juice tacular.

            Juicing, juice cleansing, or juice fasting is all over blogs and pinterest. Similar to many “crash diets”, it is recommended by some and insanely not recommended by others. Since my best friend got a juicer a year ago, we have done “juice days” or one meal a day for a week, to try it out and utilize this machine she bought. Since I am getting back in the groove of healthy eating and I am giving up alcohol for the next 40 days, I want to cleanse my body and leave it refreshed. Once I turned 21, I sort of threw out my healthy eating lifestyle and traded it in for Vegas, thanksgiving, Christmas, and new years overindulging. But now is the time, to not only get on track with my eating, but to cleanse my body of those impurities. There are all sorts of cleanses out there, but juicing is what I have landed on.

            I used http://juicerecipes.com/ for both recipes and a jumping off point for my juicing, finding its benefits, it’s disadvantages, and its long-term potentiation. “There's plenty of stories out there about people who started juicing to lose weight, but what they've found was that it also helped out an existing health condition of theirs.”(juicrecipes.com) This site doesn’t give much information on juicing as a whole, or offer much information on it in general. It is great if you are looking for particular recipes, because it has a massive amount of them, but I was off to researching some more.

            Along with any other fad diet, or cleanse, it is not meant to be a sustainable diet, or meal plan. A juice fast should be a temporary diet that consists of juice from fruits and vegetables. By consuming only the juice, along with similar liquid cleanses, the body will cleanse itself of impurities, fat and toxins, occasionally resulting in weight loss and creating a clean slate for your healthy eating to occur. As a meal plan, juicing lacks protein, healthy fats, and fiber to be a proper diet for everyday life. The purpose of doing a cleanse is to help clean your body of toxins, reboot your system, and help develop mindfulness, not sustain a healthy meal plan using only juices.

            Through investigating about juicing, I have set myself on a 5-day cleanse of juice made form fresh fruits and vegetables. My best friend is planning on joining me on this adventure, and I will log our struggles, our successes, and our thoughts on this entire process and what we are going through in those 5 days. We are starting on Monday of next week and will do it through Friday. Sunday we are going to go grocery shopping, and begin preparing our juices for Monday. Once we have decided on a few recipes, I will post them, as well as day-by-day check-ins and recipe posts.

            Tonight I will be watching the documentary, Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead, a documentary done about the benefits of juicing. This is the synopsis found on the website, “100 pounds overweight, loaded up on steroids and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe Cross is at the end of his rope and the end of his hope. In the mirror he saw a 310lb man whose gut was bigger than a beach ball and a path laid out before him that wouldn't end well— with one foot already in the grave, the other wasn't far behind. FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD is an inspiring film that chronicles Joe's personal mission to regain his health. With doctors and conventional medicines unable to help long- term, Joe turns to the only option left, the body's ability to heal itself. He trades in the junk food and hits the road with juicer and generator in tow, vowing only to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice for the next 60 days. Across 3,000 miles Joe has one goal in mind: To get off his pills and achieve a balanced lifestyle. While talking to more than 500 Americans about food, health and longevity, it's at a truck stop in Arizona where Joe meets a truck driver who suffers from the same rare condition. Phil Staples is morbidly obese weighing in at 429 lbs; a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack. As Joe is recovering his health, Phil begins his own epic journey to get well. What emerges is nothing short of amazing – an inspiring tale of healing and human connection. Part road trip, part self-help manifesto, FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD defies the traditional documentary format to present an unconventional and uplifting story of two men from different worlds who each realize that the only person who can save them is themselves.” I am so excited to watch this documentary, because I have heard great reviews on it and how it is good to watch prior to partaking on a juice cleanse.

:D