juicing + my favorite juice recipe

Before the holidays, my husband and I started a competition to see who could loose 5 pounds the fastest (note to self: right before the holidays is a bad time to start any sort of dieting competition). We were both equally unsuccessful and each gained a pound. Then a few weeks ago my husband and I watched the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead and we thought, hey... maybe this is how we could lose our 5 pounds! Neither of us felt like we were fat, sick or nearly dead and we do try hard to eat healthy... but we both knew we could be eating a bit healthier. So after being inspired by the documentary, we went out and bought this juicer and lots of fruits and vegetables and got juicing!

I was surprised that we still ended up spending about the same amount of money, if not a little more, buying all fruits and vegetables. (We also still had to buy food for the kids- all whole grains and some organic which also costs a little more). I did a 4 day reboot-meaning that I drank three juices a day and that's all I ate! (We followed the documentary's blog for the rebooting info.) After the reboot- we have moved to eating two juices a day and one normal meal, still very high in micronutrients. (You can read more about micronutrients here). I think the reboot can act as a launching pad for you to eat healthier.

**Disclaimer** I know that some health professionals don't always recommend juicing for a long time-if at all. I know, because I have friends who are health professionals and they didn't seem overly excited about our juicing... but we knew that our late night cookie and ice cream eating wasn't good either... so this was merely a way for us to get back on the right track. Juicing isn't for everyone. 

It has been interesting loading up on all of these fruits and vegetables. I have always loved eating fruits and vegetables... but this is way more than I used to eat. I feel like it has curbed some of my cravings. I am a lot more conscious of what's going in my mouth. Both my husband and I were surprised to realize how much we sneak in during the day, i.e. those few extra goldfish left on my kids plate or a piece of candy from a jar on my husband's secretary's desk. We don't eat that anymore because we have trained ourselves to only have our prepared meals or juice. I think my taste buds have changed a little and I can actually "feel" healthier because I know I am filling my body with nutrient rich foods.

Anyway... for those of you who like to juice, I thought I would share one of my favorite fruit and vegetable combos. I love making the fruit only combinations-they are so good! But I am usually left hungry faster if I eat only fruits or just a tiny bit of vegetables. My husband eats the mostly vegetable combinations and is never hungry... so I make sure to balance it out and have half veggies and half fruit at least.

Green Morning Juice:

(serves 1)

1 pear

1 apple

2 celery stalks

2 leafs of romaine lettuce

A few other combinations we like: 

1. carrots, celery, apples, oranges, romaine lettuce

2. green apple, orange (peeled), leafy greens-kale, spinach romaine

3. mango, peach, carrots

4. beets, carrots, oranges

I have also made a few other really yummy micronutrient rich foods that I will share with you later. I still have a few other food posts that I did a few weeks ago and will post them in the next few weeks... but when you see them, just know I am only dreaming of eating that kind of food, instead I am staring down at this every morning and evening! Eventually we will go down to only juicing in the morning. 

Ok, now for the weight loss... I am sure you are wondering if we lost our 5 pounds, which is the whole reason why we started doing this right!? Well, after a four day reboot (only juice), I lost 6 pounds. And so far my husband lost 13- he is still juicing, his goal is 20 pounds so he thinks he will get there in a couple of days. So that would make it a total of 20 pounds lost in 13 days of only juice for him. Then he will be the same size he was in high school :) He actually lost his first 5 pounds after only the first day of juicing and it took me 4 days... so technically he won our little competition :( Now is the hard part of maintaing our weight loss which we plan to do with our regular exercise, juicing in the mornings and eating high micronutrient food throughout the day. I know I am going to have to splurge in there with my brownies and pizza... it just won't be as often :)