Day 1- This Isn't My First Rodeo

Keep in mind that this is my second reboot.  The first one was for a week.  Actually, 6 days if you count my dinner of sushi on day 7 (Hey, I work at a sushi place, it's hard for me to turn down fresh Hirame with spicy ponzu).

On the last reboot, I was using my Magic Bullet with a special juicer attachment. It didn't take long for me to realize that, if I was going to be juicing 5 times a day, I needed to get a better juicer.  Ask most experienced and dedicated juicers and they will swear by their Breville machine.  Many people who have bought other juicers, like the Jack LaLaine or Black and Decker, have returned them to get a Breville.  Being that I am on a budget, I chose the Black and Decker Big Mouth. It is a great juicer for under $100. It's powerful, produces a dry pulp (meaning more juice) and easy to clean.  It's takes me about 15 minutes to prep my veggies and fruits, juice them and clean the machine. 

Some may ask, "Why buy a juicer? Can't I just buy bottled juice?"  The problem with most bottled juices are that they are high in sugar content and have lost a lot of their nutritional value. In addition, the veggie/fruit blends do not have enough veggies in them.  A good healthful nutrient rich juice should have a high veggie to fruit ratio, and be consumed immediately, at it's most nutrient rich state.

So, now you say, "Yuck, vegetable juice? That has GOT to taste nasty."  I would have agreed with you two months ago.  I grew up hating V8, and you couldn't get me to drink a  Bloody Mary no matter how much vodka you put in it.  What I soon realized though was that it wasn't vegetable juice that I didn't like, it's tomato juice.  I thank Jamba Juice for that revelation.  They have three veggie/fruit blends that are so yummy my 11 year old niece even likes them. 

There are three key things that I learned as I started juicing. 1. Some vegetables, like beets and carrots have natural sugars making them much more palatable, especially in their raw state, 2.  some green vegetables, like spinach, kale and broccoli have very mild flavors and blend wonderfully with other more flavorful ingredients, and 3. it only takes one large orange to make a tasty beverage.

Today, my morning juice was spinach, broccoli, an apples, one orange and carrots. I'm sure it didn't taste quite as good and the eggs and bacon my housemate so ruthlessly cooked for himself, but I know it was better for me .... and there will be bacon in my future, just not for the next two weeks.

You will notice that spinach, carrots, and broccoli make it into almost all of my juices and I refer to it as my BASE JUICE. For lunch, I added fresh farmer's market blueberries to my base juice and since I was heading to the beach with the dog, I wanted something a little more substantial and filling, so I blended it with some ice and a banana. (I've learned that bananas don't juice well, they just clog the machine.)

Now it's time for dinner, I'm a little hungry, but I think that it's a hunger fueled more by the smell of cooking meat and fries downstairs.  I know from experience that a large juice will make the growling stop. 

TODAY'S WEIGH IN: 144.4 lbs

Happy Juicing!