Full of Food!

Growing up, we all liked to dog pile on my dad. He's a big guy, but having three kids pile up on you, probably gets old after a few minutes. And boy did we love to torture him! Sometimes, we would just all go over and squeeze the crud out of him with hugs all at the same time. This usually happened while he was sitting in his chair at the kitchen counter.

And his reaction was always the same if he had just eaten.

"FULL OF FOOD!" He would moan. This meant that he was too full to be any fun.

I've realized that when I'm "full of food," I too become a grumpy, lazy bear. I had an amazing pot roast from my crock pot this evening. And yes, I'm "full of food." What have I accomplished since eating dinner? Well, I bargained with my husband that he'd do bath time and snuggle our son if I cleared the table and did the dishes. I'm so glad I got that duty. It allowed me to sit and digest all this pot roast and do some blogging as a lazy bear.

My fridge is also "full of food". So much so, that I couldn't put in the leftovers from the pot roast. As the week goes on, I know it will be less full, so I'm not too worried. It just means I need to juice MORE!

Tuesday Confession

I Juiced. I mean a BIG glass of juice and enough to fill my travel cup too for work. It didn't wake the kid either! Let's see how this goes.

Blood Red Surprise

There are few foods I don't like. My number one nemesis is a tomato. I can't handle the acidic smell, the slimy feel, or the nasty taste. Devil's apples. I thought I didn't like them because I was in a huge tomato fight at my uncle's farm when I was really young. But when I was pregnant with my son, and we found out he LOVES tomatoes, my mom informed me that I never had liked them. It made me feel better. It also made me happy that he likes them because it is a pain in the rear picking tomatoes (especially sliced or diced ones) out of just about every Italian dish. I do love salsa though. Don't ask. Seriously, don't.

Another lesser liked food is kiwi. I've grown to tolerate them in fruit salads, but that's pretty much it. They, like tomatoes, are pretty slimy on the inside, but they have something that tomatoes don't. Crunchy seeds. It gives me flashbacks to finding sand in my food when visiting the beach. By the way, I love ocean themed things (in fact, my favorite animal is a dolphin), but not a huge fan of the beach due to all the sand. Pretty to look at, not much fun to eat.

My favorite new addition to my juice is something I never thought I'd ever eat let alone drink. I can remember my mom putting these on our tuna salads when I was growing up. We'd have crisp delicious iceberg lettuce, with a huge glob of tuna, chunks of cheddar cheese, hard-boiled egg slices, and then...beets.

EWWW! I love love LOVE brussel sprouts, but beets are not my thing. But juiced. Oh my! They not only turn my drink into the most gorgeous shade of red, but they actually sweeten it up too. The most tricky part of juicing beets is the aftermath. I have to make complete sure I don't spill a drop on my clothes when I clean out the juicer. I also need to make sure I don't give myself a beet mustache. And going to the bathroom the next day is quite entertaining. I won't spoil your surprise should you choose to juice with beets.

My latest beet recipe:

• 2 oranges
• 4 carrots
• 2 handfuls of kale
• 1 granny smith apple
• 1 washington red apple
• 1 beet 

The Monetary Cost of Juicing

The cost of juicing in the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead stuck in my head days after watching it. Phil went to Walmart and bought his supply of juicing and it averaged about $14 a day. When he went to a local health food store, his average skyrocketed to $28 a day. Not wanting to get into that trap, I decided that I would be as frugal as possible with this.

Since I haven't have good experiences with my local Walmart's produce section (everything else is fine), I decided to rethink where to purchase my fruits and veggies for juicing on a budget. I remembered that Costco has a produce section (yes, they sell things other than $1.50 hot dog & soda combos). When I visited their store on Thursday, here's what I bought:

• 2 bags of carrots
• 1 bag of red apples
• 1 flat of granny smith apples
• 1 box of blueberries
• 1 pineapple
• 1 box of tomatoes (yuck)
• 1 package of cucumbers
• 1 large bag of spinach
• 1 bag of Cuties
• 1 bag of mini bell peppers

Total cost per person (2 people) for one week 1-2 juices each per day: $5

I think we can swing that. I rarely drink coffee, but that's about the cost of a coffee from Starbuck's! 

Fat Girl Crack

This is not juice.

And yet, it is sitting in front of me. 

I found it quite interesting that I juiced this morning, ate three crackers while dropping off my son at my mom's, and then went straight to my old stomping ground: Jack in the Crack (as we like to call it, or Crack in the Box). Only the best fast food restaurant ever created! You get a little bit of everything...for reasonable prices.

I was also astonished that no one stopped me. Not even me. I was thinking clearly too! I analyzed which side of town I should go to and remembered the other Crack in the Box is closed for remodel (OH GOODIE, IT'S CLOSER TO MY HOUSE!). I was also amazed at how few people were out on the road this time of day on a Sunday. Got to my addiction even faster!

I started out on the quest for junk food with a headache. By the time I got there, my adrenaline was flowing and my headache was nearly gone. With drink and fry in hand before even pulling around the corner from the drive-thru, I felt that pang of guilt.

Oh well! It's my lunch now!....right?....am I still thinking clearly? Did I mention I gobbled up an entire See's candy bar I found in my desk yesterday from the last day of school before winter break? It was dark chocolate. With almonds. It NEEDED to go in my mouth.

So now that I've sat here staring at the screen and my bag of guilt, I think I just realized what is going on here. I'm stressed out.

Am I a stress eater? When I wasn't thinking about work, I was thinking clearly. When I didn't have to worry about waking up early to get my son ready so I could go to work, I could drink a fat glass of juice and be okay for hours.

I'm only on the bottom step of my journey and I feel like I just walked through an open door.

I haven't started on that bag of guilt yet, but I think I'm going to. And it will certainly be the last visit to Crack in the Bag for a long time.

Back To Work Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I go back to work. I'm not sure how this is going to affect my juicing. Okay...let me rephrase that. I'm not sure how that is going to affect my hunger between my 6am juice and 9:45am recess. I'm either going to bring a big juice cup and sip on it all morning, or bring some serious snacking to shove in my face before the kids arrive.

*Yes I know I drew my hand backwards. Oh well.

No Juice "Experiment"

So today I haven't had a single drop of juice. This morning, so as not to wake my husband, I opted to eat leftover chicken, brussel sprouts, and rice. I felt tired within a half hour. Hmmm....maybe all those carbs aren't a good idea after all? Especially since it was white rice?

Knowing that I had to go to my classroom today, I packed a snack of a pear, two Cuties, and two small bell peppers. I ate one pepper and a cutie during my five hour stay at work. Yeah, five hours. And I don't feel like I got hardly anything done!!! I think classrooms are a time warp. When alone, the time flies by unnoticed. When kids are around, the minutes drag on for hours.

When I got home, I cooked a semi-healthy dinner of chicken apple sausages, and a spinach and strawberry salad with almonds and goat cheese topped with raspberry pomegranate vinaigrette. As an appetizer, we had carrots, bell peppers, and tomatoes with ranch dressing. It was quite tasty. But a little while later, I was craving juice! Since we had company over, I wasn't about to start juicing. Now here it is ten at night and I'm still craving juice! But my son is asleep.

I think overall it was a good experiment to see how my body would react to not having juice. Tomorrow though, I'll be juicing away!