Let the juicing begin.

I woke up the other morning and realized that at age 57, I feel like crap. Not to be crass or anything, but I'm  overweight by more than 100 pounds, I'm static (or more to the point - I sit at work all day in front of a computer and then go home at night and sit in front of another computer and/or television until I go to bed). I'm tired.

I don't want to feel like crap anymore.

It's time to do something different.

Not too long ago, my brother-in-law sent me an email recommending a movie. "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." Wow I thought, he must have been reading my mind. I looked at RedBox for the movie, no luck. I looked at Blockbuster. No luck. So, I googled (that's a verb now, right?) the movie and read about Joe Cross, an Australian who was as the title says: fat, sick and nearly dead from crappy things that happen to fat and old people.

After watching some YouTube videos about this Joe Cross, I began to think that maybe he has found an answer I might live with. His movie reveals how living on just homemade juice from fresh vegetables and fruits for 60 days led to his weight loss of over 100 pounds. 60 days. 100 pounds. Seems like something I could live with for that long, eh?

So, bearing in mind that this plan uses tons of vegetables (20 pounds a day on average), I grabbed his recipes and headed out to the supermarket. Kale, lots of kale, is the main ingredient in Joe's "green juice." Add a cucumber, a lemon, a stalk of celery, a green apple and a piece of ginger. Not bad to begin with. So, home again, I decided to use my Magic Bullet juicer attachment and see what happened. WHEW. What happened was a helluva mess. The little bullets are not made for heavy duty juicing. After wiping green gunk from the counters, walls, microwave front, stove, and me, I cleaned the bullet and stored it away.

Oh, I did get about two ounces of juice from the above ingredients. Not bad tasting, really. Kinda like green lemonade.

The next day, I thought I'd try using my food processor. Oh boy. That mess was even worse. But I did get more juice out of it, after adding some water so the food processor would puree the veggies. Using some advice gleaned from YouTube, I had my hubby buy me a pair of knee high hose (33¢ at WallyWorld). Using the hose as a filter inside a tall plastic pitcher, I poured the puree through the hose and then squeezed out as much goodness as possible. Leaves a lot of pulp in the hose, but I threw a pinch in my juice for fiber, and am thinking maybe compost it in the future?

Although the food processor worked ok, it was a lot of labor, and my arthritic hand didn't like having to squeeze so hard to get the juice out.

So, today is payday. I have researched every juicer on the market and am ordering one from Amazon for $65. Not too bad an investment, if it can really help me begin to get the weight off.

Say a prayer or two for me. This weekend begins my juicing journey.

Ciao and love, babs