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Showing posts with label juicing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label juicing. Show all posts

Monday, December 21, 2015

**RECIPE** Juice & Smoothie Blends

Since I have been faithful about going to the gym, I'm losing pounds and inches faster than I expected. I think part of the weight loss is due to the better eating habits I'm practicing.

Juicing (or "smuicing" for those who also enjoy smoothies) is a great way to balance out my nutrition while trying to lose or maintain weight. The hardest  part of it all is just like with any kind of diet (or lifestyle  change), and that is variety.

I have no problem eating right for months and months. I do tend to get bored with my healthy choices of nutrition. So... I try not to get bored.

With the new - and very affordable - juicer I've had for a couple of weeks, I can change up from smoothies to juices just by rotating two appliances.

        

Juices are easier for me than smoothies. Here are my latest recipes:

Tropical Blend

Pineapple
Mandarin Oranges
(Can add a little bit of lemon if you want)

Blood Pressure Blend

Beets
Carrots
Apple (for more sweetening)

Workout Refresher Blends (for after the gym)

Celery + Ginger + Cucumber + Oranges

Beets + Apples

Cucumber + Oranges

Blend for Snacktime

Ginger
Cucumber
Apple

Someone mentioned to me that adding a little bit of cayenne to my juices could help rev the metabolism. I want to try it, but I have no tolerance for even mild heat. I might try adding cinnamon to a blend, but I haven't yet.

Another thing about juices vs smoothies: to help replenish the fiber lost from juicing, I like to add back in to the juice some of the pulp that the juicer discards. This means having to shake the pulp around in the juice so that it doesn't all sink, but it's worth it and doesn't really bother me as far as taste.

If anyone has any suggestions for juices or smoothies, feel free to email me.

Peace
--Free

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Decorative Dietary Fiber? Yep.

A few years back, when I first started juicing, I ran across an unusual piece of fruit. Tried it, loved it, but didn't get any photos.

Yesterday, I found the fruit at my local grocery store. Yay!

This is the dragon fruit. Or the pitaya.


Top: fruit has been removed
Bottom: Fruit still in the rind
When I was adding my own photos for this post, I found this one online.

Image result for serve dragon fruit
Notice that mine didn't have this color of meat inside. Huh.
Now I want to find a piece of fruit with that deeper color of meat. Pretty. By the way, the source for that photo has an awesome smoothie recipe!

Other than being so very, very pretty, it's got a lot of dietary and tasty benefits:

  • High in fiber
  • Low in calories
  • Low in cholesterol 
  • Very "meaty" 
  • Good source of antioxidants
  • Pleasant taste (sort of like a blander kiwi fruit)
Here is a link to more info about and benefits of the fruit. I didn't even know about the fats and Vitamin C until I saw this page. 

If you are thinking of trying it, these links could be useful:
So, there are a lot of ways to use this fruit. I kind of wish I could just shellac the shell and use it as decoration! 

Of course, it's kind of pricey. Everything tends to be more expensive up here, but I'm always surprised at the close to $9.00/lb price for this fruit. Thankfully, one piece is enough for at least 2  or 3 uses in juicing.

The advantage to this being such a pretty piece of fruit is that the shell can be used when serving it. 

(source)
(source)
If anyone has any other recipes, let me know.

Peace
--Free

Friday, April 24, 2015

**REVIEW** Dr Miller Miracle Tea - OR Cleansing Naturally (part 3 of 3)

This is going to be a long post, but I hope it's useful for anyone looking to switch up their eating habits. (By the way, Amazon has already credited my refund. Love those guys!)


Now that I've experienced the Miracle Tea and found that it just doesn't work for me, I figure this is a good time to resort back to a proven method for cleansing my body (colon and all).  The tea might be fine for most people, but I am going to get back to basics with my situation.

I've gone through many changes and challenges with food. I've done well and not so well. And I am going back over and taking a look at some of those situations. To give myself, some credit, I haven't done so badly with my nutrition in the past few years - at least when I'm actually thinking about what I eat.

For me, right now, back to basics means just eating right. If I do that, I shouldn't have to do any kind of cleanse, right? And I know that changing up my diet actually does work. So, I have changed it up. Or, rather, gotten back to some of the basics.

Pretty basic, right?
 When I was getting back into shape post-prednisone, I indulged in lots of fruits and vegetables. I love almost any kind of fruit, but I'm picky about vegetables. I had to learn to get a good intake of all kinds of veggies in a way that I could enjoy them. Also, eating healthy is stressful unless you do enjoy it.

You might remember my trusty blender. You know, from the first time I was on a detox.  Even after I finished losing most of the weight I wanted to, until a few months ago, I still enjoyed doing what I call a veggie binge on a regular basis.
Still trusty, after all these ye- uh, months
A "veggie binge" is what I do for a few weeks when my body is feeling out of sorts. I will do nothing but a massive amount of vegetables (via smoothies and salads) for three or four days of a week and, for the rest of the week, eat just about anything but bread and other starches.

This binge seems to re-regulate my body and boost my energy levels. If I was smart (or disciplined) enough, I would never go off the binge. That's what I'm going to try to work up to this time: adopting the binge as a lifestyle.

The key to this kind of diet is to shop smart. Here in Alaska, fruits and vegetables can be pricey (especially during the winter months) so you have to always stick to a really defined food budget. You have to cut out those "treats" of cafe-bought coffee and any food bought through a drive-through window. Also, you have to spend a little more time planning food prep.

This is not all as tricky as it might sound. At least not for me. I just have to not be lazy about my food needs. And there are so many benefits to eating better - especially for someone with health problems. Me.

First, let's look at some of those benefits:
  • You can handle a lot of common physical complaints with changing up your diet: fatigue, constipation, mental sluggishness, skin and hair issues, etc.
  • Even with my more serious health issues, I can get some relief from changing my diet. I lost weight which helped SO much as far as my joint pain; eating right cleared out some of the toxic feeling I got from being on different medications; drinking more water and eating certain things certainly helped my kidney function. 
  • In my opinion, eating healthier helped my mental state. Instead of taking anti-depressants, I looked to natural sources of vitamins and minerals to help me. Depression is a big problem when you have a chronic illness - just because of the way a disease affects every other aspect of your life. I still have my moments, but those moments are worse when I'm not eating well.
  • Controlling your weight is easier when you are satisfying your hunger correctly. If I'm going to overeat, I guess it's better to overindulge with foods that are giving me good nutrients instead of empty calories.
Common sense tells you that things like better nutrition, good rest, and less stress equal better overall health. Before I was diagnosed with my sarcoidosis, I was smoking like a house on fire, rarely eating right, not resting very well and, Lord knows, I had a bunch of stress to deal with. I always wonder if the sarc would have remained dormant if I had treated my body better.

My health is still nowhere near where I'd like it to be but, if I hadn't listened to my doctors and changed up my nutrition for several months, there's no telling how much worse off I'd be now. And, trust me, I don't want to get worse.

Anyway, Amazon has agreed to refund my money for the tea, so I was able to hit the stores and stock up for at least a two weeks of a veggie binge. You saw what I've been eating/blending for the past couple days. Here's what I got from the store:
It's actually dark PURPLE
  • Collard greens
  • Turnip greens
  • Red Cabbage
  • Broccoli crowns
  • Apples
  • Beets
  • Raw almonds
  • Soy milk (vanilla flavored)
  • Vine tomatoes
Luckily, I already had on hand some things that I can use:
  • Chaga nectar
  • Green tea powder
  • Raw spinach
  • Raw ginger
By the way, I don't care what anyone says, I don't count tomato as a fruit. I'm going to use the apples and soy as my sweetening agents to mask all those veggies. 

Having just enough fruit to sweeten the blend is my trick for getting all those veggies ingested. Sometimes, I will add a tablespoon of frozen OJ (no water added) into the mix, but I forgot to get some.

I will do a approximately 20-ounce smoothie to get me through the main part of the day. Sometimes, that's enough but, if I'm still hungry for something, I will do salads the rest of the day. By "salad" I mean all veggies, no mixed dressing. My favorite salad is to drizzle extra virgin olive oil over some of the green veggies, add some sliced tomatoes and onion, then hit with a little salt and pepper. The tomatoes and olive oil make a kind of dressing of their own. Since we still have a bunch of eggs around, I might boil one to throw on top.

For the non-binge days, I will eat a really well-seasoned pork chop or piece of chicken that's baked or fried (yes, fried - but in olive oil) or I will snack on summer sausage and cheese. I can do without bread if my meat is good enough. Also, I can be satisfied with a snack of canned smoked clams or fish. By the way, I really have to watch my calcium intake, which is another reason I have to alternate my binge days with non-binge days.

If I do get tempted to snack on something not so nutritious, I just do it and move on. My biggest weakness is if someone comes home with pizza. I love pizza. Luckily, we hardly ever do pizza without a salad, so...

Anyway, I'm attempting to use the app that came with my latest phone. You know - the one I got to replace one went blizto right in the middle of a family crisis. Well, the app is pretty cool and not that hard. Just takes discipline to actually use it and pay attention to it. It's Samsung's S Health. The food tracking part of the app is a little bit annoying. Inputting is tricky and sometimes requires converting things. I hate math.

Looks like a lot of food, doesn't it?

I want to stick with this healthy eating plan - not for months at a time like I've previously done, but for life. For life. Hmmm.

If you are thinking of changing up your nutrition, maybe this will help:

This is what the Mediterranean Diet looks like (according to some sources)




And this is what I imagine most people eat. 

(And for the folks who claim it's how many calories and not where you get those calories, I disagree. That might work for weight loss, but we have to eat healthy food for better health.)

Which one more closely resembles yours?

This is some comparative information -

The bottom line is that there are plenty of ways to eat healthy, every individual has to make the choice. Making good choices when there are so many bad alternatives around takes discipline and commitment.

I'm ready.

Peace
--Free

P.S.: I recently heard about and tried the Smoocing (lite) app. It's for people who do juices & smoothies. My review is the only one up on Google Play as of today, if you care what I think about it.

Monday, March 03, 2014

**REVIEW** The Detox is ON!

 Okay, so I'm not juicing my food so much as liquefying it. 

Because I am closer to being homeless than I am to living the high life, I had to do a lot of research and comparison shopping before I settled on what type of appliance to purchase. Thanks to a really good friend (Hi, Perry), I was gifted with fifty bucks toward the buy. Here are the products I considered (and why I didn't choose any of them):

Magic Bullet - Too plastic, too many parts & pieces, yet not enough power for constant heavy-duty use. (Sounds like I'm talking about a whole other type of "magic", doesn't it!) Besides the lack of power, I really couldn't be bothered with making space for, or keeping track of, all those dang parts. It is cute though.
Magic Bullet $50 - $60 (250 watts)


NutriBullet - Had better wattage at 600, but for that much money, it should. Besides, I read too many reviews about leaks, rusting, cracking and - my pettest of peeves: poor customer service and contact. Also... plastic! I'm not real fond of anything plastic when it comes to using long-term use of anything coming in contact with my food. Pro: comes in a variety of cute colors. Add to cons: too many parts.



NutriBullet around $100

Ninja - I would've have run when I saw the price but I felt too faint to move fast. This baby can go for $100 to $260 and up. I wasn't able to run, but I sure as hell got away fast enough not to notice whether or not this one had color options. I did notice that it packs 1000 watts at the low end model. I don't know about wattage for the higher end ones. At 260 bucks, I don't really care.
Ninja. 1000 watts at the lower end


Vitamix - If I felt faint looking at the price on a Ninja, I damn near puddled right to the floor when I saw the (gasp) $440 tag on this monster.The product service plan of $45 is what I had to spend when I walked in the store. Don't ask about the wattage. For this price level, that bitch would have to run my car before I'd buy it.  For the price, I could hire a personal chef for an eighth of an hour.


Pro: not many parts. They probably cost another arm...
I heard about another blender that runs around playing in the 600-dollar range. I left it playing and kept my ass in the world of the real. I won't even mention that madness. If you pay $600 for anything that doesn't cook, clean or sleep with you at night, you better be friends with Oprah or Bill if you don't want people waiting for you fall on your financial face. Hah!

Annnny-way...

I had fifty bucks, health on my mind, and a need for power. I found this for $40 and spent another $5 for a 2 year repair/replacement warranty:


Farberware 4-speed digital at 800 watts.
Chile, I almost stepped on a woman's foot trying to snatch that bad-boy off the shelf.
Single-serve cup attachment
I'll probably never use it with the blender, but that single-serve cup is perfect for packing with me on my errands.

An 800-watt motor, stainless still facing, and a glass jar. Perfection. (The travel cup is plastic but... whatever.)

The Pros: Easy set-up (once I decided not to bother with the travel cup), not a bunch of pesky pieces to deal with, and it's very sturdy, and powerful but not very loud. LOVE that not-loud part since I have a bitchy upstairs neighbor and a room mate who wastes every hour of the day in front of the living room television set...

The Cons: That freaking travel cup. I couldn't take the hassle of changing out between it and the glass jar.

I like that I don't have to monitor it while it's blending. It has a very cool way of stopping and restarting so as to let the contents settle for better blending. (Did that make sense???) 

The real test, of course, is how well it works. It does a super job. My first blend was one of carrots, kale, collards, spinach, turnip greens....

.... beets, strawberries, blueberries apples, banana and...

... about a cup of store-bought carrot juice I had left from last week.

Yeah. So.

That's a pretty crazy mix, but I'm a pretty crazy chick. I think I just got carried away with tossing in more stuff and watching the colors blend. It was fun until I realized I had 42 ounces of liquefied goodness that might taste like crap. So I squeezed in a little honey. 

The color: amazingly pretty. Sort of a beet-red/Prince-purple look. Gorgeous. Oh, wait - I was thinking of Prince. ~sigggggh~ But the juice was also gorgeous. The taste: deee-lisshus. Really. It was pretty thick, but pulp is what I wanted, which is why I decided on getting a blender instead a juicer. I don't want to pay all that money for produce to just toss out the best (and most nutritious?) part. Besides, I think that fiber won't hurt when it comes to filling me up and (ha ha) emptying me out. (Too much information? Sorry.)

I had 20 ounces to sip for my all-day meal and still have about 20 million ounces (kidding) left for the freezer. I'm going to have to see how freezing affects nutrients...

Anyway, I'll try to update here as I get through the coming weeks. My plan at the moment is to do an all- (or, mostly-) liquid intake for a month as a junk-food detox. Okay, it's really more about vanity. Summer will soon be here and I'd like to have my skin and hair ready for this round-the-clock Alaska sun that allows one to hide NOTHIN. 

Well, off to bed for me. I used up the last of my energy sucking down the rest of my "meal". 

Peace
--Free




(And because I just have  to post a reminder pic of GOALS)


You can do this chica!

Monday, February 17, 2014

Here I Go Again

Almost 3 months into the new year. As a woman who's given up on making resolutions, I am backsliding. I've now resolved to change my dietary habits. Again.

Several years ago, I went on a juicing kick. I drove everyone within 50 feet crazy with the jackhammer sounds of my juicer. I juiced carrots and apples and spinach at 5 in the morning so I'd have my breakfast and lunch ready for work. After work, I dropped keys and jacket and headed for the kitchen to juice carrots and beets and oranges for dinner. Sometime in the evening, I'd juice whatever veggies I could so I'd have something for middle-of-the-night cravings.

I felt better and looked better. I was already about a buck-ten in the weight department, so losing pounds wasn't a goal. Juicing was the best thing that happened to my hair, skin and nails. Even my eyes were brighter. The biggest benefit was that my brain seemed to be on steroids. Good thing because I was working like a field hand at that point in my life.

Juicing lost appeal for me when I got sick of drinking all my nutrition. I'd go out with friends and eat the same things I juiced at home. I justified my love of vodka and O.J. by categorizing the drinks as "electrified  nutrition." Hah. The thing is, when you're already fairly healthy (and young and pretty and thin), you don't appreciate all the benefits of good dietary habits.

Now that I am older and just getting back into shape, I pay lots of attention to all my habits. Walking cutely in high heels used to be the only exercise I needed to stay in shape. These days, if I smell a doughnut, I have to do three miles on a Planet Fitness treadmill. I used to joke about ingesting calories via smell, then I saw this documentary on Netflix the other night.The whole smell-to-calories crap is a thing. Well, damnit.



Thanks to that same documentary, I started thinking again about juicing. And I'm not talking about sucking the soul from someone during a deep kiss. I'm talking about spending money for a decent machine and then stocking up on produce for suck the liquid from.

Of course, when I went on my juicing kick before, I should've eased into and made the process more bearable. I went all out and ate practically no solid food for about two weeks. Let me tell you something about doing that: my insides were so clean, I think my colon squeaked when I went to the bathroom. Maybe that's too much information, but I put it out there as a warning to others. Chewing some fruit and veggies every now and then might've made my life easier. Also, I could have limited my intake. I just went juice-crazy.

This time, I'm going to be held in check by the state of my budget. It's pretty tough to eat healthy, especially here in Alaska where produce can rank right up there with diamonds if you're buying in the winter months. In the summertime, you still have to shop around because shipping costs from out of state is ridiculous and local farmers can get greedy when it comes to their Alaska harvests.

I've learned some lessons from poverty, let me tell you. When I start my juicing this time, I'm going to be buying on-sale produce in bulk and then freezing and storing up what I juice. My goal is not to have the freshest juice. I just want to have more good stuff (fresh or not-so-fresh) going into my body in place of the fresh junk I've been getting. And it's not that I have bad eating habits. I eat fairly healthily, but I know that I'm getting too many additives and second-hand vitamins. I eat salads (with lots of store-bought dressings), I bake-not-fry too many things that come out of the freezer sections of the grocery store, and I cheat too often by drinking coffee in place of having a meal. I've said it before and I'll repeat it from Beyond: I'm never giving up my coffee.


courtesy Etsy
courtesy Tumblr
Yes, indeed.

I remember that when I juiced, I could almost immediately feel a difference in my energy level. What I don't remember (you know, because I was in my early thirties and took everything for granted) is when I noticed a change in my appearance. When I start this time, I will do updates here on the blog. In the meantime, I am on the hunt for a blender that I can afford. I am having severe longings for this one from Amazon. It's affordable. Too bad the shipping rates to Alaska are so ridiculous on Amazon. (Not the first time I've bitched about that.)

If any of you have been thinking about (or already are) juicing, I'll try to share recipes and info as I find them.

Peace
--Free


Sunday, February 24, 2013

Getting Better - Inside & Out

Getting back into shape is hard work. I have pounds to take off, body parts to tone up. It's like a job. I have been walking and stretching and bopping around while holding weirdly shaped objects. I've got ankle weights and a pedometer and this stretchy-band thing that could be used as a weapon - against myself... And that's just for the outside.

See?

Well, that Burlington gift cert went to good use!

But it's all working, even though I get a lot of my exercise just walking away from certain foods. When I went on the regular Saturday outing with my sister, she said that I looked very nice in a blouse that I haven't been able to get into for months. My jeans looked very un-mom-like, thank you very much, and I felt a lot like the old me. The best thing is, I'm not going to have a problem keeping up with all this. The walking is fun and calming. On the days I don't walk and do indoor workouts instead, I enjoy myself because music can make anything bearable.

Like I said, though, that's all just for the outer part of me. The tough part is going to be getting my insides into shape.

Since I gave up smoking and started eating somewhat better, I do feel... better.  I could be, and need to be, doing a lot better.


But I have come a long way...


From here...
I want to feel THIS happy again


...and here...

THIS healthy & THIS in shape




















...to here... when the sarcoidosis hit me...
I never want to be HERE again (July 2011)


...and here... when the prednisone hit me.

That is almost a double chin. June 2012














I have started looking into ways that I can change up and make my diet more interesting and healthy. There is a difference between dieting and living life. I want to live life. I'm bad at diets. I've done the juicer thing, the no-white thing, the low-carb thing... What I want is to do my thing.

About six or seven years ago, I started drinking soy instead of milk. I made that a part of my life. Now I just need to find a way to replace some of the burritos and red meat with fish and vegetables. That won't be too hard or expensive since I do live in Alaska: land of salmon, halibut and hooligan. (I love hooligan!) Vegetables are wonderful here - in the summer. We make the record books for cabbage and such. Our weekend Farmer's Market gets written up. Yeah, it's great. In the summer. In the winter time, you have to take out a signature loan to buy tomatoes, or groceries in general. (That's because the cost of living is a bit higher here.)

I've been reading about the various things I can do to improve my whole self by what I put into my inner self. It's interesting. And confusing. Here's the latest:

Cashew butter vs peanut butter
Nut butters in general
Green juices
Juice cleanses
Almond milk vs soy milk vs ...

See? This crap gets complicated.

Here's my verdict: I need to just keep things simple. Some of this trendy stuff, I can deal with, but a lot of it is too much for me.

I can do cashew butter because I've lived without peanut butter for years. I only need an occasional hit of creamy any non-dairy butter. I like the idea of green juices, but juicers cost too much and so do the store-bought juices.

Guess I'll make do with fresh and canned veggies and an every-now-and-again green drink. And not the good-tasting fun stuff like Naked, but something serious and so-nasty-it's-gotta-be-good-for-you. I will keep eating all that dang salmon that my family stocks their freezers with. I will have to just mooch more hooligan since that's a little rarer in my circles.

I really miss the days when I could eat all the starch and butter and other things that probably glued my insides together and kept me in a size 4. I miss them, but I am realistic enough to appreciate being (I refuse to use the word "Mature") grown. I want to live long enough to make up for all the hell I raised when I was younger.

Peace
--Free

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

*Sigh* Cravings

Not loving this whole vegetable juice thing, but I know that it's good for me. I know that because like anything "good for you," this diet sucks chunks. And are my sister & niece being any help? I don't know, let's see what they had for lunch today:

Some nicely seasoned wings from a really good Chinese place up the street.



Oh, and this is while I was downstairs fixing my lunch:
Rabbit food. Rabbit food that takes forever to turn into rabbit juice.


I was feeling pretty evil by the time I finished chopping and blending. Those gals must have forgotten I was an armed woman. Armed but still somewhat sane. I kept my violent tendencies in check & drank my damned juice, but...



This is the look I gave those bitches:



Yeah.

Damnit. Can't smoke, don't want to take up drinking & everything else is either illegal or should be...

This weekend, I'm having a Lucky Wishbone hamburger!


Peace
--Free