that would upset my juicing. Things that would interfere would be a holiday or, of course, dinner or lunch plans and the like. Once I got psyched up for REAL, I bought a bunch of fruit and kale. I could not, for the life of me, recall what I made last year, which ones I liked the most and what recipes made me feel better or worse or whatever. I will try much harder this time. I think last year I didn't actually believe I would make it but this time, I know it is relatively easy and kind of fun.


A little about me and my style and tastes. I will just come out and say it: I dislike vegetables. I do like fruit though. I have noticed certain vegetables can be masked by certain fruits and certain vegetables' flavor breaks through any type of blending. The vegetables that I notice the most are:
Bell Peppers
Carrots
Cilantro

The veggies that I do not notice are:
Kale
Spinach

The fruits that I find mask vegetables the best are:
Lemon
Grapefruit
Melon

The fruits that do not mask most vegetables are
Apples
Grapes

So, if you are like me and are trying to trick yourself into eating vegetables your best bet is a combination like Kale and a lemon. I actually always add a lemon to my juice because I like how it masks any veggie taste right off the bat.


How much do you have a day?
I am not an expert in this area but I did really well with 8 cups a day. I tried to do it cup by cup but the way it worked best for me was to have 4 containers of 16 ounces. I would make the juice for the next day at night. This way I don't wake anyone up with the relatively loud juicer whir. This was plenty for me. I was energized enough. I felt light and energetic. It was easy to take to work as well. I drank one 16oz bottle on my way to work, I'd have two through the course of the day at work and then I would have a dinner one while I made the next day's juices.

What about protein?
Contrary to many beliefs, you can get protein from produce. Examples of good sources of protein from Vegetables:
Beets, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, green peas, bell pepper, kale (my personal favorite), lettuce, mustard greens, spinach, tomatoes, watercress and turnip greens.

Examples of good sources of protein from Fruits:
Apples (my favorite), cantaloupe, figs, apricots, grapes, grapefruit, honeydew melon, oranges, papaya, peaches, pears, pineapple, strawberries, guavas, tangerines and watermelon, yes, watermelon has protein. One cup of watermelon has one gram of protein.



Choosing your produce:
I make it up as I go along. I quite like the idea of "eating the rainbow". The more varying colors you ingest, the more varieties of nutrients you are guaranteed to be getting! Color is a good rule of thumb in other ways too. For example, picking out grapes. I was in Costco and I was presented with three types of grapes. In the past I used green grapes and it tasted great but I was not given any options back then. Before me was green, red and black grapes. When you are presented with this dilemma with grapes, or any other type of fruit , choose the darkest color. This goes for all produce like kale: choose the darkest leaves you can see, oranges: choose blood oranges if you can as they have 40% more vitamin C and Anthocyanins* which are super antioxidants. I chose the black grapes as they have two things the red and green do not have: quercetin and resveratrol which among many other things including cancer prevention, boosts the  immune system reducing the effects of inflammation and protects cells from diabetic neuropathy. I have issues with both of those so I am eating lots of the grapes. These nutrients are in the skin of the grapes. One may wonder if they are getting into the juice or if they are left in the pulp receptacle. Do not worry. When you juice the black grapes, you will see a dark juice coming out and the nutrients are hiding in the color so you literally can see them in the juice. These nutrients are the same as in red wine when people advise to have one glass of red wine a day.



Recipes?
I will post recipes this time as I go along. So far I have made various combos of what I bought on my most recent trip. Each juice I made today had kale, lemon, kiwi, blueberries, grapes and apples in them, all of varying amounts. One thing that stayed the same was the lemon. I do not recommend using any more than one lemon or you will have one tart juice that will strip the enamel right off your teeth. (Not really but it will feel a lot like it and it may deteriorate the enamel a wee bit with the acid). I will go back to the store and get more kale and spinach and I think a melon and whatever is in season. I don't even know what is in season right now but what ever it is will be at the Farmer's Market. I will pick a variety of colors and the darkest of those colors I can find.

*Info from SFGate