Gifting myself with Juice

I went to bed last night around 11, but could not fall asleep. I stayed in bed for about an hour, then got up, and lo and behold, my body needed to release some matter.....couldn't really tell that while lying in bed, but something was keeping me awake. After taking care of that issue, I of course went over to my computer and got online. Read more juicy blogs, and realized that I really do want to juice feast......that for me it is best. If I do green smoothies, I am more likely to eat cooked food.

I was raw all day yesterday, until the evening, as I had some leftover bean quesadilla in the fridge that was calling my name. It was very tasty, and I only ate half of what was left, which was 1/4 of a quesadilla made like a tortilla sandwich ie not folded over, but with a second tortilla on the top. I really love the Mariposa tortillas I used to make it. They are fresh, and thicker than most. White flour as I just don't like whole wheat pasta, pitas or tortillas. I do eat only sprouted grain bread when I eat bread, but my tortillas etc are white. Or were, as I don't believe I will go back there for a long long time, if at all. I also had a small bowl of cereal before bed. It has become a craving. I use Nature's Path Multigrain Oat Bran Flakes mixed with some Barbara's regular shredded oats (pillow cereal) and fill the bowl with a mix of Rice Dream and Organic Whole milk, with a dropperful of liquid stevia added. It is yum. My favorite desert in all the world (one of them) is a bowl of these cereals, alone or together, with a huge pile of whipped cream on top. So delicious and not overly sweet....and yes, it's dairy....but omg.

So, I woke up this morning, had another bowel movement, did my morning ritual of removing all clothing after the bowel movement, before ingesting anything, no water, nada.....and weighed myself. One half of a pound down. Good. Trying to keep things moving in the right direction. Would love to lose 30 pounds. Even 20 would be great....30 pounds would be awesome. I have this dream of being lithe, thin and fit, strong and full of vitality and joy. That is what juice feasting will gift me with, what I will gift myself with, with juice feasting and raw foods.

Going to the local farmers market today, going to ride my bike in (I do drive a bit of a ways, but just to get to the bike path.) My family usually rides with me, but we are having flat tire issues, and my husband just took an 11 mile run, so he is not that interested in having a bike ride. We have amazing bike paths around here, you can ride on them for miles and miles and miles. Seriously, and much of it is along the creek. We rode in last week, and then on Sunday took another longer bike ride in the other direction. It was great!!! Would love to do 2 long bike rides this weekend as well. Don't see why not!

This morning's juice was made with a large bunch of parsley, a medium bit of dandelion greens, a large amount of kale, almost a full head of celery, some napa cabbage (doesn't give much juice), carrots, granny smith apples (3) an orange and a lemon. It is deliciously tart and green, about 2 quarts....one quart all greens, one quart apples, carrots, orange and lemon.

Whole Foods had organic cilantro on sale, a dollar a piece.....so I bought 4. They are acting like a regular grocery store more and more....making me call them Corporate Foods, which is really what they are. They like to stress how green, local and organic they are, but they carry as much, if not more non-organic produce than organic. And when they have sales of cilantro advertised as 10 for $10, it makes me feel like I am shopping at Albertson's. I greatly miss our local co-op, which went under due to lack of good business sense, biting off more than they could chew, and sadly, lack of support in this town of money. It felt so good to be there, so much closer to the reality of food, life, love. It was a wonderful place. People here have plenty of money, at least many people do, but most of them did not shop there. Many rich people like to live here, it is very nice, the weather is not too extreme, there is alot of natural beauty, mountains, streams, great hiking, biking, rock climbing etc. however most newcomers can not afford to live in the town (us included) as houses start at $500,000.

I like our house, but I don't like it's setting.....I like the relative peace and quiet of it, but it's suburban processed living boringness....with everyone having fenced-in back yards, very few neighbors interacting or even showing their faces save for coming and going. Guess I will have to make an effort to change that. There are some nice people in the neighborhood. Most of them. However there is nothing interesting to explore around here, though we are very close to "open space" but it's only truly open if you are a cow. People are told to keep out. That stinks both literally and figuratively. At least the cows are not around too often, but when they are, they ruin the land. There is a hill that is used for sledding when it snows, and it had a bit of vegetation on it, (the land is clay, semi-deserty, not much growing on it anyways) but now it is totally barren and eroding.

I wish I could float all of the cattle and all of the pigs up into space, as I think the earth would heave a giant sigh of relief. There are far too many of them on the planet. Way more than people, and the growing and the processing of them uses up way way way too many resources, not to mention all of the pollution they cause. Something overlooked by Al Gore in his book about global warming. They really do have a huge, significant impact.

I have some goals for the summer. One is to start a compost pile, the other is to really work our garden space, do more than basil and tomatoes, sunflowers and weeds. Another is to really take a look at our waste, what we throw away and try to reduce it as much as possible. Recyling is great, but not having it, producing it, in the first place is best. Much of our waste is plastic, the great number one, then glass jars and tin cans. We eat alot of canned beans. Use lots of jars of pasta sauce. Plastic comes with everything....and then there is paper....lots of junk mail.... kids school papers, etc. We don't take a newspaper, so don't have that daily waste, and I have tons of cloth bags that I use faithfully, and I have even started remembering to bring plastic bags to reuse when I buy produce, but I just cringe when I see what we have. And we have less than many people! So....enough lofty goals for one post. Off to enjoy this beautiful day!

The bike ride in to the Farmer's Market was wonderful, the bike path is lined with all kinds of green things growing, which I was eying as I rode by, wondering how many of them were edible greens that I could harvest to help lower the cost of my juice feast. I didn't see much I recognized, maybe one area that has tall dandelion greens, lots of thistles and other plants I don't know. There are also some beautiful blue/purple flowers blooming...look a lot like phlox, but I don't know if that is what they are.

Met my husband and son down at the Market, walked around, lots of yummy greens, spinach, arugula, lettuces, malvia ? a salad green, and lots of plants. Herbs, flowers, tomatoes, etc. I bought a large bag of stir fry greens for juicing, a large bag of young lettuces and 6 young parsley plants for our garden. Then, I took my son's bike to the bike shop to get the tire fixed and the gears adjusted. I love the bike shop. They are nice and very helpful, a local business. Naiche's tire had a goat head thorn poking through it into the inner tube, so that was removed, and this time (as he seems to get flat tires often) I bought the really thick, elephant hide inner tube. Hopefully that will end his flat tires. He rode his bike back to the parking area outside of town with me and Liam met us there.

Then we went and picked up Dakota and his bike, which also has a flat tire, but it stays inflated well enough when you put air in it....and we came home to water everything, make juice and dinner. They are eating pita pizzas..homemade and delicious...and I first made a fruit juice using a quart of strawberries, and 3 oranges. It was yum but afterwards I felt tired, so made some more green juice with a full thing of cilantro, a good helping of dandelion greens, 2 large stalks of broccoli, some celery and 2 Pink Lady apples and a few carrots. Getting quite low on carrots and apples so have to keep some back for tomorrow mornings juice. This juice is tart and green and slightly bitter but still very tasty. Keep feeling like I need to poo, but nothing quite there. Suppose an enema would help, but don't feel like doing one. I do take a double dose of fiber every morning....one scoop of Dr. Natura's Colonix fiber, and one packet of the Blessed Herbs toxin absorber...which is also fiber, clay, herbs, etc. I keep looking for those rubber tubes to come out, but so far, nothing much like that. Not sure what is up with that....is it all stubbornly clinging to the walls of my colon or what? But I will persevere, and time will tell.

In the meantime, long winded post that this is, I wanted to mention the sheer magic of juicing and being 100% raw, which I started feeling again today. Lots of synchronicities, lots of mellow thoughts and feelings, I bought something, my total was $7.77. I bought gas, and I got exactly 22.222 gallons, and the person before me had paid $67.17 and gotten 17. something gallons of gas. 17 and 22 are numbers that I gravitate towards and that gravitate towards me. I see the number 17 absolutely everywhere. So, very glad to be feeling the magic, and this is my magic thought that keeps me juicing......that if I keep it up, the magic will only increase. I don't want to lose the magic. So....if you have read all of this either you are truly bored or an avid seeker. Either way, welcome, and do say hello. It is nice to know when and if anyone is reading this.

Ciao bellas!

Alessandra

Green Smoothies

Green Smoothies...yum. A wonderful way to get lots of greens and fiber, that is fast and easy and doesn't use up a ton of produce. Perhaps instead of a Juice Feast I will do a Green Smoothie Feast instead. That will be time saving as well as money saving, and I can still juice some, just not so much as to break the bank. Today's was an act of necessity as I did not get up early enough to make juice this morning. I even postponed taking a shower and washing my hair, which hopefully I will do this evening so as to get out of the house early tomorrow...we are going to the Farmer's Market....need to get there early to get the best of things and also so it's not so crowded. I do wish they wouldn't allow people to bring their dogs. It's crowded enough with all of the people, don't need dogs thrown into the mix. However, this is a dog friendly and a bike friendly town.....so that will never happen. I have noticed that drinking only juice all day long, and then eating some cooked food in the evenings is not doing me very much good. David Rainoshek of the Juice Feasting website did say that it is very confusing to the system and not a good thing to do. I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing, until, after feeling great all day, I woke up the next day, after eating a refried bean quesadilla that had fresh poblano and fresh tomato slices on it, just feeling and looking bleah. I didn't over eat, just ate cooked food. This was Wed. evening. And consequently perhaps, or because I am wreaking havoc on my candida with the juicing and the large daily dose of fiber and it's fighting back, I had cravings for sweets yesterday and succumbed to them. I ate 6 small dark snickers that are kept in the freezer (by me) here at work, then had 2 Corona beers and a blue corn espinaca enchilada (spinach) that was really good as the spinach hadn't been cooked, just put inside the tortilla and warmed. It had a bit of cream cheese or some creamy type of cheese (manchego or the soft Mexican cheese) and came with sides of black beans and rice. I didn't eat those, but did enjoy a few chips and some very tasty salsa. Overall, I ate lightly, and when we got home later, I had a small bag of some rice/corn tamari chips. I didn't gain any weight, which was good, and I feel fine today, but it isn't something I plan on doing in the future. I did indulge though, as we were out celebrating our 13 year olds graduation from middle school. Wonderful time that, he is such a great kid. Proud to call him mine. (ours). Today's fare has been just a wonderful green smoothie made with 2 ripe bananas, 3 oranges, 3 small lovely apricots, a half of a box of strawberries, with a large handful of italian flatleaf parsley and dandelion greens. All organic. It has a wonderful flavor and is full of fiber as I processed it in my Cuisnart with the S-blade, which does not blend it as smoothly as a blender might. I am thinking about getting a K-Tec Blender, but I think I have to be successfully raw for long enough for my husband to take me seriously before I request such a thing. However I do have a bunch of points with my credit card, enough to get a free blender! Not sure how long it will last, this blender, but it should do well enough if I treat it kindly. So...green smoothies, juice and raw foods...simple ones, nothing dehydrated, overly fatty or sweet. I make this lovely salad that even has my youngest asking for more....it's mixed greens with pine nuts, and a little grated Parmesiano Reggiano cheese. I know the cheese is not raw, and the dressing I use is not either (Seeds of Change Greek Feta Dressing) but it's close enough. For myself and my older son I also add fresh tomatoes. It is sooooo good! So starting now, this very day, I am committing myself to being 100% raw. (99.03%) With lots of green smoothies and juice. (And no more cheats like that smidgen of leftover danish I just ate....)

OK...later in the day, after finishing off the green smoothie, I got hungry in the afternoon, so ate my quart of strawberries I bought while out and about this morning. That lasted only a little while, so then I had this small sample of granola that I had picked up (not raw, but almost....) and that helped. Then I discovered this bag of raw pistachios I had under my desk....and had some of those. Those dark Snickers were calling my name but I said NO and did not succumb. Dinner is going to be a nice large salad of mixed greens, broccoli, tomato, carrot and avocado with pine nuts, Parmigiano Reggiano and the Greek Feta dressing. Yum. I will stay RAW!!

Ciao bellos!
Alessandra

Juice Feasting

There are so many wonderful juicy blogs out there about Juice Feasting. I was reading a few of them last night, getting inspired. I will pass along the links when I have more time. I have done a 17 day Juice Feast, it was last fall, and I am rather annoyed with myself for stopping when I did, as I had just passed through a major detox, which was mainly being tired for 2 days plus releasing an amazing amount of stuff from my colon. Couldn't believe there was that much stuff in there after 17 days of only juice!! My energy was good on the Juice Feast...very good, and I did lose some weight, though not so much as you might think. If you are underweight, I would not be afraid to try a Juice Feast. With so much nutrition coming into your body, you may lose a couple of pounds of excess waste, but I would imagine you could and maybe even would actually put on weight while Juice Feasting as your body would be getting so much more in the way of nutrients than with most ways of eating, and it would all be healthy, good tissue. So, I am planning to relaunch my Juice Feast on June 1st....there was no way I could join in with the global juice feast, my dad died, I was working lots of hours at work....just too scattered and distracted to want to start then. So, now, I am back, and wanting this time to be the time, that I achieve my goal, of completing a 92 Juice Feast, rising food costs not withstanding, hoping that with summer coming on, and more local produce available, that prices will at least settle in, if not go back down a bit. I recently completed 7 full days of fasting on apple cider (pasteurized but not from concentrate) along with taking Blessed Herbs toxin absorber 5 times each day. It was a grand high time, and I did lose some weight, about 7 pounds, and did eat well coming off of it, but after I started eating and gained back some of the weight, more than I wanted to, I had a bad day where I ate stuff I should not have eaten, even could have talked myself out of it, but I am so STUBBORN sometimes!!! Ate them anyways (3 large doughnuts ) even though I wasn't even hungry!!! And later that evening I also polished off an entire pack of graham crackers with milk. Classic disfunctional behavior. My rationale was to just do it, gross myself out, so that I would begin the next day with renewed commitment. Which I did do, but really......couldn't I have done it without the negative reinforcement? Actually, this time I probably could have, which gives me hope that there won't be a 'next time'. I have been juicing and eating well and doing a fair bit of bike riding, so have lost at least 3 pounds this past week, trying to eat lightly and well. That is encouraging, but possibly won't continue and is too slow for me. Everything is too slow for me!

So....the Juice Feast. Coming to this blog soon! And I woke up feeling good today, rather high, after my morning ablutions.... 2 decent bowel movements, aided by my taking a double dose of fiber in the mornings...the Dr. Natura along with the Blessed Herbs Toxin Absorber....then 2 capsules of Ultra Colon Clenz at night. Took an extra one this morning....need to get all of those toxins out!!

Today's juice approximately 66 ounces, consists of

Parsley, Celery, Dandelion Greens, Kale, Carrots, Apples (Gala) and 1 Lemon & 1 Orange
It is yum!

Got to get back to work.......and hurray! After 2 days of clouds and rain, the sun is back!