2013 Juicing - Day 5

11:02 PM AirplaneFoodCritic 0 Comments

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!