Day 29 & 30! The End...Or is it?

SOOOOO! Finished my 30 days :D

Got on the scale this morning and it said I weighed 253 lbs. When I started I was between 270-275 so I have lost around 20 lbs in 30 days. The last few days of this fast had more eating than I anticipated, but in all, I am very proud of myself for sticking as closely to the script as I have.

It takes a lot of courage to breakdown and say that things in your life are out of control. My personal, professional, and emotional lives had all started to spiral and I was sinking lower into an abyss of self neglect. I NEEDED this fast as a way to jolt me back into reality and to show myself that I am more than what I felt myself becoming. Depression and despair works a hard number on self esteem and self respect and I was loosing pieces of myself as I sunk deeper.

It doesn't matter WHY you start with a self repair or self make-over. If you are unhappy with aspects in your life, you have to get off your ass and start fixing yourself. It's not easy, but I'd rather do the work now, then allow the problems to get so out of control, that it's impossible to deal with later.

I am not content. Patting myself on the back over this small victory and stopping all the healthy practices I started 30 days ago isn't going to cut it. I have more work to do. I still have a family history of illness. I still have more things in store. This isn't the end, but a beginning of a lifetime of living healthy. I may succumb to cancer or some other nastiness at some point, but if what I'm doing now lessens the probability of ending up like that, then I would have served myself right.

While I've been in the bay area visiting assorted family, I have managed to get SOME juicing in. Here are a few:

*Morning Juices*
1/2 Cantaloupe
2 Stalks celery
1 Pear

Delicious, refreshing, real~

3 Carrots
1 Apple
1 cup Blueberries
1 inch Ginger

Blueberries are seriously delicious. The blueberries are what made the Purple Power SO special. I want to put blueberries in everything!





Bay Area Juice:
Kale
Spinach
Tomato
Apple
Lime

I'll continue blogging about my progress, thanks for your support. Please comment and share!

Days 22-28 Almost there!

So, it'd be unfair for me to say that I'm actually "fasting" anymore. Over the past few days, I had various travel, social, and familial obligations and it made juicing extremely difficult, HOWEVER now that the weekend is over, I'm going to fast for these last 3 days. I've also kept my daily exercise promise. I've done the stairs, walked, and jogged consistantly. My stamina and endurance is improving bit by bit.

Melon Mmm-mmm juice:
1/2 Honeydew
3 stalks celery
1 Apple
1 Pear
1 Peeled Lime





I never appreciated JUST how delicious Honeydew is as a base for a juice. Alone, its almost too sweet to tolerate, but paired with celery, it's so refreshing and light.















Legoland Travelling Juice

Me and my son went to Legoland for a day of rides, screaming and fun. I packed snacks for him, juice for me and we hit the road to Carlsbad.

1 bunch Kale
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 Cucumber
2 Apples
3 Carrots
1 lime
2" Ginger

Green juice delight! It kept pretty well throughout today in my insulated thermos. Legoland allows you to reenter the park, so it was possible to re-up through out the day.

The day after Legoland, we had to get on the road and drive the 500+ miles to San Jose (where I'm typing from now) to celebrate my Uncle's retirement after 46 years in the clergy. Below are pics from the rest of the weekend. Saturday was my first NO JUICE day since I started. I did eat lots of fresh fruit and veggies, as well as some samosas and enchiladas. Sunday, there was a banquet after church, and they had a nice selection of salads. Below are some pics from the trip. I'll be here in the bay for quite a few more days, so they'll hopefully be some cool pics to view.

View from my Uncle's deck overlooking the San Pablo Bay

Family dinner fresh table

Those grapes were delicious. The bay has the BEST fruit and vegetables

Last night, after we got home from the family after-party/epic theologic discussion, I made a nice watermelon, apple, celery juice. This morning, after my jog, had a parsley, carrot, tomato, lime juice.

Weighed myself for the first time since I started-I have dropped over 20 pounds. Not bad for 28 days.

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.