Juicing

In December of last year, I watched the documentary "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead" on Netflix. I loved it! The fact that Joe Cross decided to take his health completely into his own hands was ... well amazing, to say the least. And ballsy. He juiced for 60 days straight. At the time, it got me into one of those "I can totally do that!" moods. So I went out and bought a juicer. I got a Breville, and it was on sale, so why the heck not. And then it sat in the corner of my apartment for about 3 months before I decided to finally use it. I had other concerns and other projects on the go, so I was perfectly content waiting until I could really concentrate on juicing, and do it properly. 

So yesterday, February 21, 2014, I started a juice cleanse. The night before, I shopped for all the groceries I would need for the first couple days, knowing that my next chance to do some grocery shopping would be sometime today. On Friday morning, I got up early, showered, made myself a hot water (instead of a coffee), put on my make up, made myself another hot water, and got to juicing. I had to work that day, so I only made my breakfast juice, and made sure I brought my coconut water with me for my mid-morning snack. I had the "Sunrise", which consists of 4 carrots, 2 oranges and 1 beet. It was awesome! I loved it. And I didn't chug it, I drank it over probably 1-2 hours while working (and watching Canada beat the US in Olympic hockey). Then around 11 am, I had my coconut water for my mid-morning snack. By noon, I was starving. I kept trying to work through it, and get myself to 1 pm, but at 12:45 I said f*** this, I'm going home for lunch NOW.

When I got home, I got to juicing. I was starving. The juice couldn't come fast enough. For lunch I had "Green Lemonade", which is made of kale, cucumber, celery, spinach, green apple and lemon. It was delicious! While I sipped on my lunch, I made the juice for my afternoon snack, which was "Watermelon Crush". In it, I put watermelon, lime and basil. Did you know that it is difficult to peel a lemon, and extremely difficult to peel a lime? Especially when you're starving, and you just want to get the juice in your mouth NOW! 

Off I went back to work with my two bottles of juice in tow. I basically had them one after the other, because I didn't chug my lunch. I drank it over about an hour, and then it was time for my snack. I sipped that too. 

Then I had an appointment after work, and came home to make dinner. Dinner was "Joe's Mean Green" (pictured below), which is a lot like the Green Lemonade, except it contains less lemon and more ginger. The flavour of this one wasn't as great as the juices I had earlier in the day. After dinner, which I really had to choke down, I made my dessert juice, omitting the kale. I was kaled-out. I had had 3 drinks with kale it in already, I couldn't handle another. So instead of kale, I just doubled the watermelon. It was decent...not great. At the same time I had my dessert juice, I also drank an herbal tea, which is what was supposed to be saved for bed time. But I was nearly done for the day.

After I choked down what I could of the dessert juice, I couldn't help myself and had 1 small piece of dark chocolate. I know, not on the cleanse menu, but it was 1 square. Then I finished my herbal tea and headed to bed. It wasn't even 10:30 pm, but I was done. 

At about 6:30 am, I was awoken by what felt like someone throwing a pillow at me. Obviously, no one did, it just felt like it - you know, your body just wakes you up all at once. I was miserable. I had a migraine, so I got up and drank a glass of water, hoping it would curb it. No. Fifteen minutes later it was worse, so I got up, ate a breakfast bar, and took an Advil (because you can't take those on an empty stomach - its useless and definitely not good for you). Then I made myself my "homemade hangover cure" (its really just homemade electrolyte juice - a couple shakes of salt, 1/3 of the glass of your favourite juice (mine is cranberry) and fill the rest up with water), took a few sips and went back to bed to rid myself of the migraine. And it worked! Yeah, I was dehydrated. I mean...no wonder. I was drinking juice and water all day the day before, and visiting the little girls room frequently, so I was dehydrated. After a nice couple more hours in bed, I got up and decided no more juicing. At least no more meal-replacement juicing.

I love the fact that I can get a day's worth of vegetable and fruit servings in 1-2 juices (2 if you want to be really well rounded and get every colour of the rainbow), so I won't stop juicing all together.  But I'll just add it to an already fairly healthy meal plan. And I found a brand of coconut water that I can stomach. I love having coconut water after a workout, while I make breakfast or dinner.

I am a bit disappointed that I didn't at LEAST go three days, but I am not going to harm myself for something. And as we all know, things are best in moderation. However, I give kudos to those I know (and those I don't) who are able to stick with it for more than 1 day. As long as it works for you, do it.

Onwards and upwards!

Yoga

Throughout my years of doing yoga on and off, I have asked myself countless times if I am either a) too fat to do yoga and/or b) too tall/long to do yoga. I'm not being self-deprecating at all; I'm completely serious. When I do a forward fold (seated or standing), my stomach feels like it is in the way, and I can't stretch as far as my body feels like it could go. And when I'm in runners lunge, it is hella awkward to keep my hands on the ground in front of me while moving my forward leg back to plank because my knee is already above my elbow and just below my chin. These are actual concerns!

I recently re-started doing yoga in the comfort of my own home (because this princess would rather stay warm at home than brave the "cold" for the 3 minute walk to the gym) with a great app that I got for free from Starbucks. It is called Yoga Studio, and it has 15 minute, 30 minute and 60 minute classes for download. There are 3 levels (Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced) and each level has 5 categories: Relaxation, Flexibility, Strength, Balance and Combination. 

I started by trying a 15 minute Beginner Relaxation class before bed one Sunday evening and I felt so relaxed afterwards. The next night, I tried a 30 minute Beginner Combination. This was a bit more the pace I was looking for to feel like I've had a lazy workout. The next morning I tried a 60 minute Beginner Combination class, and I had found something that was beginner enough so I wouldn't feel intimidated by most of the poses and challenging enough to let me really focus on areas that I wanted to improve on. 

So far, I've done this class 4 times. After the 3rd time I was feeling pretty confident, so I downloaded a 30 minute Intermediate Combination Class. I completed it, but just barely. So I did the 60 minute Beginner Combination Class again and saw a huge difference from the first time I tried it. I was making some progress!

And all because of a little discipline and repetition. Unfathomable... ;0) My stomach isn't going to disappear overnight, so my forward folds still feel chunky; however I've smoothly transitioned from runners lunge to plank without feeling like I'm going to knock myself over with a knee to the elbow or chin.

Here is me doing beginner King of Dancer (Natarajasana I).

As my boss likes to say, onwards and upwards!