Fuck You, I'm Juicing

so i just came off my second juice fast in the last few months, and i know everyone is dying to hear the unfiltered version -- literally.  i can't remember why i thought this was a good idea, but i made the mistake of mentioning it to tosca, and then i was locked in by the peer pressure.

i immediately devoured the entire internet plus a few free ebook's worth of information regarding the so-posh-juice-fast-trend.  thankfully, the literature is pretty consistent and so i didn't have to make a lot of decisions (for which i have no basis or concept or context) about what to believe.  now all my loyal fans can benefit from this synopsis.

spring cleaning:  the idea is that you give your body a break from all the energy it spends on digestion, while inundating it with nutrients and enzymes and colors.  and then your body takes that extra energy to do some spring cleaning and healing that otherwise gets pushed aside for more urgent matters, i.e. #2.   i read that three days of juicing is good for you, but then i also read that it takes 4 days to stop digesting (the first 3 days are spent digesting leftovers in the digestive track -- ew -- and the fourth day you live off of something in your liver).  therefore, you don't really get the full benefits until day 5.  then you get 3 days of full-on cleanse.

based on this explanation, i decided on the 7-day fast, and began the countdown.

fuck you, i'm juicing.  i also read about people who do 30 and 100 day juice fasts.  and according to my glamour magazine, it is appropriate to tell someone to f-off if they invite you out to a steakhouse during your juice fast.  zealots.  don't get crazy overboard and rude, people, over your weird alternative lifestyle choice and lack of self-control.

chewing it up and spitting it out:  again, after extensive research, i am pleased to share in one sentence or less: when choosing a juicer, you get what you pay for.  the more expensive juicer will extract more juice and be easier to clean (making it more likely to be used).  there are two types -- (1) a centrifugal juicer which chops up your veggies into tiny pieces and whirls the juice out, and (2) a masticating juicer, which basically chews up your veggies and pees out the juice.  i feel like #2 is the obvious winner.  i settled on the omega J8004 -- after all, it is an entire nutrition center!! ... announced in my best infomercial advertisement voice) -- and have been pleased.

basically, i drank just water and homemade/fresh juice for a week.  there is no specific menu, but you're supposed to shoot for  80% vegetables and 20% fruits (errr how do you measure that?), with at least four 16-ounce juices per day, and 16 ounces of water before and after each juice.  if you're thirsty, drink juice.  if you're hungry, drink juice.  easy peasy, right?

here are my thoughts:

i don't have time for this:  i bet i spent 10 hours in the two days between deciding to juice and when my juicer came in the mail just talking about juicing.  plus, have you seen this shopping list?  (btw, this shopping list is great to give you an idea of what you'll need to get started.)  i'm juicing for two, so that means i need 40 cucumbers.  40.  forty.  4-0.  do they even have 40 cucumbers at safeway?  then i spent more time plotting how to get to the grocery store before tosca, so she didn't buy up all the cucumbers, leaving none for me!

then there is the cleaning, the cutting, the coring (juicing an apple seed will release the cyanide), the smashing things into the juicer and the actual chugging of juice.

i also spent a fair amount of time warning everyone i knew to avoid me at all costs for seven days...

and then:  what am i going to do with all this time?  you know, all the time i usually spend between 8:01 a.m. and 11:38 a.m. trying to decide what to eat for lunch...  i ran a lot of errands on my "lunch" break, made a (small temporary) dent in the mountain of laundry, and billed 9000 extra hours that week.

juicing is fun!  more specifically, the actual making of juice is fun.  the juicer has a little chute you get to shove your veggies in, and you can actually hear it "chewing" the food, then see it peeing out the juice into one cup and excreting the carrot crumbs into another.  (and they are literally dried up tasteless crumbs!)

i was so excited the first time, i took a picture!  even a few months later, i still like this part :)

if it sounds like a bad idea, juice it anyway.  i admit i was skeptical of juicing things like celery and bell peppers, ginger, garlic, parsley, cilantro, lettuce and sweet potato ... pretty much everything i've never seen on the outside of a juice box.  they all turned out OK (lots of times, REALLY GOOD!) and/or are easy to hide under something else.  surprisingly, it's the cucumber that i like least.

in the case of onion though ... mistake.  even if your recipe calls for it, it's a mistake.  don't juice an onion.  ever.

#1.  and #2.  by day 2 at 8 AM, i'd peed no less than 8 times, possibly more, since i went to bed the night before.  and i'm not talking trickle-pees -- these were all-out racehorse-pees.  fluuuuuuush.

when day 3 rolled around, it wasn't exactly "fun," but it was nice to know that when anything was passing through, it was just a bunch of old yucky leftovers that have been hanging out for lord knows how long.  good riddance!

i'm melting, MELTING!  i didn't juice to lose weight and i didn't actually weigh myself at any point during the fast.  i did *feel* skinny despite all the water i was drinking.  i read that it's not a great weight loss strategy because there can be lots of calories in juice -- but you can control this by choosing vegetables over fruits.

be strong, but don't bother being too strong.  after two days of juicing, i had an intense craving for butternut squash soup.  what would i be proving, and to whom, if i skipped that?  i home-made it, without dairy or meat, called it "vegetable broth" and shoveled it right in.

my only real cheating was the day i took my kids to vinny's for lunch and ate a piece of pizza.  i had one piece in lieu of a juice, and still had my 16 ounces of water before and after, stuck with vegetarian and skipped the root beer i'd usually wash it down with.  i feel like it was a good compromise between juicing and actually living life.

and speaking of living life, my kids are officially spoiled.  they also love using the juicer and will ask for *fresh* apple juice....

good thing they're cute.

so now what?  *shrug*  i juiced.  i didn't notice any horrible or miraculous events during the week, although i did live easily without coffee.  all my prior warnings to STAY BACK were unneeded.  i didn't ease myself back into solid foods as recommended, but instead ended the juice fast with a redeye flight to spend the week in a house whose occupant subsists primarily on pop-tarts and hot dogs (love you mom!).  i ate some fast food, a lot of virginia ham and pasta, and a few versions of thanksgiving dinner.  i felt normal and my body worked fine.  my liver did work at maximum efficiency through the holiday season, which was fortunate.

sooooooo in conclusion, i present to you, the +1 effect:  i've seen a lot of reference to the documentary fat, sick and nearly dead as a juicing inspiration.  no, i haven't seen it, and i won't even though it's sitting for free on netflix six feet away at this very moment.  i don't need any propoganda to tell me i eat a lot of oreos and cheesesticks and chocolate croissants from the european cafe.

if anything, i've been inspired by robin quivers and the recent commentary from the howard stern show about her recent book, the veducation of robin.  although she is vegan (RIP cheese!) the take-away from the book is basically this: add one more vegetable to your diet per day.  even that small step can, apparently, have noticeable health benefits.  i call this the +1.  for this reason, i think everyone should juice.

juicing is an easy, easy way to get a +1.  or a +5.  when was the last time you sat down for lunch and an entire head of green leaf lettuce, a cucumber, a pear and a lime?  it's happened exactly zero point zero times in my life.  but it's easy (and fun!) to add in a few servings of fruits and veggies in a juice, especially as an afternoon snack.  this particular version actually tastes just like limeade.

i think i'll do a 7-day fast every 6 months to detox (which is all that is safely recommended) or maybe a 3-day fast every month to keep my innards tidy.  i think it's a good idea, but i don't even think you need to be this extreme to get benefits.  i'll mostly be juicing because it's good.  and so i can continue to eat more cheese-centric and chocolate-centric meals, hopefully without the corresponding expansion of my arteries and behind.

cheers, friends!

p.s. here are a few of my favorite recipes.  i apologize i have not given them any ridiculous cutesy names, so i'll sort them by color:

green:
1 apple
1 or 2 limes
1 cup spinach or lettuce
1 cucumber

brown:
3 oranges
1 red or yellow bell pepper
1 cup spinach

orange:
1 orange or 1 cup pineapple
8 carrots
2 inches ginger root

red:  (somehow this juice is actually salty ... with no salt.  it becomes a nice change to the sweet).
1 beet root
1 orange
2 celery sticks
3 carrots

i also collected quite a few recipes on my pinterest board of the same name, if you're looking for more ideas.  for your own good, please stay away from the one with the onion in it.