Before I begin...

Before I begin my, what some would say is a crazy new diet, I have to admit something... As the days roll on, I find myself more and more excited about the change I’m about to make. I have less desire for meat now. Sometimes the thought actually makes my stomach turn. It’s strange because I never would have even thought that I could feel that way about meat. I love meat. Always have. At least I did…

I talked with my neighbor/nutritionist (KL) because my mother was worried about what I’m about to do. I told her about my plan, what I want to do and what I’m looking to accomplish and she was very excited for me! She said I have a good plan but did talk about what foods I’ll have to look to adding to my diet to make sure I’m healthy. She gave me some pointers in which fruits and vegetables are good for which types of ailments, I’ll go more into that in my next blog post, and she lent me a book she had with recipes.

KL said that a juice detox is great for the body because it gives your body a chance to reboot, exactly what I was looking for.  When you’re just drinking your fruits and veggies, you’re not getting the fiber, which is more difficult for your body to digest. While fiber is normally a good thing because it keeps you full longer, when it comes to a detox or cleanse, you want to flush your system so you want juices are easy to digest, in other words – no fiber is best.

If you’re not juicing fulltime but just adding juice into your diet you can add some of the pulp (or “waste”) back into your juice so you’re getting fiber.  I’ve also seen a lot of recipes that use the pulp from juicing. This is not something I will be doing while on my detox, but I will likely continue juicing so I’ll try it at a later point (have you ever made something with the pulp?). KL talked about how the pulp is full of nutrients too and great to use in dishes.

She also mentioned if you want to start a cleanse or detox with fulltime juicing, you’ll want to ease into it just as you would ease out of it. I hadn’t thought of that before. You’ll want to have a little less protein daily until you start, and add juice more and more into your diet as well. Last night I made a pitcher of juice, which was not nearly enough. It was basically three servings. I shared so I only had one, but it made me see just how much I’ll have to be making daily. The juice was delicious: a lot of carrots, 2 apples, one clove of garlic, a piece of ginger (about 2 inches), a cucumber, a beet, a bunch of parsley, and a lot of celery… and I think that was it.

Do you have a juicer? Or do you go out and buy juice? What’s your favorite kind?

Until next time my friends!