Juicing, Days 8 - 412

It only feels like day 412. I am kinda done with juicing and it is not because I am hungry or cranky or feel shitty. On the contrary.  I have  been in a fine mood for the majority of the time, I have yet to get dangerously “I am going to beat a small child for their Goldfish” hungry, I feel fine, great even, and what I have been eating/ drinking hasn’t been so bad at all. I am just done.

I am done with Easy Way. I love Easy Way and their produce is half the price of Kroger and they do an excellent job of stocking locally (everyone buy produce from Easy Way, it is worth it) but when you are there every day it gets a little old.

You see when juicing fruits and vegetables, some don’t produce all that much juice. You have use quite a few if you want a substantial amount of juice for two people, and we have been drinking at least two juices a day so that is a lot of produce gone into juicing.* And since it the both of us, we have been using a bit more than the recipes call for. That only means you have to get your worthless ass in the hot car and drive to the store if you want to eat. Every. Day. First world problem? Yes. Absolutely. But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

And holy fucking shit am I done with prepping vegetables. I don’t mind breaking out the cutting board and chopping veggies for a meal or whatever but when it is every meal and you know you won’t be eating or leaving the kitchen for at least 45 minutes…done. I have never been so thankful for a solitary banana grabbed on the go.

Our technical last day for juicing was this Friday then we moved it up to Wednesday as Michael’s birthday is Thursday and then yesterday I looked at my beet juice and my bag of cut fruit and I just thought, “Wow, I am so done with this.” So last night, Monday, August 8, 2011 was our last day of juicing. I am tired and bored and done. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try it. You really should. I feel wonderful and I am not opposed to doing this again, preferably in the summer for produce reasons, for a week down the road. But I can’t anymore and I am also growing to resent fruit and vegetables and I don’t want that to happen. But, seriously, try it. You won’t regret it.

Tips on Juicing/ Raw Food eating:

-          Buddy up! If I didn’t have someone to do this with I would have failed long ago. When there is another person that can do the peeling, cutting, produce running, it saves all kinds of time and keeps the motivation going. There is also someone else there to wallow in your shared self-food-pity. It helps, trust me.

-          Variety! If it’s in the produce section and you have never had it before, get it. Try it. Get one of everything they have and hope for the best. If you stick to the basics of fruit and vegetables, you are going to get bored and lose your mind.

-          Cut it up! I have often fallen prey to an intimidatingly full Fresh Produce drawer in the fridge. If there is a cantaloupe in there that is all golden and good, sweet smelling and I know it’s going to be delicious, I still need the motivation to cut that son of a bitch up. So what I do, cut it all up at once, throw it in a bowl and you are done. Now every time you go to the fridge there are ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables.

-          Eat a lot. Seriously. You are going to be starving if you don’t eat enough of what you are allowed. The only reason I have only been really hungry twice in over a week is because I eat all the time. I also eat everything that I am allowed. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have made it as far as I did.

-         Wait for it. If you can give it up to four days, I promise you will start to feel better. The first few days suck, but if you can make it past that, you should be good. Sure, I just quit but I lasted much longer than expected. Am I right?!

Okay so now that it is all over, what do I do now?

I am trying my damndest to not get back into shitty eating habits and that is going to take some discipline. I personally feel that if you like something enough you shouldn’t give it up. Sugar. Cheese. Meth. Whatever makes you happy, you should have it. Sure you may not have teeth or correct bowels or…teeth but if you like it, you like it. Who am I to say that you are wrong?

I have no intention of ever giving up sugar or dessert or alcohol. I like these things and they are going nowhere. But it certainly will not kill me to cut back and I think I can go ahead and eliminate certain things that I don’t really enjoy all that much and could easily be replaced by something better, healthier and probably cheaper.

So with that being said, here are the things I will no longer be consuming:

Caffeine: I am not going to say I will never have it again, but I am attempting to rid myself of it as a daily habit. Occasional cups of coffee are going to happen but no more daily Red Bull or skinny vanilla soy lattes. Dammit.

Packaged foods: including but not limited to; anything made by Lance, Grandma’s Peanut Butter Cookies, Little Debbies (I only consume these at my parent’s house, I don’t know why that is…), refrigerated cookie dough, store bought cookies (fancy foreign cookies that look weird and delicious do not count). Candy also doesn’t count in this because I said so but I will be cutting back considerably on candy and I am attempting to cut all high fructose corn syrup** out completely…except when it is included in Cadbury eggs which it may not be.

Grocery bakery desserts: Sigh. You know those neon-colored-icing cakes and cupcakes with a plastic ring thrown on the top that don’t even look all that good but you want it because it is there and it has icing on it? No more. If I want cupcakes I can make them myself (or my sister, who is admittedly much, much better) or I can go to a real bakery with fancy cupcakes. No more Kroger sugar cookies or angel food cake either. I have the know-how and time to make the shit myself, so I need to stop being fat and lazy and if I want a cookie, I can make my own damn cookies, or Girl Scouts can (do not count as packaged cookies, shut up!), whichever…

Milk: Bye milk! It was nice knowing you and I haven’t really drank you in a while but no more. It’s soy or nothing.

So enough about the things I will no longer do, what about the things I will attempt now that the juicing is over (note: I said “attempt”):

-         - At least one fresh veggie per meal and I am beyond ashamed that I haven’t been doing this all along.

-         -  At least two meals per week of nothing but fruits and vegetables. In addition, I will be making more vegan meals as well (have to cut back on cheese).

--      - Vegetable juices at least three times a week

That is all that I have so far but I think it’s a pretty good start. I felt like complete shit before this and I am feeling wonderful now so there has to be something to this juicing thing.

*I am an infamous non-waster of food. It did pain me to throw out the veggies that came out of the other end of the juicer. It’s just so much and it could all be put to good use. So I froze it. Tips for juicers for the leftover vegetable pulp (is it all called pulp or is that just oranges?): muffins, vegetable stock, carrot cake, compost. I have been throwing it in freezer bags and saving for a rainy muffin day.

** Addendum to HFCS rule: I will no longer be consuming any more candy containing HFCS but I do get one more time with every candy in the world. So at this point every candy, healthy or not, is on the table. You only live once! I want that life to be filled with various candies.