Juicing 101

Juicing is SO easy!  I've been juicing breakfast and lunch for almost a month now and I am down 20 lbs!  Below is a quick start guide including tips, techniques, and recipes:

How do I make juice?

I've tried juicing using a blender, a Vitamixer, and a Breville juicer.  The Breville juicer was definitely the best product I've tried so far...but I don't own one myself.  I use the blender passed down to me from my mom because it's FREE!  :)   A couple tips:

- Juicers (like the Breville):  These are great.  They deconstruct fruits and veggies so that you are only drinking the actual "juice" from each food item.  You CAN drink the pulp left over from juicing but I have found it will slow your actual weight loss.  

- Vitamixer:  Vitamixers are powerful!  But there really isn't a way to remove the pulp from your juices so you end up drinking it all.  Again, that's perfectly fine, but you won't see a dramatic weight loss.

- Blenders:  I love this old school method :)  Cut up fruits and veggies (make sure to add a little water to the blender!) and blend until liquefied.  Use a small holed strainer and a bowl to remove the pulp from your mixture.  You can always put the strained pulp aside and reblend just the pulp in order to get even more juice out of it.  Don't forget to restrain if you choose to do that.

Storage

I store all of my juices in small mason jars that I picked up on the cheap at Target.  Using glass jars makes clean up easier, and it's just better than plastic in terms of keeping your juice fresh.  

Juicing Frequency

As I said above, I juice for breakfast and lunch.  I eat an early, healthy dinner (something like sauteed salmon and fresh salad, for example) each day.  You may want to mix it up and have a food lunch and a juice dinner, or something like that :)  It's just easier for me in terms of my schedule to juice during the day so that's why I do it that way.

Tips

- Try to juice fruits in the AM and veggies in the afternoon.

- Don't juice any fruit skins/rinds you wouldn't normally eat.  

- Drink water throughout the day.

- At first you may experience a slight headache.  That means your detox is working!  Calm the headache with a cup of green tea and honey.  

- NO alcohol - especially beer.  Don't be mad at me if you juice diligently but drink 3 beers at the game on Saturday and end up gaining weight!  :/  I learned this lesson the hard way...lol

Recipes: 

Lord Featherbottom's Nectar1 pear
1/4 of a head of broccoli
4-5 leaves of kale
4-5 leaves of swiss chard
1/2 a lemon

Green Moonshine1 pear
1 apple
1/2 cucumber
1 handful of spinach

Mean Green 1 handful spinach
3 leaves of kale
1 apple
handful of parsley leaves
1/3 of a lemon
3 inches of cucumber
optional - 1 inch ginger

Carrot Quencher
3 carrots
1 apple
1 big handful of spinach

Vegetable Potion 
1/2 cucumber
3 carrots
1 big handful of spinach
1 apple
1 inch ginger

Chill to the Beet (Anti-anxiety drink)
1/2 beet
1/2 cucumber
1 inch ginger
1/2 lemon
add coconut water if you can

Sunshine Elixer
1 orange
1 big handful of spinach
3 carrots
3 big leaves of kale

Mighty Marrow Calcium Drink
a cup of chopped broccoli
3 carrots
1 apple
handful of parsley leaves
1/2 lemon

Liquid Kleenex (Anti-allergy drink)1 apple
4 carrots
1 inch ginger

Skiddly-Boop-Boop-Skat-Skat!2 handfuls spinach

4 carrots
1 green apples

Kathy's Not-So-Green Tonic
3 leaves of kale
1 apple
1 big handful of spinach 
3 carrots
1 inch ginger
1/2 lemon

There are many more recipes available online!  Also, feel free to make up your own juices!  You can't really go wrong :)

Good luck!!!

it's all i got...it's my claim to fame

Letting Patty Griffin do the talking today :)

Also - I am now officially down TWENTY pounds from March.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just Keep Breathing

Hi everyone,
How are you all today? I'm writing again from Fair Bean Coffee where I am breaking my 16-day streak juice fast by eating some yogurt, granola, and fruit.  It's AMAZING.  So much so that I took a picture :)

ohhhh yeah

So good.  :)

Things are still going great here in Austin but I am feeling that weird vacuum of energy that comes from spreading yourself too thin.  I said in my last post that I planned to engage in some radical self care (i.e. ME TIME) this week and it happened to some extent - but not as much as I probably needed. So here I am sitting in a coffee shop and missing people, things, and places that have consistently brought me the feelings of peace I need.

"Catching the Light at Every Turn"

Alright I just have to tell you right away - I had my first official weigh in after about 10 days of juice fasting. I'm down 5 lbs! Yay! It is so gratifying to see results after this week.  It was especially tough because my good friend Heather was in town and it's impossible to eat sensibly when someone is visiting Austin for the first time. Ain't no way no how! But even with some highly caloric dinners...I managed to stick to my guns about juicing for breakfast and lunch. And I'm so happy I did :)  And can I just tell y'all - I LOVE seeing how many of my friends and family are giving juicing a try! I'm truly doing this diet to rid myself of toxins and preservatives. Losing weight is a much welcomed byproduct of this process but ultimately the goal is to feel  like a million bucks.  If I look it too, then so be it ;)

"Catching the Light at Every Turn"

That's the tag line for a book my mom loaned me called Sparkly Green Earrings. I am a bit of an earring diva and I love shiny sparkly stuff, so the title really got my attention. And the line about catching the light at every turn has been on my mind a lot lately.  It's exactly what I feel like I'm trying to do these days.  Life is SO busy right now...here's proof:

This is only the HALF of how busy life is these days!

Go-go Juice

Hey friends,
How's it going? I finished my first week of work yesterday! This new job is very challenging and I have so much to learn - but by the grace of God I'm figuring it out :) I just want to restate how blessed I feel to have such great friends here in Austin helping me figure out these first few months :)

So! I am blogging to you today from Fair Bean Coffee on 1st street. Katie, Mom, and Dad will be arriving to the area soon so we can move Katie into her new Austin apartment :)

My dear friend Jeremiah is right by my side working on his blog today too - feel free to check it out! He is such a funny, talented, and thoughtful writer. His stuff cracks me up :)  I think he posted today about our friendship so if you want to get a glimpse of the Becky of years gone by...feel free to read ;)

Hi from Jeremiah and Becky!

Jeremiah has been sitting here listening to me go on and on and on about my new endeavor - JUICING! So, I've decided to shut up and throw all of my thoughts into blog form :)