Day 23 - Sorry for the long silence...

I am still on the juicing wagon, but I am sitting for the CPA exam next week and studying like a fiend.  I also think there's only so many pictures you can post of the before-juice veggies and still maintain an interesting site.  :)

I will be back to writing more posts when I get out of this study rush.

Day 13 - My Heart Rate's Taken a Nosedive!

So, I was lying in the recliner this morning, just relaxing and meditating....

Wait, who are we kidding.  I can't sleep in a regular bed, so I sleep in the recliner.  Yes, folks, I'm so big I can't even sleep anymore.  My arms go to sleep, my back hurts, I seem to be incapable of not turning over on my stomach in my sleep (I've even dreamed up ways to tie my legs to the bed so I can't turn over, but imagine if someone misunderstood what those ropes are for, plus what if I have to pee urgently?  too complicated), I snore... so I don't even sleep with my husband anymore.  It's all so depressing.  But that's not what this is about!

So anyway, I was lying there in the recliner after having awakened, and I don't know what prompted me to test it, but I thought, "wonder what my pulse is?".  For years, my resting heart rate has been in the 90's even on first waking.  I pulled out my phone to time it, found my pulse, and CANNOT BELIEVE IT, but my resting heart rate is down to around 72!

72, people!  In less than 2 weeks!

That's amazing.  As if the pound of weight loss per day wasn't enough motivation to stick to this plan.  So let's summarize:

Day 5 - Adema gone from legs and ankles
Day 6 - Walked ALL OVER Wal-mart and two grocery stores and my legs didn't get weak, I didn't lose my breath, and I could have gone longer.
Day 13 (or before?) - Resting heart rate down to 72

Also, I've lost 13.5 pounds, despite two days of no loss at all.  Just so you can have a pic, here's a shot of today's juice.

I juiced all the parsley I had because I thought it would be nasty, but I didn't taste it at all.  That bowl is a huge bowl of baby spinach and kale.  Careful observers will also note one lone beet in the back.  I finally had the courage to juice it.

Day 11 - Paint Strainer Bag Update

So you'll recall from Day 7 that I reported very poor success with the paint strainer bag.  Today, I realized that the bags come from the store already turned inside out.  You must turn it right side out.  Then the squeezing between the seam won't happen.  You can also process the juice through the strainer bag in smaller batches.  This seems to help (at least psychologically) get the most juice out of the pulp with minimal effort.

Day 10 - Spinach Breakthrough

From Left: Basil (a ton from my yard), celery, one cucumber, one zucchini, four apples (this was basically a double batch of Mean Green), 16 LARGE leaves of swiss chard, and up top, 6 cups of baby spinach.  Not pictured: one lemon.

Today I made a gigantic juice of just a bunch of stuff I threw together.  Spinach, kale, basil and other small leafy greens tend to give me a lot of trouble because it's a bit difficult getting them to stay in the shredder part of the juicer long enough to get juiced--they fly out into the pulp bin under the centrifugal force.

Layering the basil and baby spinach on top of ONE large swiss chard leaf.

However, TODAY, I was using swiss chard (some really lovely swiss chard) and I discovered that I could lay one of the large leaves out, lay spinach and basil on top, and then wrap the swiss chard leaf around the spinach and basil in a tight wad that fed into the chute nicely.

Ready to meet its moist death.

Day 9 - Fridge Cleaning Time

There is NO room in our fridge, and that’s partly because it’s got stuff in it that we’ll never eat, especially if we change our dastardly-eating-ways.  I spent two hours cleaning it all out (30 minutes of which was assigned just to figuring out which pegholes the shelves were in before), washing down the shelves, hauling all the junk out to the compost pile, and reorganizing the contents (Husband now has his two shelves where things like eggs, milk, guacamole, sandwich meat, etc. are located).

The makings of a pleasant juice, minus the handfuls of spinach.

This morning I made a juice of three kiwi (kiwi’s?), the last of the little orange tomatoes (which, by the way, have a tendency to explode the millisecond you put them in the chute, long before you can get your hand or the plunger over them, seriously, I ended up squeezing them between the fingers of my hand covering the chute and little seeds still ended up on the cabinet door and in my hair), an overripe pear, the pineapple spears that looked as if they were about to make a run for it, a giant cucumber, a giant zucchini, 4 stalks of celery and about 8 cups of spinach.  I find spinach much easier to juice than kale and I may just give up on the kale altogether.  Kale is much easier to eat than to juice, so it may just become a part of our repertoire after juicing.

Aside: Have you ever eaten so much fresh pineapple that your taste buds are “burned” and you don’t taste things the same way you usually do?  Well I know I had pineapple in my juice today, but this started before that.  When I drink water, it tastes funny.  It tastes a lot different than it used to.  I wonder if it’s because of some ph balance in my mouth or body.  Maybe I’ll get used to it.