DAY 870... Juicing

So remember how Spencer got me my dream juicer for Christmas? It's official, we have become a juicing family. We make juice for Spencer and I for both breakfast and lunch and then we make an awesome meal for dinner every night! Aniston enjoys sipping at the juice but she still eats breakfast and lunch. I have noticed that I have more energy, my clothes are fitting better, the fiber intake has blessed my life if you know what I mean and I am fuller after I juice than most other meals. Best part about it is that we have only been doing this for a week! I will admit, when I was entering my breakfast and lunch deets into myfitnesspal (awesome app) the amount of carbs totally freaked me out. Spencer had to remind me several times that the carbs I was getting from all the fruits and vegetables are good carbs compared to those carbs that I was getting from Taco Bell and Cheetos. Still it doesn't making seeing the carb intake as high as it is any easier. But my fat intake has decreased significantly and as long as I snack on nuts and seeds and hard boiled eggs and make sure dinner is packed with protein, I am getting, according the to app, the perfect amount of protein. Our vitamin A and C intake is through the roof, hopefully that's okay and won't kill us. But seriously I would never ever eat that many fruits and veggies in one sitting. Just not conceivable to me. We have increased the amount of water we drink and we have cut soda out completely! It's been 9 days so far and I have to admit that I'm loving it!

I have had so many friends and family members become interested in juicing lately and have asked me so many questions. To be honest a month ago if you had asked me what I thought about juicing I would have said "nasty". I remember when I was young my Grandma would also make carrot juice fresh every morning and then eat it with her cereal instead of using milk. That was my only experience with juicing. Now everything is totally different and I have a new found respect for my Grandma! I have referred absolutely everyone to the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead on Netflix. Watch it. Love it! Change your life because of it! Spencer and I stumbled upon it one night late at night when we were bored. I had planned on going to sleep after he turned it on but that definitely did not happen. It is an amazing documentary and gave me my basic understanding of juicing and the benefits that I can receive from juicing. You can also check out Joe's website here and have pretty much every single one of your questions answered. The website is packed full of information and recipes for juicing. The whole idea of juicing and how it works and can benefit your health and life are amazing! My favorite scene in the documentary shows a stomach and shows how full 400 calories of oil can make you (hardly anything) how much 400 calories of junk food can fill you (about half) and then how full 400 calories of fruits and veggies can make you (completely). That blew my mind but made complete sense to me.

I will admit that I was scared of the green juices. They didn't look good. But I cannot imagine not starting my day with a glass of Mean Green every morning. I feel like a totally different person! I don't feel deprived of anything and I feel great! I haven't gotten any headaches and I'm not starving. Juicing is amazing! I know a lot of people are concerned about how much it will cost them, but it's not bad if you do it right. Spencer is a full time student who works about 20 hours a week. I am a full time grad student working 40ish hours a week and we are both parents. We have a strict food budget and we still make it work with juicing. The trick come from buying what is on sale even if it differs slightly from the recipe. We only buy 3-4 days worth at a time and that insures that none of the produce goes bad. We also invent our own recipes based off what we have, so really we are drinking a new juice every day. It's great! Let's be honest though... sometimes what we think might taste amazing tastes like garbage! Juicing like everything else in life is a trial and error sort of process.

Here are a few of our favorite juicing recipes:

MEAN GREEN
6-8 leaves of Kale (I have no idea how else you even use kale except for in juice)
1 large cucumber
4 stalks of celery
2 apples
1 tbsp of ginger root
1/2 lemon

CITRUS SURPRISE
2 large grapefruit
4-6 large oranges
2 cups of pineapple
1/2 lemon
1 cup of spinach

BEETASTIC
2 beets
3 apples
5-6 large carrots
2 stalks of celery

Also when we juice if we ever need additional ingredients because we want more juice we usually will add celery or cucumber. Those veggies will make a TON of juice and they always taste great!!! We also take the "guts" (not sure of the proper termination for this) of the veggies that the juicer doesn't include in the juice (thank goodness because I hate pulp) and we use it in breads. Today I used a cup of the leftover veggies and added it to my banana bread. Can you say yum???? Bonus, it turned the bread green which happens to be my favorite color ever. Win-win.

I highly recommend watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and juicing. Even if it's once a day you will be amazed at the benefits and how much it will change your life! Good Luck ad JUICE ON!!!