The Joys of Juicing

Happy Hump Day everyone! It is another absolutely beautiful day here in Texas. <3 Lets get started with another great song today!



Im sure I've shared this before, but I LOVE this song - it makes me want to get up and dance!

This morning JT and I were dragging a bit and running late so my plan of juicing for the two of us didn't work out. After he left, however, I decided I would juice for myself! A lot of people ask how we consume so many raw fruits and veggies -- juicing is exactly how!

We jumped on the juicing bandwagon after watching "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead."  Before going out and purchasing a juicer, we did some research (Melanie also did a lot of research and shared with us!) and we found that a masticating juicer would yield the most juice. Well, masticating juicers are expensive, so we opted for a cheapo centrifugal walmart juicer just to get started and see if it was something we really wanted to do. We started with a cheaper Hamilton Beach juicer,  and then after using it for a couple of weeks traded up for a black and decker big mouth juicer. The 2nd (and current) juicer works MUCH better than the other and was still pretty cheap (about 50 dollars.) The only problem we've really found is that we cannot juice greens. So, to remedy that problem, we purchased a wheat grass juicer! HERE it is.

It works GREAT! And, the two of those are still much cheaper than a quality masticating juicer. We do plan to get a masticating juicer in the future, but for now these two things works for us.

Before I even start, I just want to say that juicing is EASY. Just pick some fruits and veggies that you love and mix them! There are also lots of resources available online with recipes you can be sure taste great. We usually focus on green juice (green apples, cucumbers, celery, spinach, kale etc....) But we've made straight carrot juice, straight apple, orange juice etc... You can do anything.

This is what I started with this morning:

As you can probably see I have one cucumber, one green apple, celery and carrots. With JT I would use 2 cucumbers and 2 apples as well as a couple of extra celery stalks and carrots.

The first thing I juiced was the cucumber. I always start with the highest yielding veggies to be sure I get as much juice from them as possible. As you go through all of your ingredients, the screen gets full, so unless you wash it in the middle start with the highest yielding stuff to get the most juice possible.

 A lot of people don't think they like the taste of cucumber juice, but we've found that the quality of the cucumber you get makes a huge difference. If you get cucumbers  from walmart that are not organic, they aren't very tasty, but, if you get them from a farmers market (or in our case the mexican market) they are SO delicious!

And like I said, they yield SO much juice and are so cheap so they are a great base for any juice you make. Cucumbers are also nutritionally dense - they are great for the skin and have a lot of trace elements that our bodies need. :)

Here is what my cucumber yielded juice wise. As you can see, more juice is still coming out!

Next, I chopped up and added my green apple.

I don't even bother seeding them or anything, the screen takes care of that kind of thing!
Next I added the celery and finally the carrots. (no pics of the celery... but the carrot juice is SO beautiful!)

This is what the aftermath of the juicing looked like.

And this is what the pulp looks like:

Another complaint I often hear is that there is SO much waste when juicing - the truth is, it is up to you how much waste you have - you have already gotten a majority of the nutrients from the vegetables or fruit anyways, and that is really the goal in my opinion,  but, you can use the pulp for a variety of things. from baking (talk about some moist and delicious carrot cake!) to dog food additives! (Toss a cup into your dog food! make sure you do research about the ingredients you use though, if you are juicing grapes for example, your dog cannot have that!)

The last step to the process (before enjoying the yummy juice of course) is clean up. The most important thing about the clean up is that you do it immediately. If you do, it will literally take two minutes. I throw the pulp in the garbage or save it in a baggie if I plan to use it. Then, all I do is rinse the pulp out of the components. The hardest part is cleaning the screen, but, if you get a bristle brush cleaner (like one you'd buy to clean potatoes) it is much easier.

Once I finished all of the juicing and clean up, I poured the juices together into one glass :) I have found that a pint glass fits under our juicer the best, so I get a larger glass to pour the juices in as I go (that way I don't get overflow!) When I am making juice for JT and I both, I use a pitcher.

 

This may have seemed like a lot of work, but it took me about 10 minutes all together (and that was with me snapping pictures after every step.) I feel great about starting my day with a nutritional and delicious juice and my energy will be up all day. Fresh juice like this is also a great way to detox your body of all of the junk you accumulate from eating processed crap.

If you are interested in learning more about juicing, here are a couple of educational links -

http://www.foodmatters.tv/_webapp/health_resources

http://www.veganstreet.com/veganliving/juicing.html

I already linked this one, but here it is again - http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

I hope you found this educational and helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer them myself or find the answer. :)

I wear my sunglasses at night....

I don't really, but that song is stuck in my head for some reason so I thought I'd get it stuck in yours too! :)



Corey Hart is a bit creepy in this video... just saying...

This morning I decided to experiment in the kitchen a little. I am really loving the Red Mill products first of all. They have affordable organic flours, flax seed, cornmeal etc... I have their hemp protein right now, their quinoa flour, pancake mix and much more. This morning, I thought I'd try to make myself a "protein" pancake with their pancake mix.

One serving is 1/3 cup. The directions call for eggs and oil and milk, but, I try to avoid oil (yes, even olive oil most of the time), I don't have eggs (we're out!) and I don't drink cows milk. SO - I improvised! I read somewhere that you can substitute chia gel for eggs and oil, I couldn't remember how much I was supposed to substitute, so I just used my best judgement and used 2 tbsp. (1 for the egg and 1 for the oil.)

The next step was the milk. Like I said, I do not drink cow's milk. I have never been a big fan anyways, but since becoming vegetarian I have completely cut it out. SO, again I improvised and used Almond Milk!

It said to use 3/4 of a cup, but I just poured what I thought it needed in (the chia seeds are pure liquid practically, so I figured 3/4 cup milk would be too much.) Next, I decided to add some flavor to the pancake! So, I added 1tsp. of cocoa powder and 1tsp. of dark chocolate peanut butter PB2. :)

I stirred that all up and added a touch more almond milk to fix the consistency and then started the cooking process.

Once I started cooking I regretted not adding vanilla extract, agave or any other sort of sweetener, so I put some cinnamon/sugar on top :) It helped.

I definitely COULD NOT have done this alone... luckily, I had my very trusty kitchen helper by my side!

He's so damn cute.

Ok - so disclaimer time. Although I am doing great creativity and flavor wise (most of the time), I am still working on the whole "cooking" thing. So, the following product is not properly represented. Basically, it looks like a big ol' pile of dookie on a plate, however, it DEFINITELY tasted GREAT, especially with banana!

Next time I will definitely add vanilla extract and maybe some agave to the actual batter. I put some agave on top and it was delicious, but in it would have been  even better had it been incorporated. I will also add a bit more PB2 to the actual mixture (maybe a tbsp. rather than a tsp.)

I will make this for JT for breakfast one of these days and let him tell you what he thinks so you have a fair representation... I may be a bit bias because I was the creator!

Do any of you have any AWESOME and YUMMY breakfast or pastry recipes? (OMG! Do any of you have any pumpkin pancake recipes.... oh why oh why didn't I make a pumpkin pancake this morning!)

So, most of you probably saw on my facebook, but I made the paper (they quoted me about how to use a pedometer) for the fit  challenge Saturday! In case you missed it, I also made the video! The video is made by newspaper personnel, so its not the BEST in the world, but it is pretty cool! Don't bother watching the whole thing, you can see me at about the 2:51 mark. :)



It was definitely a blast.

I already swept and mopped the entire house this morning and cleaned the kitchen up (even my mess from breakfast!!!) so I am going to get ready and run a few errands before taking JT some soup for lunch and going to my internship. We're going to do a serious  workout tonight, so I'll try to post about that later today.
OH, and JT is reading the Rebel Running Guide and learning TONS - I started that this morning as well, so once I find some info worth sharing I'll pass it along. :)

Thanks for reading!

Learning to Run

Happy Monday All! It is another beautiful fall day here in Texas, so I am enjoying the breeze through my front door and the aroma from my pumpkin spice candle! I am DEFINITELY making pumpkin muffins sometime this week!

Before I start my weekend recap and explain the purpose of my blog title, I want to share my lunch from Thursday last week, which JT and I also ate for lunch Saturday and yesterday! lol! YES it is THAT delicious!

It is an Ole tortilla with feta and olive hummus smeared on it, arugula, avocado, onions, millet with black beans and rotel and obviously about 6-7 carrots. It is delicious. When we were eating it yesterday JT kept going on and on about how amazing it was and told me it rivaled our vegetarians bowls at Chipoltle (which were SO delicious!!)  What a compliment!

We are both enjoying not eating meat. The next big and important step is moving to completely organic produce. It is hard to get here affordably, but we have a plan! We are going to start going to Dallas' farmers market at least once a month, maybe twice. We both feel like a four hour round trip is worth it to get delicious, locally grown organic food. Oh, and even better, we don't actually have to start that until November, because we're going to Austin TWICE this month, which means we can do our produce shopping while we're down there! (And of course I'll hit up World Market (best store ever) too!)

Next weekend's Austin trip is for JT's Tough Mudder. (If you don't know what that is click on it.) He is SO excited and I can't wait to watch him and cheer him on with the help of our good friends Jennifer, Eric and Nick! Should be a blast! No doubt JT will do great.

This past weekend our city had a Fit Fair at the park and I worked the Mayor's Fit Walk Challenge booth. It was a blast! JT came down and we walked around for a few minutes and made tons of contacts with the fitness people of our town. What an awesome thing for a community to put on! We had about 500 people sign up for the Mayor's challenge and there were even more than that there. The only bummer of the whole thing was that they had an AWESOME hybrid commuter bike they were raffling off and a little kid won it :( I wanted it BAD! haha. I need a bike! It was a great time though and a great way to spend our morning. 

So, on to the explanation of my title today. This past week (last Wednesday I think) I purchased the Deluxe Rebel Running Guide. It is book written by two guys named Jason and Steve from Nerd Fitness. It is basically everything you need to know about running, how to run etc... JT and I have been talking about getting me a running coach for a while now, so this seemed like a cheap alternative until we can afford it, and  maybe, after going through their techniques and advice I won't even need a coach! The book so far is awesome, there is a guide to shoes, form, technique and everything else you could possibly think about in regards to running and nutrition. They are paleo guys, so I can't really use the food portion, good news though, Matt from No Meat Athlete said he would send his vegetarian training book to anyone who bought the running guide through his link! So I did and now I have the food and running side! JT has already gotten SO much out of the running guide in regards to his knees and how to avoid injury and we've both learned a lot about our shoe choices.

As I go through the book I will definitely share any must know info!

Quick shout out to my sister-in-law Sara! She finished her FIRST half marathon this past weekend and her time was 2:16! That is an AWESOME time in general, especially for her very first one! GREAT JOB SARA! I hope you'll sign up for another one! <3 SO proud of you! 

Alright, off to my internship! We're turning Tyler PINK for breast cancer awareness!!!!!

The new health journey - Food.

Happy Thursday! Today I want to start out with a sweet picture <3 My Boys!! <3

Also, I'd like to share a picture of my breakfast.... This is a protein shake made with the protein powder I made... This was NOT a good experiment. It is disgusting beyond words and smells like absolute shit... but, it was expensive to make so I feel bad wasting it! THIS IS WHY VEGAN PROTEIN IS SO EXPENSIVE! Because it is HARD to make and even harder to make taste good! lol!

PS how cute are the sweet bullies in the background snoozing away? Also, please excuse the mess... I have a one year old bulldogge who just REFUSES to put his toys away when he is finished! lol!

OH and for those of you who want to try your hand at making your own powder (maybe you'll be more successful than me?) Here is the recipe I used -  Protein Powder


Yesterday was so productive. I went to my internship in the morning and then came home around 1 and had some lunch before decorating for Halloween. I have some great decorations so far and every year JT and I add a little more. I really love the fall!

This is probably my favorite area of my decorations so far. I think it may be a little crowded, so I may take a few things out and move them elsewhere and just keep the cool bottles. We're going to hang lights up outside too and I have a GREAT windchime up now! (This was a World Market Steal!)

I also cleaned the house up, picked up JT's drycleaning and stopped at Big Lots to pick up a loaf pan. Why you ask? Because I had TWO recipes to make that called for one yesterday. The first of which, was Millet and Black Bean Stuffed Peppers. These came out MUCH better than the protein powder. In fact, they were definitely the best thing I have ever made. Quick shout out to The Daily Garnish - the girl who writes that blog has AMAZING and easy recipes and although the protein didn't come out well for me, I'll take the blame on that one!She's also VERY pregnant right now and looks so cute! I hope I am as lucky some day!

After that, I washed the loaf pan and made Blueberry Greek Yogurt Banana Bread. It is as delicious as it sounds!

Both recipes were SO easy too. My food definitely isn't near being on par with JT's (he is truly talented...) But, i am so proud I was able to make a yummy and healthy dinner for us. It is also nice to be able to contribute more to the eating aspect of our life. I know it has to be exhausting to always have to be responsible for feeding us, and he always has been due to my lack of domestic skills (and lack of effort to learn!) That has changed though and I am going to keep working on it! :)

Eating is so important to our health. I have always been so focused on working out and cutting calories, but truthfully I've been wrong all along. It doesn't matter as much  how many calories we consume, but rather what those calories contain. And we are SO brainwashed to think we should avoid fruits and juice because "they have so much sugar." That is so not true. Yes, we should avoid fake juice that has high fructose corn syrup in it, but fresh juice? No way. Fresh fruits and vegetables? No way! And I will say one more thing about really cutting my meat consumption (to nothing but seafood) and eating 80% raw fruits and veggies - I feel so much better. I feel like a new person. I am no longer having the severe digestive issues I've had in the past, I am less fatigued, I have more energy and I sleep so much better. And I just feel better about ME. I no longer crave bad crap either (especially sweets, which have ALWAYS been my downfall.) I also feel like my skin looks WAY better.. check me out! loL! (not sure if putting a picture of myself on my blog is appropriate, but it is my blog so oh well! hehe)

The agenda for today includes: Finishing this blog, going for a run and doing some deep stretching afterward. Shower, errands (to pick up cilantro, cucumbers and other veggies for juicing, lara bars (JTs new fav!) and a few other things that I can't remember right now...shoot! I need a list!) internship (and meeting with my supervisor) then home to do more cleaning/decorating. Tonight JT and I are going to pick up prizes for his treasure box for his little babies and then I have softball. <3 What a fun day!!!

Hope I didn't share too many pictures today. If I did please let me know - I want this blog to be enjoyable to read and something to look forward to. Feedback is ALWAYS welcome, especially if it is constructive!

Enjoy your day and life! I know I AM!

interesting week

Quick check in. It is pretty early Tuesday morning and I am ready to do my errands and cleaning for the day! The highlight will be DECORATING FOR HALLOWEEN!!! My FAVORITE holiday <3 But, before all of that, I feel the need to blog a little bit.

The past week and a half has been INSANE. Really, the last month has been, between working and trying to do my internship, but with JT JUST getting hired to teach last week it has been a full on sprint to get his classroom together. I am happy to report it IS in fact coming together... but as a result we've been struggling to keep our eating as clean as  we'd like.

Just to clarify, We have both been eating mostly raw, very little meat and dairy etc... We generally juice for at least one meal a day and we had been working out regularly as well. This past week, we had On the Boarder, BJs and sushi ... Last night we had Taco Bueno (although I had a black bean vegetarian burrito and it was AWESOME!) The good news is we actually made good choices overall for as much as we ate out, but we both feel super guilty about eating out so much... it just isn't something we like to do (or really have the money to do!) And it is increasingly difficult to eat out at many places since we've changed our eating. I am officially a vegetarian. I do not eat any meat besides seafood and I eat very little dairy. The seafood is rare as well because I am not a fan of fish farming and that is where a lot of seafood comes from now... Im also not a fan of the overfishing we're doing in the oceans - so yeah, its tough. Eventually I'd like to go completely vegan, but I think that will take a little more time and a little more control and organization. I found when we weren't eating any meat that my protein levels were low (we donate plasma and I was turned away due to them being low) and I wasn't real sure about that. So I am now figuring out how to incorporate more protein into my diet.

Speaking of low protein, I actually made my own protein powder... lets just say it was... disgusting. Words cannot even describe the smell. :( It was expensive to make too! lol! Luckily we still have all of the supplements I added so we'll just have to use them in something else I guess. :) 

So yeah, to curb our eating out (although we are meeting friends for sushi tonight! We can't wait either! It has been too long since we've seen them! ) I am going to find healthy vegetarian/vegan recipes and go shopping for the ingredients. For those of you who know me and love me, you all know I would starve or be 300 lbs. if not for JT... so this should be fun. haha no I am way better so it will be fine... but its funny that I will be taking charge of that aspect of our home for a couple of weeks. Im sure JT will still do much of the actual cooking, but shopping and planning and all that other jazz is just too much right now while trying to teach babies and organize his work space. Honestly, Ill  take the blame for all of the eating out, because if I would have just done this at the beginning we'd have stuff in the house.

The cool thing about me doing all of this is that lately I've been on the ball with getting stuff done - I am definitely starting to manifest mommy traits and although I will definitely NOT be a mommy any time soon, it is really awesome to be getting to the point where I could handle it.

Later today I will post recipes that I decide on, pictures of my awesomely decorated house (without pumpkins though - that will be a FUN trip to the pumpkin patch with our sweet boy! On a side note, I am SO sad that even the extra large costumes would be too small on him... someone teach me how to sew!) and a couple other random thoughts. I am going to get better at this again. I love posting when I do it! OH and I got a new phone and it is AWESOME! So maybe Ill start blogging in the mornings and using that!

Thanks for reading!

Phone blogging?

Maybe!!!

So much to share

The need to start blogging again has been a long time coming. I have so much information to share - so much news to share and so much self reflection to share (and do... :)

First of all, and most importantly, JT and I are back in Texas and things are completely different in our worlds health wise than they were just this summer. While in Ohio we started trending toward vegetarianism, whole food, supplements etc... but now that we are back in Texas in our own home, things are absolutely and completely different.

We got to this point thanks to a few awesome documentaries and some great friends. These documentaries are MUST sees if you care about food, nutrition, health, fitness or living really...

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead - this is a documentary about a guy from Australia named Joe who is very obese. He has an autoimmune deficiency which forces him to take 11 pills a  day . Joe decides to completely detox his body by doing a 30 day juice fast. The results are astounding... until Joe meets Phil - who is also very sick and quite ironically has the same autoimmune disease. Joe helps Phil start a juice fast and the results go from astounding to unbelievable. Check it out for yourself on netflix! (and join the revolution on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/FatSickandNearlyDead )

Food Matters - of all of the documentaries I believe this is the most important and beneficial. If you watch only one, make it this one. It is about eating right, but it is also about prescription drugs, government cover-ups of true cures for cancer and how eating and supplementing can literally change everything. Simply AMAZING.

King Corn - This is the story of two young men who get their "make up" tested with a hair sample, only to find they are made up completely of corn. They decide they'd like to learn more about corn farming so they can understand better why they register as being made up of corn. They rent an acre of corn field in the midwest and go through the process of "being corn farmers" with their one acre. They learn a ton along the way including how corn farmers are paid, how the corn is processed and everything in between. Although it drags a little at times, the information is important and it is a must see.

Forks Over Knives - This is also a documentary about food and vegetarian/vegan eating. We follow the stories of several sick individuals on their quest to regain their health and life. There are several interviews with doctors, nurses, people who have changed their diets etc... Very informative.

In addition to the documentaries we've been doing SO much reading. We are both currently reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan and we both just read "Born to Run" by Chris McDougall. I don't really know about the first one yet (still have a ton to go) but, Born to Run is AMAZING. Thank you Sara for sending that to me and suggesting it. If you haven't read it, please do yourself a favor and pick it up. So awesome in every way. A great story, very informative and just ... well AWESOME. lol.

OK - so right now here are the things we are doing:

Juicing (usually at least once a day, sometimes more.) Most of our juices are "green" juices with cucumber, celery, green apples, ginger and carrots. We also just got a whole flat of Wheat Grass (a lot cheaper than buying it individually) and will begin juicing that starting Monday.

Chia seeds - if you don't know about them already check THIS out. We make the gel and add it to our water, coffee, juice etc...

Eating a VERY limited amount of meat or dairy - and when I say limited I mean RARE. We have switched to non-dairy milk options such as coconut and almond.

Mostly Raw and vegan and absolutely NO processed foods. In fact, I am even doing vegan/gluten free baking (well Ive only made one thing... but I plan to make lots! and I will def. share the good recipes here!)

My blogging has really always been about where Im at fitness wise and what Im doing, but I am definitely going to try to provide more useful information from now on. I really hope this will be beneficial and motivational!

Thank you for reading!