What the JUICE?

The fruits and veggies of my labor...$50 worth of supplies, 12 servings of homemade juice

What is Juice Cleansing?

According to wikipedia:

1. Juice fasting (also known as "juice cleansing") is a controversial fasting method and a detox diet in which a person consumes only fruit and vegetable juices to obtain nutrition while otherwise abstaining from food consumption. Juice fasts may last anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

As we all know, I have fallen off of the scale this year. The best of intentions have fallen prey to illnesses, mild depression and a bad case of the fuck-its. Both of my weekends away in the month of February turned into all-out eat fests...stuffing my face with everything from Fettuccine Alfredo to little poofy cheese balls and topping it off with a bunch of delicious alcoholic beverages. February was a month of gluttony. 

I decided I needed to do some sort of "cleanse" to get myself back on track. I did a cleanse over the summer. For 12 straight days I mixed this nasty orange stuff with a glass of water and then an hour later shit myself silly. But day 7, I was just praying for the end to come. I don't know what was in that "cleanse" that cleared me out - but it certainly wasn't natural. It came in a little white tube. 

I wanted to get back to basics - so I looked into juice and tea. I Googled juice cleanses - and looked up a bunch of different articles. (Read some yourself...this is where I started: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20679227,00.html) 

I decided a short, 2-3 day juice cleanse was the way to go. I researched a bunch of them - and decided that anything that could be purchased could also be made. The search for recipes began. I came up with four basics that I was going to try. (I'll put the recipes in a separate post). I made the initial batches last week - but yet another round of illnesses kept my plan sidelined. So, today was the official first day of my juice cleanse. 

It was kind of awesome.

Confessions: 

1 - I absolutely stole two bites of my kid's cinnamon roll ("yummy buns") before I drank my breakfast juice this morning. 

2 - I added 2 different types of V8 with my homemade concoctions

3 - I sampled 3 tortellini while I was making my kids dinner

4 - I had 3 more tortellini after I took antibiotics to get the nasty taste out of my mouth

Aside from that - here was my day in review:

(two bites of cinnamon roll), A tall glass of V8 purple juice. One my way to the gym, I had a solid helping of my homemade Beet Ginger juice. I didn't have a lot of time after my workout, so I grabbed a shake before I left the gym. Once I got home from getting kids, I had another serving of V8...this time the green kind. My plan was to have another serving or two of juice...but then I realized that I needed to take my antibiotics with food...so I made myself a salad with some chicken on top.

And you know what? I feel good. Not just because I'm cleansing - but I was in control of today. I woke up, made a decision and stuck to it. Despite this stupid walking pneumonia (what does that even MEAN?!) and feeling like crap - I juiced, I cleansed, I worked out and I feel good.

So, yeah - I spiraled out of control a little for the first two months of 2015. I got off track and let my life drive me. But today? March 2, 2015? Yeah. I owned today. It was mine, baby.