Weight loss update and other ramblings.

Today (or close to today) I would have been closing my "30 day juice feast". Yes, I decided to end the juice feast early and I know that some of you may be looking at my example and think, She couldn't even do the juice feast for 30 days, how am I ever supposed to do it? or She couldn't even do the juice feast for 30 days, that's pretty weak.


I knew when I initially posted my goal that I may not reach it. I had no idea what I was in store for.  But by day 8, I felt done. I felt that I had gone through my phases. First the sugar, then the breads, then the meat. I felt good and I had reformed my body. My stomach reevaluated what it meant to be hungry and I learned to recognize when I was hungry or just bored.

Throughout my week's journey, I had lost 10 lbs. I knew that I would gain some back after the juice feast because since I would be eating solids, I would be having more solid poops. So when I got off of the juice feast, within 2 weeks I was back up to 151 lbs. I was okay with that. I watched it close and I was regulating so 5lbs total loss from the juice feast isn't bad.

Let me tell you, I was really nervous coming off of the juice feast and eating again. I was so afraid that I would go back to my old habits or that it just wouldn't work. I would try to eat healthy and despite my best efforts, I would balloon up. Then I realized that I've got to have faith in the system. I had to have faith that if I ate healthy, results would follow. I didn't really have a choice. I couldn't juice feast forever!

I have been off of the juice feast for about 3 weeks now and I am down 7lbs. I'm now 1 lb bellow my pre-pregnancy weight and I have no doubt that it will keep going down. I now know that this system works. What's the system? Eating whole foods and very little processed foods or foods with preservatives. I really chalk up my success to the fact that I don't have little dairy and no sugar. I'll occasionally have some butter (say, once or twice a week and usually only a tbsp at a time) and maybe some ketchup with my black bean burger but that's pretty rare.

Plus, I've said it once and I'll say it again, I don't feel deprived. In the past I have tried to do weight watchers and it was hard to try to keep away from the treats and snacks because I'm like a 4 year old. When you tell me I can't have it, I want it. Now? I have treats all the time but the right kind. I eat my fake caramel corn and raw brownies any time I feel like it and as much as I want. I snack on almonds every single day and not just a little! I'm talking about a couple of handfuls every day. A nutritionist would smack my hand and make me sit in a corner for eating too much fats. I say screw them! I've eaten so many avocados and nuts that my fat intake must be through the roof but when you look at the numbers, I've lost more weight eating like I do now than any other diet I've been on before. The thing is that I stuff myself full. I eat as much of my healthy food as I want and stay away from anything else.

You must think that what I eat goes something like this:



It's really not. It's more like this:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Snack

Anyway, there is my update and rambling. I just wanted to show you how easy and simple it really is. 

Weight before juice feast: 156 lbs

Weight as of this morning: 144 lbs

*Also, I didn't have time to proof read this because I have to watch the Bachelor! Sorry for mistakes. Use your imagination and fill in the blanks*

When you want something sweet.

One thing I have realized with this juice feast is that I still will occasionally want something sweet to eat and that's okay.

But if I could have my choice, I would rather choose something that is yummy AND healthy rather than something that is yummy and unhealthy. Sounds like a no brainer. Wouldn't everyone like that choice?

Well I present to you:

Cinnamon Glazed Popcorn Mix

You can find the recipe here

Do you like kettle corn? Do you like a buttery and caramely flavor in one? Do you like a slight crunch with your sweet?

Okay, throwing aside cheesy salesmen cliches, this stuff is seriously good. I made mine without cashews and I think it tastes just dandy! So try it out and let me know what you think.

TMI

Le's get real here. I'm going to talk about something that is quite taboo and icky. Enemas.

As part of the juice feast regime, I gave myself daily enemas.The idea wasn't too new to me because after I had Jack...well, it would suffice to say that pooping was like giving birth again. It was horrible.

I had an episiotomy with Jack and passing clay that was near to stitches was something I would never wish on anybody. I even took the stool softeners, twice a day, so as to prevent this from happening. Still, I became so constipated that I had Tyler run to the store to get me more stool softeners, milk of magnesia, and, yes, an enema.

Sweet relief! I learned that enemas aren't scary. Enemas are my friend. Enemas are there to help you, not hurt you.So walking into the juice feast, the enemas were the least of my worries. It would be fine. I drove down to a local medical supply shop and got myself a legit enema bag for $3.75.

Day after day, I got used to sticking the enema up there and I actually grew to crave the feeling of being totally cleaned out and light. What I normally do is lube up the end with coconut oil. Why coconut oil and not just plain ol' lube? Because we're too busy using that for other things. I kid (I don't kid). The actual reason is because coconut oil has natural antifungal properties (So ladies, if you're prone to yeast infections from doing the deed, try this).

One little piece of advice: don't open the floodgates all at once, people. You will be overwhelmed by the urge to "go" that you won't be able to get much in or hold it in for very long. Go slowly and let the air out of the tube before you stick it up your bum. If you don't do this, it's no skin off my nose but you will have lots of airy gas.

Basically the goal is to try to hold the water for as long as possible. I still can't hold it for very long but it still works. You get to decide how much to fill it up, too. I usually fill it up about 1/2 but I can't get it all in at once. Don't torture yourself and do what feels moderately comfortable. Also, sit on the toilet like you are giving birth with your knees up by your chest, if you can. It will help get more out and you will feel better.

Afterwards, I clean the tip of the enema bag and bask in the satisfaction of feeling cleaned out. But why should you even do enemas in the first place? Isn't it only for constipated people? Actually, it isn't. It's for everyone! This video is kind of long but these people are just so cool and the information is quite amazing.

http://www.therawfoodworld.com/blog/?p=2751

I've heard so many times, Oh I could never do enemas. Yes, you can. It's not that hard and it doesn't make you cramp up. It just makes you feel like you need to go poop and it is totally not scary. Trust me. 

Just try it. What have you got to lose? Poop? Believe me, you will feel so much better.

So even though I am done with the juice feast, I try to still do enemas daily, if not, every other day. I feel better, my stomach is flatter and it's not a hard thing to do. What are you waiting for? Seriously, go dig in your couch for pocket change and get an enema bag. Just try it.

I've lost count...

...BUT I wanted to share something with you.

Behold, "raw"fredo sauce:

http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-alfredo-sauce-recipe

I have been so excited to try this but also so nervous because I have never made something quite like this before. The recipe called for 2 1/2 cups of cashews (I didn't do the pine nuts) to which you basically blend the $#!% outta 'em with garlic, lemon, and seasoning.

When I was finished blending, it looked like alfredo sauce, It smelt like alfredo sauce, but did it taste like alfredo sauce?

Holy eff did it ever! It was the creamiest alfredo sauce I have ever tasted. It even passed the husband and child test. Both Tyler and Jack ate it up. I purposefully didn't tell Tyler what it was exactly because then he would be skeptical. His only request was that I add chicken to it but we didn't have any and I don't want to eat as much meat.

I didn't have it completely raw because I did buy some brown rice noodles at WinCo and cooked those but on a whole, this was a gluten and (as far as I know) dairy free alfredo meal. Not too shabby!

But lets get down to real business. Juicing.

I still juice in the mornings and sometimes it's hard but it's kind of like a homemade V8. I drink it for breakfast and then feel so great that I have gotten all of my veggies in for the day. And the fiber, you ask?
I still get plenty throughout lunch, snacks, and dinner.

What I try to do is have dinner be my worst meal. This usually means having meat or where it is mostly cooked. Lately for lunch, I have been eating the salsa I posted a while back. I make it with olive oil and it is SO yummy. I usually just eat it like nachos with store-bought chips (that have no preservatives and I actually recognize all of the ingredients on the list). But now I'm outta chips and it really makes me have more empathy for the pioneers in the olden times (ha, I joke, of course). For snacks, I have raw almonds I munch on, clementine oranges, or my raw brownies.

Now my weight, as I'm sure you are wondering, has gone up. This is mostly because I actually have solid...erm, solids inside of me now instead of what usually came out during the juice feast. Over all, I am still happy that I weigh around 148-150lbs. That still equates to me losing 6 pounds during the juice feast so that's not too bad.

Occasionally, I will get so frustrated with the number on the scale. I mean, I eat NO white flour and NO white sugar so shouldn't I see results? But I have to remember that these things take time and I like my new lifestyle so why quit now? Yesterday, Tyler wanted me to stop by his work so he could show me around and then maybe we could eat there, as he suggested.

Well, I wanted to stay away from hamburgers and white bread. They did have sandwiches (I could get a veggie one with no cheese) but they only had white bread. They did have chicken sandwiches, but the chicken was fried and not grilled. So I declined to half off of burgers, fries, fry sauce, white bread, mayo, and all of the free custard I could eat (with any mix-in I wanted, of course).

It wasn't too bad because I want to be healthy more than anything else and I want to get skinnier. The juice feast really has proven to me that it has broken me of my addiction to white sugar and white flour. It's like a drug and I don't want to prolapse so I stay away from it.

Besides, I can have really yummy food like these bad boys:


Of course, they were whole wheat with blackberries in the center and pure maple syrup. It was SO good and I've said it once and I'll say it again, I don't feel deprived and I eat as much as I want. At the end of the day, I will sometimes go on Myfitnesspal and see how much I've consumed that day and I have always been within the 1200 calories minimum. Eating healthy is much easier than I thought.

Day 10

I'm such a sucka for sleep. I could easily sleep for 9+ hours a night. In college, I would sleep in until 2pm, I'm ashamed to admit.

With that being said, I was a lazy arse today and didn't wake up until 8:20 and seeing as I have class at 9:45, that left me little time to get ready & eat breakfast. But when I did get home, I finally was able to have my juicy breakfast. It felt so good knowing that I had my very own V8 juice. I had gotten my veggies in for the day so I felt great.

I also had an American Industrial Hygiene Association meeting today. Sounds fancy, huh? It was opening social complete with pizza. I purposefully went because I wanted to face temptation and kick it's butt. I wanted to grab the bull by the horns and show him who's boss.

It was actually really easy to resist. Besides it was Little Caesar's. That's not even good pizza! It's crap hobo pizza, in my opinion. What helped me even more was knowing that I had this bad boy waiting for me at home:

Which reminds me that I forgot to add the onions...

Yeah, that's right! I had a salad with this topped on it and it was freakin delish. I made myself a small salad and I couldn't even finish it but I did eat all of the avocado's out of it for good measure. 

Then for dessert, I made some of these:

Yup. Pretty much sex rolled into a ball. They are completely raw brownies made out of dates, almonds, honey, water, and coco powder. If you like dark chocolate, then this is the way to go. I don't feel guilty eating it because it is naturally sweetened and there is no white flour in it. There's actually no flour in it period so if I wanted to be all suave, I'd tell you these are Vegan Gluten-free Raw Vegetarian Healthy Brownies. Don't I sound all posh?

See? You can have yummy food and not feel guilty about it. 

Day 9

Today is my first day of eating solid foods. I feel like a 6 month old baby. I get to rediscover what food tastes like again.

The protocol for getting off of the juice feast is to take the number of days you juiced, divide by 4 and then you get how many days it will take to reintroduce your body to fiber again. As instructed by the juice feasting website, I soaked my prunes overnight for breakfast the next day. You wouldn't think that soaked, soggy prunes would be good but they were! I soaked enough for two meals so that constituted breakfast and lunch. For dinner, I had some pineapple.

I was kind of anxious to see how my body would handle the fiber and real food again. One thing that I have noticed though, is that I am full very quickly and I have learned to recognize when I have had enough. It was kind of interesting to eat about 4 or 5 small slices of pineapple and think, "Wow, um...I'm full. I'm done."

Tyler really presented me with a challenge too. In honor of my first day off of the juice feast, he came home from work (Nielson's Frozen Custard) early and had a huge concrete in his hand. Don't freak now, Jessica, but Satan himself has appeared in the form of frozen custard and your husband is the deliverer of evil. This is how our conversation went:

J: "Heeeeeeyyy-Tyler.....How was work?"

T: "I think I have found the best combination ever!"

J:"Oh yeah?"

T: "Yes! I mixed cookies and cream custard with cheesecake chunks and bits of cookie dough!"

J:"-And because you work there, you get to load up with as much toppings as you please?"

T:*Cheesy grin while nodding*

J: "Sounds pretty fantastic."

Staring me right in the face was temptation herself but then I thought, "Hold on a sec, Jessica. You've just lost 10 pounds and are ever so slightly thinking about throwing that all away for THAT?" I mean, sure, we're talking about frozen custard here but still. I had sacrificed so much, I was not going to throw it away just to get addicted to white sugar again. No thank you!


One thing that juice feasting has taught me is to break up with my food. I was such a needy gal when it came to food. I would think, "Oh I better eat this now. There may not be more later plus it's best when it's warm and fresh." Now?

Who cares? I know I don't. Food will always be there. I can always have something later and I can always cook it again. My relationship with food has changed. I don't care about it as much. Sure, I still want yummy food but it's just not one of my top priority now. I can make lots of good tasting food without compromising nutrition. I already have lots in mind.

Day 8.

I think I'm done. I'm at a point now where I would rather go hungry than drink my juices because they taste just so darn nasty (and that's often what I find myself doing). For some reason, in the beginning, all of my juices tasted fine to me. Sure they were a little "green" tasting but nothing I couldn't handle.

Now, it's just...nasty. Everything I've juiced for the past 3 days has tasted like dirt. It's hard when you are hungry to realize, "Oh yummy, I get to drink dirt juice for lunch..."

This morning in class, I saw a girl eat a Nutragrain bar and I thought to myself, "That doesn't even look good. I just want a salad..." I want whole foods again. Occasional homemade whole wheat bread, raw "tacos", raw zucchini chips, cucumber "pasta", and almond milk with homemade granola. I don't want junk. I don't want ice cream, candy, taco bell, hamburgers (unless it's a black bean or a veggie burger made from scratch), pizza or nothing!

I figured that once I started craving this, I could stop. However, stopping now seems like such a fail. I wanted to go 30 days but if I feel done and I feel good, then why should I force my body to do this? I can always juice again if I feel like I need to and I know that I will continue to juice in the morning.

Then, I started to examine why I feel like a failure but the truth is, I drank nothing but strait, fresh, vegetable and fruit juice for 8 days. That's a total of 32 juices (more or less) that took determination to stick with it and courage to start. I did this and I went through the pain of withdrawal and the detoxing. I freaking stuck plastic tubing up my butt every day and gave myself enemas! I restarted my body and I am proud of that. I should not feel like a failure for trying to be better and start a healthier lifestyle. Haters gonna hate but I have tougher skin.

So with my last juice of the day, here's to my new lifestyle.