Day 10

Hello, it's the end of day 10.   Holy socks, I can hardly believe I'm about halfway done with this juice cleanse.  As of this morning, I officially juiced the last of my fruit... which meant there was a trip to Costco in my recent past.  As a single person, buying produce at Costco is not always the best deal given that often it goes bad before in can be finished.  Keeping this in mind, I purchased "Costco-sized" quantities of the fruits I know I will use most (grapes, apples, strawberries, etc.), and will pick up some smaller quantities of other fruits at a normal grocery store later (like kiwi fruit, for example).

My day began with freshly juiced grapefruit juice.  I cannot put into words how delicious it was, or how great it is to start out one's day with fresh juice from one of my favorite fruits.  One of my past roommates (please let me know if it's you) left behind an etched wine glass and I just couldn't resist using this morning for the grapefruit juice; it was too fun!

100% pure grapefruit juice!  Sometimes it's just fun to drink out of a pretty glass.

I experimented today with the 2nd half of the pineapple.  That juiced with a cucumber and an apple made a juice that I wouldn't say was outstanding, but it wasn't necessarily bad.  I'm learning that despite the fact that I enjoy eating pineapple, I really don't like pineapple juice much.  Yes, I suppose that's a personal problem (oh, the things we discover about ourselves later in life). 

It would have been yummy if I liked pineapple juice.

My next juice was smaller in quantity than the others, and only filled one of my handy-dandy mini plastic jars.  

The photo above is the "before" picture of what turned out to be a tasty juice made with 1 mango and 1 kiwi.  I absolutely love mangoes, they are my favorite fruit of all time.  I love mangoes so much, my crazy orange cat is named Mango!  On my way to the rescue/adoption place a few years ago I was thinking that if I found an orange female kitten, I'd name her Mango.  When I got there, they had 1 female kitten left, an orange tabby cat... and her name was already MANGO! It was kismet!!  Below you'll see that she found a spot on my piano this morning, and I got distracted while juicing.

Crazy cat! 

 With only 3 limes left, I decided this morning that I couldn't accept defeat; I had to use them today.  So, I juiced them and added fresh lime juice to my chilled lunch bag.  I JUST drank the lime juice.  It was superior; I have always been the weird kid who drinks straight lemon and lime juice, and eats both like oranges... and freshly juiced lime juice just took it to a whole new level of awesomeness!

This morning I also started with some stretches and other things (crunches, push-ups, lunges, squats, endurance exercises I learned in belly dance a few years ago, etc.).  It felt good to get moving in the morning.  What I don't understand is why Mango, the cat, decided that she wanted to cuddle when I was in the middle of push-ups!  Crazy cat!

This morning at work I weighed-in.  Nothing to write home about.  Nothing I really want to blog about even.  However, I'm accountable to this blog and whomever may read it, so must confess that I actually put on 2 pounds. It's odd, but it's not unheard of.  I guess we'll see what Friday morning brings!

Day 5

Yes, I'm writing about day 5 in the early afternoon of day 6.  After work yesterday I finished all of my homework that was due by tonight, then spent the evening with my bestie of 16 years and 3 of her 4 children.  Priorities people, priorities.

So, yesterday morning I decided to try a juicing recipe with pineapple in it.  I put my pineapple on the cutting board, grabbed a large knife, and thought, "Sweet, this is gonna be epic!"  Obviously, I don't cut up pineapple very often.

Half of a pineapple, 2 oranges, and a lime went into the juicer and made beautiful juice.  At work when I drank the first cup of it, I quickly learned that it was NOT delicious juice.  Major bummer.  Needless to say, I didn't drink my second cup of it.  I did, however, give it to my roommate to try just in case I just don't favor citrus and pineapple combinations.  She drank it recently, and since she's sick and her throat is not doing well, it was a good thing.  Her words: "It's a little bitter, but it's helping."  Score!

Not a great combo.....

The other concoction of the day was a much better combination of fruits (thank goodness).  I combined 3 strawberries, 1 orange, and the last of my green grapes.

Yummy!

I have one more thing to say before I tell you the results of my weigh-in: Love your juicer!  Take care of it! For the old Champion Juicer that I have, that means oiling it.  A little bit of olive oil on the metal workings keeps it happy! 

The Champion Juicer will outlive everyone!

Alright, and the moment you've been waiting for!  The results of my weigh-in! Since the morning of Day 1, I have lost a total of: 12.2 lbs.  Next weigh-in will be this coming Monday morning.