New Juicer

Hey there juicies! The new juicer is here. It’s a $99 Jack LaLanne, and guess what! I love it. It is SO.MUCH.BETTER. than the old one. The old one was loud and huge and a pain to clean. It cost twice as much and was a supposedly reputable brand, but the new one runs circles around it in my book. So, if you’re in the market for a juicer, get the Jack LaLanne.

 

Also, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is available to stream for free on Hulu! http://www.hulu.com/watch/289122/fat-sick-and-nearly-dead So, if you don’t have Netflix, you can still watch it all you want!

So, I Didn’t Fall Off the Earth…

** I don’t normally do this, but some of the info in this post is not exactly public, yet, so if you know me in real life or on Facebook, please don’t share, just yet… **

 

Hiya Juicies… If there are any of ya left out there. So, as you may have guessed I’m not juice fasting right now. Actually, I’m not juicing at all right now, because my juicer did eventually bite the dust. I wish i could say I went right out and bought another one and picked up and everything was cool. But, alas, that is not how this story goes. While it may not go quite the way I wish as far as juicing is concerned and it has it’s ups and downs, it is a mostly happy story. Mostly.

I know I’ve mentioned many a time that my juicer sounded very much like a plane taking off. Apparently, that was a sign that something was going wrong in there. It started shutting off mid juice and the juice started being really pulpy. I was dealing with this OK on the fast and committed to using that juicer until it could used no more. Then it started smoking. I take smoke as a sign of done when it comes to electronics. I could have went out that day and bought a new one, but why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, right?

Well, tomorrow brought with it a positive pregnancy test. Yes, literally the day after my juicer blew up. Which would have been happy news and would have been a happy reason to not resume the fast, but… this pregnancy wasn’t sticky. I’ve told you before that one of my health issues I’d hoped to address with the juicing way of life was infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss. So, it looks like the infertility part is responding, and the RPL, not as well. Suffering yet another early miscarriage was a blow to my resolve and I ended up not getting a new juicer. We all know that when things get tough, Minta likes to take the easy way out. So, she did. Not proud of that.

But, wait this is supposed to be a mostly happy story, right? Well, happy number one is that, while I abandoned the juicing I didn’t turn my back on all healthy habits. So, I did lose a little weight over the next month. And, I re-gained my desire for juice and decided to buy a new juicer (on the agenda for today, actually).

Happy number two, is a much bigger deal. Because as of today, I am six weeks pregnant. I got pregnant again the follow cycle after the early miscarriage. The vast majority of my miscarriages happen between 4 & 4.5 weeks. I suspect there is some of chromosomal issue at play there. Of the pregnancies that have made it past 5 weeks one resulted in my son and the other ended at 10 weeks. So, we are several weeks away from being out of the woods, but… we are on the right side of the odds at this point.

That said, I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m not fasting right now. But, there will be new recipes and hopefully some helpful info for those who want to juice while pregnant.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

So, yeah… mega fail = me. Let me explain. No, will take too long. Let me sum up. (Look who’s a major cinefile!)

I am back where I started in terms of RA pain. Weight wise, I’ve managed to flip-flop between 309-319. Big range. Normal for people with lots of water retention. I lost 12 pounds overnight (not without effort, mind you, I did have to get up to pee 6 or 7 times. Then the next day gained 8. So, that’s not good. Frick! But, even with flip-floppy weight, my clothes are still looser, so I think the weight gain beyond 5-7 pounds really is water.

Basically, in the days immediately following the accident, I did pretty good. I was juicing a couple of times a day and sticking pretty well to the micronutrient food plan. Then, the real pain hit. As it turns out, when you run out of vicodin pain gets worse. Who knew? So, at that point, I adopted a real gung ho let’s knock this thing out with juice  fuck-it mentality. Which led to the reintroduction of fast food to my life. Which rather quickly led to the reintroduction of RA pain, water retention, acne and general crappy mood/attitude. All things I had lived with for YEARS, without really knowing just how severe they were.

*ahem* In two short weeks I had gotten very used to improvements in those categories and have been quite bowled over by how much they have affected my life.

So, then, what’s the plan? Well, still planning on a 60 day’er in the January time frame. Why not sooner? Honestly? I’m a big, fat chicken. I have tons of excuses… Not prepared, holidays are coming, expensive, juicer is too loud, blah, blah, blah! It really boils down to “am chicken” and “afraid of failure.”

I am planning the following to help get me prepped for January, though:

• Another 10 day’er ASAP (meaning 10-10-11 to 10-19-11)
• Juice only Wednesdays
• Juice twice a day every other day
• Another 10 day’er in November (I’m thinking 11-1-11 to 11-10-11)
• Another 10 day’er in December (Probably 12-4-11 to 12-14-11)

One thing I have definitely learned for sure, though, is that for those of us battling major health issues and long ingrained bad habits, 10 days just isn’t enough. I would encourage anyone reading this and considering a fast to try 21 days. If you plan for 21 and make it, I’m quite positive you’ll not regret it. If you try for 21 and make it to 8 or 10 or 15, then (as Joe Cross says) good on you for trying.

Long Time No Juice

Good afternoon, juicies! So, yeah, it’s been a few days. Understatement!

I’ve been MIA from this blog (and my juicer) since last week because well, it was the week from hell around here last week and since Wednesday I wasn’t really even well enough to get up and juice for myself. A very short recap of last week: we had to have our 15 year old fur baby euthanized because he was too ill and too old to let him suffer any further, the vet’s office completely FUBAR’d the cremation including trying to charge up double for the urn and (way worse) temporarily losing my dogs body at one point, on the way to buy an urn me and the kiddo’s were in a serious car accident which totalled my car and left me with severe bruising all over my body, a broken rib and a “strained” wrist (thankfully no children were harmed in the making of this awful week, none of them suffered worse than a little seatbelt brusing) and the baby cut two teeth. Oh, and I melted a cutting board in my oven.

So, yeah, please excuse the absense…

That said, given the state of my injuries and the big RA benefits I saw during my 10 days, I am returning to the juice. I’m hoping if I can give my body a bit of a rest from digestion and flood it with micronutrients I’ll heal up a little faster. Also, since the accident, my weight is nearly back up to my pre-fast weight (today it was 323, pre-fast was 326). Most of this is water retnetion (I can hold water… it’s one of my super hero talents) and vicodin related constipation, but some of it is “I ate a bag of tortilla chips and a bottle of salsa yesterday” related and a little is “Nutella was on sale” related.

Those last two points have led me to believe that maybe 10 days just wasn’t long enough to reboot my fat ass. So, while I’m not in any shape to commit to anything beyond simply adding a lot more juice to help with healing, right now… Expect a 60 day’er to be coming up. Maybe around January. It would be cheaper to do it in the summer, but that’s too long to wait. However… I do need to wait until I’m a bit more healed up. It was hard cleaning that juicer after breakfast this morning and I just can’t commit to doing that 5-6 times a day right now. Plus, you know, Thanksgiving (shut up, fat girl!). Anyhoo, we’ll see. But as of now, am planning 60 days around January.

Carrot juice for breakfast, was divine!

Tomato soup for lunch, too much onion 😦

See ya tomorrow!