End of Day 1

I just arrived home from work and had to overcome a moment of weakness which almost ruined the whole challenge. I looked in my cabinet, which I suppose I did out of habit, and saw a bag of blue corn chips and thought to myself: "I went all day long, maybe I can just reward myself with a few chips." I just about reached for the bag until I stopped myself. After juicing all day, a few chips would have easily become the whole bag, and then I could see myself writing a new "Day 1" blog entry tomorrow. No! I will be strong! No salty processed food items for me! FEW, that was close.

Other than that, my day went pretty smooth. I expected to feel like I was starving myself but I actually felt comfortably full all day long. I brought a 64oz jug of juiced veggies and fruit to work tonight which is what I drank, and I even brought a back up 16oz of juice in a separate bottle that I didn't end up needing. The 64oz consisted of:
4 broccoli stalks
10 celery ribs
20 grapes
20 blue berries
3 pineapple slices
7 beets
2/3 grapefruit
1 orange
2 lemon
1 lime
6 grape tomatoes
1 hand full of parsley
1 cup of spinach
4 asparagus stalks
1 apple
1/2 mango
2 kiwis
2 nectarines
10 baby carrots

The hardest part of the day was craving salty foods. I dealt with the cravings by:
*Distracting myself
*Reminding myself of the purpose of the challenge
*Posting and reading posts from community members on Reboot Your Life which is a website dedicated to people who decide to try juicing diets after seeing the film Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.
*Physically moving myself...getting up from my seat and taking a walk

All of the above seemed to work!

The scary thing is I think after tomorrow I may already run out of all my fruit and vegetables. I may have severely underestimated the cost of this challenge. I suppose the money I am saving on no longer buying fast food, going out to eat to restaurants, and purchasing fancy lattes will balance it out. On the up side, I am already looking forward to adding different types of plants to my juices!

Preperation

So for the past 7 days I have been starting off my mornings with a juiced drink. I do not use any type of recipe, I have just been throwing every fruit and vegetable in my fridge into the juicer. For example, this morning I made a drink that consisted of:

1/2 cup of spinach
3 beets
1 kiwi
1/2 orange
4 cherries
1/3 pear
6 baby carrots
3 celery stalks
10 blueberries
4 blackberries
4 grape tomatoes
4 strawberries
3 pineapple slices

I find that no matter what I throw into the juicer, the flavor of the orange and the celery seem to overpower the rest of the ingredients. I am happy about this because I find the two flavors to be very refreshing. I also want to add that I have been letting my juiced creations chill in the freezer for 10 minutes before I drink them.

After skimming over the many juicing recipes I found online and in some books, I have decided that they are insufficient for a juice-only diet. Not all vitamins, minerals, and amino acids are found in just one or two plants, it takes consuming a combination of many different fruits and vegetables to achieve adequate nutrition. Knowing this, I do not believe it would be wise or healthy to limit my drinks to ingredients that only consisted of three or four plants which is what I came across when I searched for juicing recipes. That being said, I will post all of my custom made recipes on this blog daily when I begin my juicing diet but understand that they will be much more complex then what is commonly found.

So far, I have noticed a surge of energy after consuming my morning drinks, something comparable to a morning caffeine buzz. It has completely replaced my morning cup of coffee but I have been drinking half-1 cup of coffee later in the day. I am betting that when I am drinking juice all day long I won't even miss it. I have drastically cut down my soda consumption and have only had about 4 glasses over the past 7 days.

As for sugar, I have cut down significantly as long as you do not count this past weekend where I kind of went chocolate happy on Monday night while watching a movie. As for cheese? I have been completely unsuccessful at cutting down and may have even increased my cheese consumption over the past 7 days if that is possible! I still have a few more days to go until I begin the juice-only challenge so lets hope I can cut down or else I may be at risk for going into shock over absence of cheese when I begin.

That's it for now folks,
Questions or comments are always welcomed!