Since eating seemingly smaller portions did not make an impact on our weight loss goal, we thought we would try something else. Around this time, we watched a documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. Sounds cheerful, right? I was inexplicably captivated by the idea of consuming green juice just like I was inexplicably drawn to reading all the Twilight books. It sounds weird and almost unhealthy to just drink green juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Joe Cross narrated his journey across America meeting and talking to people about health and fitness while doing a juice fast (living solely on vegetable juice). He drove from state to state with his Breville Juice Fountain in his trunk. When Joe got hungry, he would purchase some vegetables like kale, sweet potato and carrots from a store and juice them our of his trunk. Then he and his film crew would go out and interview people for the rest of the day.
Here are some statistics that stuck with me:
After 60 days of consuming massive amounts of kale, cucumbers, pears, apples, onions, spinach, parsley and tomatoes in juice form, he’d lost 80 pounds and was taking 2.5 milligrams of Prednisone, down from the original 15 he’d been prescribed. (The Prednisone was for a painful auto-immune disease he had been diagnosed with a few years back.) After an additional 70 days of eating only fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, he was back in Sydney, 100 pounds lighter and off the drug completely.
For a few days after the documentary, John and I joked about drinking
green juice. "If it's green going in, would it be green coming out?" he asked. "Would it even taste good?" I wondered.Kale juice? Spinach in liquid form? Ugh!
But still I was intrigued. I thought John had dismissed the whole thing as silly.
The funny think is John was shopping for juicers on Amazon the whole time we were making sarcastic jokes about drinking your salad. The combination of John's constant curiosity and constantly being on the internet led him to research and price-check high quality centrifuge juicers. He found a good brand that was refurbished. And it was being sold at a great discount. Lo and behold, on Valentine's Day, instead of a box of chocolates, I received a box with a juicer inside.
Our juicing story began.
No, we did not go on a 60-day juice fast like Joe Cross. We weren't sure we could drink green juice for one day let alone 60 days. The day we unpacked the juicer, we had some carrots and apples in the fridge so we thought, "Why not?"
Surprise! It was not gross. It was actually good. Of course apple juice is naturally sweet and carrots are root vegetables that contain a bit of carbs. But this was a great start. The next day, I went to the grocery store and got broccoli and cucumber to add to the mix.
To be continued....
