June diet extravaganza update

So the June diet extravaganza hasn’t been going as well as I had hoped.

I think my first and most important problem is my addiction to energy drinks. I have been able to cut back, but it’s like 20% and not the 80-90% that I was shooting for.  The morning smoothies are helping, but there are some days I forget to make one or choose to skip it (usually because of time).  And some days I have the smoothie AND an energy drink.  Ugh.

I have been doing very well on eating less processed foods.  No cheetos or snack mix or any of that crap (Ok, ok, I did cheat and have one small bag of cheetos).  I have not significantly increased the raw food in my diet, however, so that still needs work.

Here’s a look at what I made for dinner tonight – grilled tomatoes, onions, mini potatoes, and tofu.  It was yummy, vegan, and totally unprocessed (except the tofu, but we’ll make an exception).  Not raw, but still a giant step in the right direction!

The other tough area — vegan.  At home and at work, I am doing super.  It’s the occasional eating out that ruins it.  Last week, one of my besties invited us to dinner at Olive Garden.  Yes, I could have had the salad.  Did I?  NO.  I had a cheesy fondue type appetizer, a cheesy baked ziti and a strawberry cream cake dessert.  Not only was it very very unvegan, it put me at about 2x calories for the day, compared to most others.

I just finished Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet and one of the things she recommends is a weekly juice fast. Green juice. Hmm. I have a friend who did a 3 day juice cleanse, and I have done limited research.  My hubby is opposed, and thinks it’s nonsense. I did shy awa from doing a “raw juice delivered to your house for $100/day” cleanse.

The idea of just doing ONE day per week intrigued me.  It just makes sense that maybe your body would like a break from digesting food all the time. So, I tried it for the first time three weeks ago. I picked a Saturday because I didn’t have any plans for the day, and I could just chill at home. I bought a lot of Suja and Blueprint raw juice blends from Whole Foods so I wouldn’t have to make my own.

It was both easy and horrible. I got a craving for pizza and just couldn’t get it out of my head.  We were going to the movies that night, and I finally broke down and insisted on pizza.  And then had soda and candy and popcorn at the movie too.

This was not the end of my juice fasting adventures though! The next Saturday I decided that I could, and would, do this damn fast for 1 day. Cue more juice from Whole Foods and ingredients to make green juice in my vitamix.

Turns out, when I am able to sleep in and have no place to go, that juice is really all I need for the first few hours.  It’s only into afternoon and evening that I really start craving food. This time, however, I was able to resist temptation and make it through the entire day.

My third attempt was this past Saturday.  Not only was I again successful, but I also made it to the movies and avoided soda, candy and popcorn while there.  Go me!  I felt so good, that I actually considering going running during the juice fast.  However, in the end, I decided this was probably not the brightest idea, and I waited until the following day.

What’s next?  Well, for this Saturday, I would like to experiment with making more of the juice myself.  The juice from Whole Foods is good, but the one I love the most, Pineapple Apple Mint, is probably not what Kris Carr had in mind.  It’s not even green, so since this is supposed to be a green juice fast, it’s out. I do like the green juice, I don’t know if I like it a whole days worth.

Curious what goes into green juice?  I’m using the Ginger Greens juice recipe from the cookbook that came with my vitamix:

• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cucumber
• 4-5 kale leaves
• 2 small apples
• 2-3 stalks celery
• 1 inch ginger

I still owe you more book reviews, and an update on my 1/2 marathon training.