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Reboot Day 14 - All Juice Day 9
364.0 Pounds - Total Loss 16.1 Pounds

Well as of today, I am no longer carrying around a Hauk Roma Stroller every day.  I don't know when the last time you picked up one of these, but they aren't exactly light.

I have come to a decision.  I am going to start integrating real food back into my diet.  I have to be very careful though not to go back to my "old" ways. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not walking away from the juicing lifestyle, but I am going to spend a few days eating fruits and vegetables.  After that I am planning to eat as close to a clean plant-based diet as I can.  I am not going to turn into a vegan or some crap.  Ain't nobody got no time for that.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to a nice slice of pizza or a nice piece of steak. The difference is that I will be having only two slices of pizza or 6oz of steak as opposed to more than half of a pizza or a 20oz ribeye.

The key to my ongoing success is that I need to keep from stretching out my stomach.  The best way I can think of to accomplish this is to eat smaller portions than I ever have before and to supplement with juice.  If I eat a sensible meal and then have a vegetable juice in between meals instead of snacking on other things like chips and cookies.

I will continue to blog my progress.  Keep me in your thoughts as I start this new phase of my journey.

Ponzu Noodle Salad

Make this dish in the spring when snow peas and cilantro are in season. Brown rice noodles can be found in most grocery stores, natural food stores, or online.
 Ingredients:

• 1 pound brown rice noodles
• ½ pound snow peas, trimmed and cut into matchsticks
• 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 3 green onions (white and green parts), cut into ¾-inch pieces
• ½ cup coarsely chopped cilantro
• ½ cup Ponzu Sauce

• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional

Instructions: 

• Cook the brown rice noodles according to package directions, adding the snow peas and carrots during the last minute of cooking.
• Drain and rinse the mixture until cooled, and place it in a large bowl.
• Add the green onions, cilantro, ponzu sauce, and crushed red pepper flakes, if using.
• Mix well before serving.

Serves 4

Ponzu Sauce

Ponzu is a soy and citrus sauce popular in Japanese cooking. Use it to dress up simple vegetable and rice dishes, or use it as a sauce for stir-fries.

Makes about 1¾ cups

• Zest and juice of 2 lemons
• Zest and juice of 2 limes
• ¼ cup brown rice vinegar
• ¾ cup low-sodium soy sauce
• ¼ cup sake
• ¼ cup date molasses or brown rice syrup

Instructions: 

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl and whisk until smooth
• Store refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Hanging in there!

Reboot Day 13 - All Juice Day 8
364.9 Pounds - Total Loss 15.2 Pounds

I reached a milestone today breaking the 15 pound barrier.  Some people may say - "Big deal!" or "Who cares?"  The answer my friends is a resounding "ME!"  After all, let's put this in some perspective.  At my previous weight, I was literally carrying around an "Black & Decker LH5000 12 amp Variable Speed Electric Leaf Hog Blower/Vacuum" - All Day - Every Day.  And no.  You cannot borrow my leaf blower.

Hunger has been tolerable.  Yesterday was a literally ready to throw in the towel.  I was hungry.  Maybe not so much hungry physically as I was hungry psychologically.  I know though that if I had broken my fast, I would not only be kicking myself in the butt today, but I would have eaten everything in the house.  I absolutely hate hot dogs, but when my son had a hot dog last night, I would have given up my first born (you know the one who cooked a hot dog) for an nice Chili-Cheese Dog - or two - or five.

Today I am going back to basics to get recharged for the next week.  I am going to make sure I am getting primarily vegetable juices and at regular intervals and I am going to drink plenty of water.  I have GOT to make it to the 60 day mark.  This is way too successful to abandon after all this time.

Pondering the Future

Reboot Day 10 - All Juice Day 5

368.6 pounds - Total Loss 11.5 Pounds

Today was a good day.  I have just been plugging right along.  It's pretty much become a routine at this point.  I do miss the actual act of juicing, but a guy's gotta work.  My wonderful wife has been kind enough to prepare my daily juices all week, but I have to say that I am looking forward to making my own this weekend.

I have all along been flipping and flopping about how far (long) I plan to take my reboot.  There are times - you know like when my co-workers are sitting 6 feet from me eating nice freshly prepared hot steamy PIZZA ROLLS - that I say 15 days tops.  But those times are few and far between.  Much to my surprise, most times I am fully prepared to go the whole 60 days.  That will take me through August 16th though.  

I do know that whatever happens, I can never go back to my "old" ways.  Right now, when I go back to solid food, the plan is to juice at least once a day - most likely for breakfast.  I am going to do my best to stay away from red meat, primarily eating chicken, pork, and fish.  I am a major carnivore though.  I love beef, especially steak.  My intent is to allow myself one meal per week to splurge, but not to gorge.  There is no reason in the world not to have a sensible portion of spaghetti, or a 6 oz steak.

Phew! - So Much to Catch Up On

Reboot Day 8 - All Juice Day 3

370.4 pounds - Total Loss 9.7 Pounds

So, I have fallen quite far behind on my updates here on my Juice Quest.

Today is my third day on nothing but juice.  And you know what?  I feel great!  I rarely feel hungry unless I end up going too long between servings!  And then - watch out! But as long as I drink a serving of juice every 2 hours or so I am doing wonderfully.  

I missed a few updates, and a lot has happened over the weekend, so let me take some time to catch everyone up.

When last I wrote, my wonderful wife had just surprised me with a nice shiny new Juicer from Bed Bath & Beyond.  Saturday was the first day I worked outside the home since I started this journey, and on top of that was the first day I was supposed to be all juice.  It actually went better than I planned.  I ended up working an 8 hour shift and went through 4 servings of juice. I never really even got hungry.  The biggest problem I had was a tomato based one that I made was just a bit TOO much tomato for my taste.

On Sunday, we woke up and decided to make all the juice for the day and got started and my nice bright shiny Breville juicer stopped work.  Just up and quit.  It still had power.  The manual said to take it all apart and put it back together and it will be fine.  Nope.  Not fine.  So off we went to Bed Bath & Beyond.  It was a pleasantly surprising experience.  They exchanged it for a new one with out even a thought.  So we were back up and running without a care in the world.

Today has been just like any other day, I went to work, my loving wife served me Breakfast, Lunch, and had my meals all ready and waiting for me when I went to my second job.  I sat around with my coworkers talking about juicing for most of the shift, even a couple of "non-believers" came in and asked me what all the hub-bub was about.  All in all a good day.

Here I am - over a week into it, down nearly 10 pounds, not starving to death, and never really had the grumpies (more-so than any other day), and all in all feel pretty good.  I waffle back in forth in my mind regarding whether I will go 15 days, 30 days, or 60 days, but if the days keep rolling like this one, 60 days is gonna be a breeze.

True Blood Cocktail

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Tomato
• 6 Carrots
• 1 Green Apple
• 1/2 Lime
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1/4 Red Pepper

Directions:

• Rinse all ingredients and cut to size for your juicer.
• Add ingredients to juicer.
• Enjoy!

Makes 1 serving

Purple Passion

Ingredients:

• 30 purple, black or red grapes
• 1 pint/450 ml. blueberries
• 6 leaves of fresh mint

Directions:

• Rinse all ingredients and cut to size for your juicer.
• Add ingredients to juicer.
• Enjoy!

This recipe makes 1 serving.

Prepping for my Juice Fast

 Day 5 

374.6 pounds - Total loss 5.5 pounds

Well according to the powers that know these things, my body is now ready for the actual juice fast part of my journey. 

I start tomorrow.  I am very excited. My loving wife has been kind enough to buy me a nice new shiny Breville Multi-speed Juice Fountain.  I just made my first juice with it and it was phenomenal! This makes so much more juice than the other one and is so much easier to use!

Mixed Berry Maca Protein Shake

Ingredients:
Large handful of mixed frozen or fresh berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries)
1/2 banana
1 cup/250 ml hemp milk or almond milk
1 scoop vanilla plant based protein powder (Sunwarrior is a great brand!)*
1 teaspoon maca powder
1 Tbsp. coconut oil
1 teaspoon chia seeds

*Note: If you don’t have protein powder, you can use two heaping Tbsp. of hemp seeds and add a dash of vanilla.

Directions:
Place all ingredients into a high-powered blender and blend for 45 – 60 seconds.

Green Strawberry

Ingredients:
6 strawberries
1 apple
6 – 8 leaves kale
2 celery stalks

Directions:
1.) Wash all ingredients well.
2.) Add all ingredients through the juicer 9and yes you can leave the green leaves on the strawberries!).
3.) Enjoy!

A Much Better Day

Day 3 -

375.4 lbs – 4.7 Pounds Lost

Well I have made it to day 3.   I have eaten more vegetables and fruits in the last three days than I think I have in my entire life.  And guess what?  I haven't died.

Today has been a much better day.  I was so miserable yesterday.  I was so hungry. The vegetable juices with Kale are still pretty nasty, but I am sure it is an acquired taste, and hopefully I acquire it soon, or it's gonna be a long miserable juice fest.

I woke up this morning and was really energized.  Was that because of all these cotton-pickin' vegetable and fruits I am consuming, or was it because I slept till almost 8:30, who knows.  But I did feel like I had more energy this morning.

Maybe if things are the same in the morning I will go for a walk and start getting some activity under my belt.  I bought a "Striiv Play" from Best Buy while it was on sale for Father's Day.  It is essentially a pedometer on steroid with bells and whistles that connects to my iPhone via BlueTooth.  Since I got it, my average daily number of steps has been 2,100.  For health's sake, I should be getting at least 10,000 steps a day.  Since I work at home, the majority of the walking I do is between my office and the bathroom, so 2,100 is not terribly bad, but if I am able to get further it can only make things better.  What's even cooler is that it allows you to "friend" other users (much like Facebook) and then have "races" and compete about steps, distance, etc.

Caffeine Headache

Day 2

378.3 lbs – 1.8 Pounds Lost

Woke up this morning with a bit of a headache.  Not unbearable, but definitely making it's presence known.  Probably a side effect of lack of caffeine.  You see I was drinking anywhere from 8-10 cups of coffee and have not had ANY since Sunday around lunch time.  As the morning has gone on, I find it getting worse.

I started out the day with a nice cup of hot lemon water.  It actually was pretty good.  All Lynn did was boil a coffee cup of water and  then squeeze a whole lemon into it.  We added a Splenda to it, but we should probably obtain some Stevia or other natural sugar.  It was actually pretty tasty. 

For breakfast Lynn made me the Berry Apple Cinnamon Bake recipe that I posted earlier.  It was definitely yummy.  I know I can't do this on Fruit alone, but it would be so much more pleasant.  Probably not as successful, but it would taste better.

I don't know how people that eat nothing but vegetables do it.  There is a reason I have avoided Celery, Cucumbers, and the like for the major part of my life.  It's cuz they taste nasty.  All I can hope for is that the majority of the nasty flavors can be masked by Jalepenos. 

Berry Apple Cinnamon Bake

• 1 c berries (use fresh or frozen raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, or cherries; cut and discard pit if using cherries, and remove leaves and slice in half if using strawberries)
• 2 apples, cored and chopped
• 3 Tbsp raisins (choose golden variety for a twist)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (or more to taste)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• Coconut oil

1. Lightly coat dish with coconut oil.
2. Place into oven safe baking dish and cover
3. Bake at 375°F/190°C 45 minutes or until apples are soft.
4. Cool and enjoy!

(2 Servings)

Day 1 is in the Books

As I sit here near the end of Day 1, I find myself wondering.  I wonder what I have gotten myself into.  I wonder whether I will be able to pull this off.  I wondering what tomorrow will hold.

Only God knows the answer to any of these questions.  I'm just along for the ride.  All I know is that I have to do something.  Albert Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  Day after day, I have eaten myself into oblivion.  The bottom line is, I like food.  No, that's not true.  I love food.  I don't know if I am clinically "addicted" to food, but if I don't fit that description I don't know who would.

I think I have eaten more vegetables today than I have eaten in the last year.  I am not terribly fond of veggies.  As far as I remember, I never really have been.  Sure I like potatoes, corn, green beans and lettuce, but as for anything else, I have always steered clear.

Only time will tell if I am going to be able to do this, but I made it through today.  I have four more days before I am on a pure juice diet.  So long as I don't get truly sick, my intent is to do this for a full 60 days.  Over the next few days, I will start to lay out how I got this into my head, why I honestly think I will be successful, and and what I hope to achieve as a result.

And so the Journey Begins

Day 1

380.1 lbs – 0.0 Pounds Lost

Today is my first day towards a healthier me.  When I first decided to do this, I thought I would start out with just juices.  After doing a little more research, I found out that I have to ease myself into it.  Apparently it is too much of a shock to your body to go from pigging out at the Ravenelli’s Father’s Day Buffet to sipping juice all day.  Not a problem though.  I just have to go 5 days eating nothing but fruits and vegetables.  They say this is to prepare your digestive system.  I have a feeling I am going to find out just exactly what that means; if not today, then definitely tomorrow.

The added bonus is that supposedly by doing it this way, easing into it, the unpleasant effects usually experienced in the first few days are somewhat abated.  Weaning one’s self off of caffeine and sugar gradually versus cold turkey has got to be the better way!

Anyway, so far today, I have eaten a gigantic bowl of fruit - probably 2.5 cups - including 1 apple, 1 peach, 1 plum, 2 bananas, all sprinkled with a little bit of fresh lemon juice.

As I write this, I am drinking something called a "Carrot - Apple - Ginger" juice.  I know it will surprise you to find out the ingredients.

• 4 Carrots
• 1 Red Apple
• 2 Green Apples
• 1.5" Ginger

I know, I know... The naming of this stuff leaves something to be desired.  But I gotta tell you.  That is not a bad way to kick this whole thing off!  I give it a 5 on a scale of 1-5.  It's very yummy.