Days 18-21-Home stretch

Hey! So I've been fasting for 21 days now. Funny how time flies when you're having fun, right?
This weekend was full to the brim with friends, fun, exercise and THE JUICE.

On friday, I was sitting outside on the front porch watching my son zoom around on his Razr scooter and my neighbor approached and wanted to talk about health and fitness. We must have sat for about an hour talking about fitness routines and healthy eating and juicing. Mind you, my neighbor is 19 years old and over 300lbs. We decided to start our own fitness routine and got started Saturday morning.

We headed over to the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and tackled the 700'+ staircase which the devil built with claws and teeth. OMG! It hurt SO BAD getting up those stairs. They're jagged, uneven, and crooked, but as you climb higher and higher, the Los Angeles cityscape blossoms below you. By the time you get to the top, you have a 360 degree view of L.A, from the ocean to the mountains, Beverly Hills to the hood', it was a beautiful sight to behold. After forcing my stomach contents (JUICE) back into my stomach-I was seriously about to heave-we made our way back to the base via the conveniently placed hiking trail. There are bathrooms and a little museum up at the top to help you get it back together. I had such an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when I reached the bottom. I felt like I had just climbed Mt. Everest!

 

Me and my boy Hula Hooping at Soulnic

Saturday Evening was all about Soulnic at Griffith Park. Parking was a good 10 minute hike away from the field where the event was held, so I got a lil extra inadvertent work out in. We had a blast! It was all about Chicago House music and I was not disappointed. There were games for the kids and the smell of the food was killer. I made a huge bucket of what I dubbed my "Festival Juice" and just savored the sights and sounds.


Sunday morning was all about cantaloupe and green juices, church, family, and a fun evening at Mulligan's.

I didn't take detailed notes about the juices I made, but below is an approximation:

Cantaloupe Beet Juice (Delish!)
1 Cantaloupe
1 Beet
1 apple
1 pear
Handful of strawberries





Festival Juice (Nice mostly veggie concoction, no pix :()
1 bunch Kale
1 Cucumber
3 Stalks Celery
5 or 6 Radishes
3 Carrots
1 Granny Smith Apple
1 Fiji Apple
1 Pear

Watermelon Juice (Watermelon juice is so great)
1 Small Seedless Watermelon
2 stalks celery
1 apple
1 pear

Day 16-17-Juicy Fruit, Veggie Veg

So I'm starting to experiment with more juice flavors and the results have been semi-great:
Yesterday, I made a most excellent morning juice:

Tricycakes Piña Party (laaaaame name)
1 Pineapple-Peeled
4 stalks of Celery
1 Mango-sliced around the big ass seed (stone) (Don't put the stone in your juicer)
1 Lime-Peeled

Mmmmmm....so nice. Surprisingly semi sweet. The mango kind of turned into a thick sludge on the top of the juice. Still good though.

I forgot what type of juice I made in the evening....Kale, cucumber, something or other...

My phone battery died on me today so no pix. This mornings juice was a redo of the Honeydew situation from the other day. I added a lime and it cut down on some of the sweetness and made it SUPER DELICIOUS. I'm going to juice my cantaloupe in the morning and see how that turns out.

Evening juice was a doozy:

1 small sweet potato (I had to use it because it was starting to sprout)
4 plum tomatoes
4 stalks of celery
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch swiss chard
1 lime (peeled)
1 clove of elephant garlic

Holy garlic juice! The potato thickened it and it was garlicfied with a HINT of tomato. This would be better warmed as a soup. This is a grin and bare it juice. The garlic is really overwhelming.

I'd been making some pu$$y ass juices over the last few days and needed a full on veggie experience. Boy did I get it.

Day 15-Half way!

So, I'm half way to my goal of 30 days! Still feeling energetic, clothes fitting a lil looser, attitude is still optimistic! The juice is life changing!

Morning juice: Mellow Melon
1/2 Honeydew melon, seeded and peeled
1 Granny Smith Apple
1 Pear
Sprig or 2 of mint

Mmmmm-sweet sweet juice. This was a very good juice. Very sweet though. Might try and cut it with some lemon on the next go round, seeing as I have another half of honeydew left. I'll juice it in the morning.

For the midday, I was out and about and stopped at the Jamba for the Apples and Greens again, and I got FULL. My goodness. It's really a great tasting juice too.

Dinner Juice is back to the good old green: Spinach, Kale, Celery, Apples, Cucumber, Ginger.

You know what it is, but I took pics anyway:

So to commemorate these past 15 days, I present to you the button on these jeans. When I first bought the jeans I could barely squeeze into them. Then I couldn't. Then I could. Then I couldn't. I have a real love/hate relationship with them. I guess we're back in love again:

No time to pat myself on the back just yet, I have 15 or MORE days to go. Gotta keep going!

Days 12,13, & 14-Pow pow pow!

So I survived another weekend!

Spent saturday swimming and juicing with my oldest sister, Kenya, in Brea. Before we drove out there Saturday morning, I went over to Jamba Juice and had an Apples and Greens smoothie. Their website says it has Apple-Strawberry Juice, Green Vegetable Juice (Carrots, Spinach, Bell Pepper, Kale, Spirulina, Lettuce), Peaches, Mangos, Bananas, Ice. It was nice! I wouldn't replace it with my own juice, but it was a cool departure from what I've been having.

I packed up my juicer and whipped up a batch of Mean Green. My sister enjoyed it and is looking forward to starting her own juicing regimen when she is fully healed from her lung cancer surgery (Carcinoid tumor, they removed her left upper lobe).

Sunday was an epic morning juice day, I whipped up a BOMB.COM watermelon juice that was SUPER delish and so pretty to look at:

Watermelon skill supreme

Tricycakes Mouth-Watering Watermelon Juice:

1 small seedless watermelon-rind removed
4 apples
1 lime-peeled

This juice came about as we were sitting around the kitchen sunday morning. I had already made a Purple Power juice earlier and we happened to have this little watermelon just chillin' there. My cousin challenged me to make something out of it. It was so light and refreshing! The perfect summer juice. I ended up having a bunch of this juice, so I sipped it for the rest of the day. All fruit everything!

Today I started the morning with some left over watermelon juice, because I loath wasting anything. My dear Uncle Will stopped by and I made him a Swiss Chard, Carrot, Apple, Spinach juice. Again, I'm yielding so much, that I can continue to drink from one or two batches of juice all day

Uncle Will sippin' juice

I'm still feeling great. My water consumption is on the decline, so I have to focus on that. I had a few cheats over the last few days, and I'm not proud of that. Doubling down for the last half of this juice experience.

 

I just got back from an epic veg shop and picked up some new fruits. My morning juice is going to be off the chain tomorrow. Can't wait! Promise to have my phone charged so that I can take more pix. Thanks so much for reading! ~P

Day 11-Whoooo-ooooo

Here is the second half of today's two-fer!

So, I started off today with a concoction that I just thought up. My veg supply was limited this morning, but I had a whole packet of strawberries and thought, 'what the hell".

 Morning Juice: (I took pics, but it appears that my android ate them)
15 or so strawberries (I keep my stems, because more juice is less waste....lol wut?)
1 peeled lime
A few Celery stalks
 Handful of spinach
1 green apple

 This juice was aaaight. It was pretty tart, but there was a pleasant sweetness. I'll probably forgo the lime if I attempt this one again.

Midmorning juice:
1/2 of green cabbage
1 cucumber
4 roma tomatoes
1/4 red onion
1 bunch parsley
1 Red Bell Pepper

 This was a truncated AND expanded Gazpacho juice. I substituted cabbage for celery, because I didn't have anymore. I also forgot the lime...It was good. The cabbage trumped everything else other than the onion. I had a boat load of this and sipped on it for the rest of the day.











Since I was running low on veg, I decided to take a field trip over to Grand Central Market  to re-up. Here is the deal-there is delicious food EVERYWHERE. The smells are enough to make you forget your fast and dive head first into a plate of street tacos. Once you make it through that madness and get to the veg, it's mostly rotten and just under moldy-which is why you get some ridiculous deals (6 cucumbers for $1?!). I found a veg stand that was a little less rotten than the rest and spent about $12 for a bunch of stuff-2 bunches of celery, 2 bunches of spinach, bag of apples, 2 bags of carrots, 6 cucumbers, packet of blueberries and strawberries and some other stuff. REALLY look at what you're buying, because you don't want moldy produce.

 Juicing featured on 'The View' today.

Day 10-Did I win?

Lol, it's not a race silly.

So, 10 days of mostly fruit and vegetable juice and I feel good. I haven't weighed myself or any such thing because my leading cause for doing this fast is preventing myself from going down the path of a preventable health-disaster future. A few days in, I developed a doozy of a chest cold or something and have been hoarse and phlegmy (eeeeew) for the better part of a week, but it was doable to fight through it. I had to reaffirm with myself my reasoning behind doing this fast, because if your conviction for change is shaky, then it's all to easy too cheat yourself back to square one.

I've been getting such a positive response to this blog and it makes me feel MOST AWESOME to know that my little fast is causing other people to reevaluate their health and take some steps to getting themselves in control. My sister finished her 10-day fast a few days ago, and I couldn't be prouder of her.

This fast gives you some time to do some soul searching and see when your relationship with food becomes unhealthy. For me, I LOVE to eat! Eating is an emotional mood lifter for me. Instead of emotional shopping, I love to go out to different restaurants and get in on the decadence. I'm SO missing my once a week thai spot Original Thai BBQ, but I know that this indulgence isn't healthy for me. I don't eat ALOT, but when  I do...I OVER eat. I can starve myself the whole day in anticipation of a trip to Fridays or Chili's, and when I get there, I tear the house down. My relationship with breakfast is non-existent and I don't drink alot of water. All these things have contributed to my weight gain along with a sedentary lifestyle. Now that I've gotten a handle on this juicing thing, my focus for the next 20 days is to MAKE SURE that I do some sort of physical activity EVERYDAY. Now, along with my juicing, I will update my progress on getting more physically active.

Please please, leave a comment and share my blog with others. Subscribe too. I update (almost) daily.

Here's to the next 10 days!

Strawberry spinach celery mint

Day 9- On the Go

So, my son has his Pre-Kindergarten culmination tomorrow morning and I decided to take him out and about after school.

I started the morning with a celery apple orange ginger juice and followed up with my left over mean green from yesterday for midmorning/lunch.

I had a bunch of errands to run: oil change for the P-mobile, Target run to get my son's culmination gift(a razor scooter), to the park to test out said scooter, Madagascar 3, and a mall run to get lil man a fresh outfit for tomorrow. My Android is acting a fool and wont hold a charge and refuses to work with my car charger anymore, so I was at a complete loss on where to find a juice bar.

I decided to seek out South L.A.'s Simply Wholesome Organic market and restaurant while I was out because I was positive that they had a juice bar. Low and behold, they do not make their own juice. I was shocked, but there were 2 refrigerators of organic bottled juices to choose from. I picked one that appeared to be alright-I tossed the bottle. and since my phone was dead, I couldn't snap a pic of it and cant remember the name. It tasted OK, but my freshly made juice from home is much better.

I'm off to bed without making anymore juice.