2 days and counting

Well, here it is. My brand new Juicer. I've reached the point of no return. Monday I start my juice fast. I haven't been doing well with Reboot's (jointhereboot.com) recommendation of cutting out dairy before starting the fast. I had a bowl of cereal yesterday and some cheese on my sandwich at lunch. It's REALLY hard not to eat dairy. I haven't had any today though so I am feeling a little less defeated.

I am feeling less optimistic today after my visit to the grocery store. I feel like this juice fast could send me to the poor house if I don't find more inexpensive sources of fruits and veggies.

I had planned to decide which recipes I was going to use for each day and then shop accordingly but I got really discouraged when I realized that in the next 2 weeks I'll be making and drinking 56 juices that have to be at least 16 oz each. That's a lot of fruits and veggies.

Today I went grocery shopping at Kroger. I bought regular groceries for Ken totaling roughly $56. I bought the following fruits and veggies totaling $38.75

5 pound bag of carrots $4.99
1 bunch kale $0.99
2 containers strawberries $3.00
1 bunch celery $1.39
2.5 pounds grapes $6.27
2 Grapefruit $1.58
2.4 pounds cabbage $1.66
0.21 pounds ginger root $1.19
1 cucumber $0.99
2.5 pounds red delicious apple $4.26
6 kiwi $2.00
1.4 pounds pears $2.33
1 pound sweet potatoes $1.04
3 oranges $2.07
1 bag green apples $4.99

So it might seem like I got a lot of fruits and vegetables for my money and that might be true but I might only get 2-3 days of juice out of this if I'm lucky. That means I'm going to have to buy a lot more to get me through this next 2 weeks. The food that I bought for Ken will surely get him through the next two weeks but it is not all the most healthy food.

So you can see the dilemma that I (and many others) face. Eating healthy is REALLY expensive and eating junk is cheap. I might have to get a second job just to afford my new eating habits. There is a produce market up the street called Easy Way. I think I will try going there next and see how that pans out. I really want to see this fast through but I'm afraid I might not be able to afford it. I don't like ending this post on such a pessimistic note but it's not just me I'm thinking about. How are we to expect that people in this country will ever live a more healthy lifestyle when we keep the most vital foods out of reach.

When checking out at the grocery store it took extra long because the cashier had to keep asking me what my items were and looking up the codes for items that obviously aren't bought by a lot of people. Just more proof that we don't eat like we should.

Less than a week away

So I have less than a week until my juice fast starts. According to the Reboot website (jointhereboot.com) you are suppose to give up dairy after day 3 of the week before the juice fast so that means today is my last dairy day. Agghh! I know, it's not like I will never enjoy the sweetness of dairy ever again. It's just 30 days. In honor of this sacrifice I had a really big bowl of cereal for dinner. Mmmmmmm.

I think it will get worse though as after day 5 no more meat. Yikes! What will I eat for my last 2 day? I am really excited for the challenge though. It should be interesting, to say the least.

I have had some nervousness this week as the fast is drawing closer because I've heard about some people having really bad headaches, trouble staying focused, and extreme exhaustion. Since I still have to work and live a some what normal life I've decided that if I get to this point I am giving myself an out after 15 days. I do want to give it at least this amount of time otherwise what's the point?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to wuss out or talk myself out of this. I do want to do this as safely as possible though. I can't afford to risk my life or my job over losing a few pounds. There are other ways to lose weight after all.

I am optimist and I really feel like I will be successful in this endeavor. As long as all goes well I still plan on doing 30 days and possibly more if I can handle it. Who knows, maybe juicing will be come my new addiction.

Planning, planning, and more planning

Uhhh, I spent all evening going through my juicing books that I got from the library and picking out recipes and copying them into Google Docs. From there I pulled them into my phone so I could use the recipes when I am at the store shopping for my fruits and veggies.

After spending a few hours doing that tonight I checked out the Whole Foods website and the Easy Way produce store website. I am trying to decide whether I am going to go to the store everyday to buy my produce for the next day or whether I am going to try to stock up for a few days. Some produce like the apples and carrots will last for a week or more but items like raspberries, strawberries, and leafy greens will only be good for a few days.

I think I am going to spend some time trying to put together a list of produce I will need and how long it can be stored for. The items with a short "shelf" life I will purchase as needed.

I've never tried any green bags but this maybe a good time to start. If anyone has tried them I would love to know your success rate.

Juicing preparation

I've decided in preparation of my juice fast that I should make a plan of the juices I will have each day for the first week along with the recipes in order to stay organized and motivation.

I've been using www.jointhereboot.com to get juice recipes but I realized they have a limited number of recipes and I will probably get sick of these ones pretty quickly.

To prepare for my juice fast I decided to check out some juicing books from the library. I got The Juicing Bible by Pat Crocker & Susan Eagles and The Everything Juicing Book by Carole Jacobs, Chef Patrice Johnson and Nicole Cormier.

When I arrived at the check out counter at the library the lady working at the counter asked me if I had just bought a juicer. I told that I hadn't bought one yet but I was going to get one. She said, " I heard you can lose a lot of weight that way." There was another lady checking out books with her kids next to me and she started telling me about their juicer and how much they love it. She said that her husband had replaced two meals a day with juice and lost 10 pounds in the first week. She even suggested a place to get a good deal on carrots.

I tend to be an individual that loves technology and how convenient it makes life but today I was really glad that I went to the library and checked these books out rather than buying them online or getting an ebook. I'm sure that the books will be a great resource but there's nothing better then hearing a first hand account of someone that has witnessed the power of juicing. I left the library with 2 books and a restored faith in the kindness of strangers. It was a great visit to the library.

The Juicing Bible (See all Healthy Living Books)

The Everything Juicing Book: All you need to create delicious juices for your optimum health (Everything Series) (See all Cooking, Food & Wine Books)

Fun with the bathroom scale

My new scale arrived yesterday. It was really fun for the first 10 minutes because first we used it to weight all of the cats. Our heaviest cat is Spaz weighing in at 14 pounds. She is a big lady. Our lightest cat is Ginger weighing in at 7 pounds.

So weighing the cats was all fun and games. Then I decided to weigh myself (since this was the reason I bought a scale in the first place). Let's just say I was not happy with the results. It was more than the last time I got weighed at the doctor's office (I'm not giving a number at this time because I will enter my starting weight the day before I start my fast). What a bummer. I was considering upping my goal of losing 15 pounds in 30 days but I am going to stick with this goal and if I lose more than that it will be great.

By the way, the scale I bought is the Eatsmart Precision Plus Digital Scale with Ultra Wide platform and Step-on Technology. I bought it on Amazon for $37. It seems to be a good scale, so far.

Sunday cook-athon

I spent a good portion of my day Sunday cooking. I decided to prepare as much food as I could ahead of time. I prepared food for about two hours and then grilled for another two hours. I have a tendency to buy groceries and then we throw a lot away because I am too lazy to cook dinner when I get home so I prepare something quick instead of using the items I bought to make meals. Since I did all this cooking on Sunday hopefully during the week all I will have to do is re-heat. I guess we'll see how this works out.

Rough beginnings

I went grocery shopping yesterday and even though I have two more weeks of normal eating before the fast I decided to try to buy some healthier food to prepare me for the 31 days of only fruits and vegetables.

I had a half a bag of salad for dinner along with some fruit, a few grapes and raspberries. I had a bowl of cereal as a snack later. About 11:30 pm I realized I hadn't taken any of my vitamins for the day. So I decided to take all of my vitamins. I don't know if it was too many nutrients but about 20 minutes later I was reunited with my dinner. I assume it was my body rejecting anything that was not pizza.

Hopefully this reaction is not a preview of what's to come for the next month.

The first sign of trouble

**Okay, I'm just going to warn you up front that this post may be a little graphic so if you are uncomfortable hearing about the workings of the female body stop reading now.

Aunt Flow came to visit me the first time when I was in the 5th grade and I've been like clockwork ever since. Well until last July anyway. I'll never forget that day. It was the weekend of Ken and mine's anniversary and I was 10 days late. I was freaking out. I was working full-time but I was also working on my bachelor's degree still. I was sure that I was pregnant but a few days passed and I finally "checked into the red roof inn." It was a total relief but then next month I was late again ... and again the next month. This irregularity continued until November, when it got much worse. In November Aunt Flow came to visit and didn't "leave" until January. That's right 3 straight months.

In December I made an appointment to see my doctor and she did some blood work and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. She explained that the next step would be for me to come back in to have an ultrasound so they could look around and see if they could find something else that was causing this. I was in the midst of finals and graduation and family coming from out of town so I scheduled my ultrasound for the second week in January.

Being that I've never been pregnant I thought the ultrasound would be a little goo on my belly and that weird wand that they press on your stomach. You can imagine my surprise when they told me to take my pants off and lay on the table. Then came the ultrasound technician with her long plastic wand with a baggie over it. I had a good idea where it was going. She jerked it around like she was driving a stick shift car for the first time and couldn't quite get into gear. It was quite uncomfortable to say the least. Then she told me to get dressed and she left. It was two weeks before I found the results, possibly the longest two weeks of my life. I had ever worse scenario running through my hear. My worst fears were relieved when they called and told me my endometrial wall was too thick. I had an all new set of fears as I didn't know what this meant. My doctor explained that it wasn't serious but I may have a hard time conceiving if I ever decided to do so and I should see my gynecologist. I had never heard of this so I went to the internet for answers.

The internet had a variety of answers. Many sites said this was caused by being overweight. I decided to go to my gynecologist who looked at the ultrasound results and mentioned cysts. My other doctor had not mentioned this. So there was the prognosis; three cysts on ovaries, my endometrial wall was too thick, and possibly Polycystic ovary disorder. The doctor prescribed me medroxyprogesterone, a synthetic version of the progesterone that your body makes. I was to take one pill a day for 10 days and then have another visit from Aunt Flow. She also prescribed me some pain medicine which I didn't understand but was soon to find out.

The medroxyprogesterone was awful. I was dizzy and really tired but it was only 10 days. Aunt Flow came on day 10 along with the worst cramps of my life. Needless to say I was happy to have the pain meds.

The medroxyprogesterone seemed to work. I went back for a follow up ultrasound and my wall thickness had decreased. The doctor said she didn't think I had POD so that was a relief too. I always thought that I wasn't cut out to be a mom but I want to make that decision on my own rather than having my body tell me I couldn't.

I was back to Aunt Flow's regular visits, or so I thought. Two months of regular visits and then nothing. No visits for 2 months. I was sure this time that I was pregnant but 5 negative tests later I was having my doubts. Aunt Flow finally came but her visit was sporadic so now I am looking at another round of medroxyprogesterone. So this brings me to today. Am I to face a life of medication just to make me regular woman? And is this problem due my weight? I guess I am going to find out. I have roughly two weeks until my juice fast begins and then I will find out if losing some weight will help me get back to normal.

Here's hoping.

My love affair with food

Ahhh, my addiction to food...where did it all begin? Did it start with my Strawberry Shortcake kitchen set? Just look at how happy I was, cooking my pretend pie in my little oven.

Or was it my Easy Bake Oven with its dangerously hot light bulb? I loved cooking those teeny tiny deserts.

I don't really think it was either. As much as I would love to blame some toy company for brainwashing me at a young age I really can't.

I love sugar. That's right, let me say it again. I LOVE SUGAR! Ice cream, cake, candy, pancakes. I'm a complete junkie for anything sweet. That's right, my name is Erin Case and I'm a girl scout cookie-aholic. Damn those happy little scouts in their uniforms pushing those delicious cookies in front of the grocery store. It's my civic duty to buy and eat as many of them as humanly possible, right?

Well it's all about to change. I'm 30 years old and in the worse shape of my life. I am 5'6 and I weigh over 230 pounds (this is a number that I'm really not proud of and pretty ashamed to even put in writing for the world to see). I think Louis C.K. put it best, in regards to my ideal weight "I'm pretty sure it's not your age plus 200 pounds." I've been feeling really awful lately. I get winded just walking up stairs. I just feel gross all of the time. I want to make a change in my life.

My co-worker told me about this documentary where this guy drank nothing but juice for 60 days and lost 90 pounds. I was really interested in the premise and I decided to watch it. I was totally inspired. He bought fresh fruits and vegetables and had nothing but the juice from them for 60 days. On his journey he convinced two other people to try it. One of the people lost over 200 pounds. I thought, if these people could do why couldn't I.

So I've decided Monday, August 1, 2011 I am going to start 31 days of juice fasting. I'm totally expecting it to be really hard but I am determined. My goal is to lose at least 15 pounds. I have two weeks to prepare. I need to buy a juicer and a scale. If anyone has any suggestions on a good juicer or scale let me know. I plan on blogging the whole journey. So wish me luck. It's sure to be an interesting experience and hopefully a life changing one.

http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/
http://jointhereboot.com/

Just 1 of 136.5 million

According to nih.gov "over two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese." With an adult population of 206.8 million that means roughly 136.5 million American adults are overweight or obese.

I am one of them.