Cleanse Day 2

Today I was REALLY hungry. I learned that I need more juice otherwise I may cave in and eat something I shouldn't, I was craving anything and everything today. So tonight I made more juices to take with me in the morning and now I am exhausted so here are the juices that kept me going today...

16 oz kale, chard, lemon, apple, ginger juice
12 oz beet, kale, apples, spinach, lemon, ginger
16 cucumber, pear juice
12 oz green kombucha (store bought because I was so hungry)
24 oz tomatoes, green onions, poblano pepper, carrots, celery, cilantro, parsley, lemon juice mixed with warmed veggie broth kept frozen from last spring.

Well goodnight

Happy Juicing!!!

If you are also following this cleanse let us know how you are doing in the comments below or on my facebook page!

30 Day Cleanse

After I finished my raw month I went a little crazy for one day and ate things I don't eat all the time, like Seitan Wings from City O' City. But then I started Jason Vale's 3 lbs in 3 days juice detox because the Big Juice Reboot starts on Wednesday and I wanted to join, but had something else in mind so I did it early. I lost about 5 lbs in the three days, which I assume about 3 of them were the water weight and bloating I gained from the raw food.

Today I started a new 30 Day Cleanse :) I like doing challenges, they keep my diet interesting. This cleanse is really special because my mom designed it. She has been a health nut for as long as I can remember, always weighed less than me, and has taught exercise classes since I was born. She is currently in school so she designed this diet to help people lose weight and start eating healthier (I will let her tell you more about it later). It is not perfected yet so I decided to make her 30 Day Cleanse my next challenge. The first 3 to 5 days are juicing or raw days and I decided to juice for about 4 and a half more days so today was my first day continuing to juice (and I am starving right now!)

I decided to document what I eat this month. So here goes...

8 oz. Hot Lemon water
Lots of tea (with caffeine, sorry)
16 oz My version of Green Lemonade (courtesy of Natalia Rose)
12 oz Beet juice
32 oz Green everything juice with spirulina
16 oz Carrot, orange, ginger juice
12 oz beet juice mixed with homemade kombucha and a little stevia
Lots more tea

Happy Juicing!

My Month Eating Raw

I finished my month of eating raw on Tuesday! I went through so many interesting experiences during September I wanted to share them with you so if you every want to do something like this you may have a better idea of what you are doing than I did. The one thing that really surprised me was that eating raw was so much easier than I anticipated. It was also full of amazingly good food (I ate way too many nuts:)

When I began eating raw I really didn't know what I was doing. I made some yummy raw biscuits and a yummy Apple Sauce smoothie that I shared with you. But during the first week I started to get these really weird dizzy spells, one of them happened while I was driving and I felt so disoriented I had to pull off into a parking lot and wait until I felt better. So when I got home I called my dad (the doctor) trying to figure out what I needed. He said "I never thought I would have to be telling YOU this, but you need to eat more!" Well I didn't think anyone would ever have to tell me that either, I love food a little too much! but I started counting my calories and realized that I had only been eating around 1000 calories a day--not good. So I made some yummy raw cookies full of almond butter by the Detoxinista and started watching Fully Raw Kristina's videos. I found out that a fully raw vegan and someone who is following the 80/10/10 diet eats around 2000 calories in fruits and greens a day. So I amped up my calorie intake and began eating a whole lot more fruit. I was not exactly following an 80/10/10 diet because I ate quite a bit of nuts, especially those first two weeks, but I did what I felt I needed to keep eating raw. By the end of my second week of eating raw I was feeling so good, eating less nuts, and most of my cravings for food had gone. I felt very peaceful about food and I didn't feel I needed chocolate, which was great!

My menu during this month included some super yummy things such as figs--my new fav! raw cupcakes, raw lasagna, raw cheesecake, raw almond butter oreos, lots of raw kale chips, and lots of raw pasta :) I will be posting a few more recipes when I get pics.

One of the things that didn't sit so well with me during this month is that I became incredibly bloated with all the fruit and extra fiber I was eating. It was very uncomfortable, but I found out that one day of juicing takes care of the bloating. If I ever go raw again for any amount of time I will do a three day juice cleanse every ten days and be very intentional about eating less nuts and a whole lot more veggies.

I am now starting a few more goals which I will share with you in a couple days, but until then I hope this post helps guide you if you are thinking about going raw. I did give some fun blogs in this post, but if you want more either connect with me on Pinterest via lifeandveggiejuice.blogspot.com or just ask in the comments.

Happy Juicing!!!

Applesauce Smoothie

Another smoothie recipe thanks to my all raw month, which I am absolutely loving even if I have made a few slips. I will write a post when I am all finished so that if you decide to do something similar hopefully you will know more about eating raw than I did when I started this month. 

Ok, ok, smoothie time! This smoothie is amazing--I wanted to follow someone's apple pie smoothie and ended up making my own. When I tasted the smoothie it tasted so much more like yummy applesauce than a pie. I even poured it over a raw biscuit I had made and my husband smothered a piece of toast in the appley goodness :)

Applesauce Smoothie

                    6 red delicious apples, cored (you could use any type of apple, but I like the 

                         softness of the red delicious apples for this smoothie)

                    1 handful baby greens

                    1/2 cup nut milk

                    2 tsp apple pie spice

                    1 leaf Aloe Vera

                    a handful of ice

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Happy Juicing!!!

Snickerdoodle Smoothie

Since I have been eating raw I have been eating heavy treats probably more than I should be, it helps me stay on track. One night I was really wanting Snickerdoodle cookies which are my absolute FAVS, but the version I want to make needs to be dehydrated overnight and I wanted them RIGHT NOW--So this smoothie came out of my craving for Snickerdoodle Cookies and it tastes AMAZING!!!

Snickerdoodle Smoothie

1/2 avocado

1 cup homemade nut milk (or milk of choice)

1 heaping tsp cinnamon

3 Tbsp honey

2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

12 ice cubes

Place everything in a blender and blend until smooth. Makes two servings. Serve, sprinkle with cinnamon and cacao nibs and enjoy! 

Happy Juicing!!!

What is your favorite cookie?

Summer Recap

Well, I thought I was going to have lots of time this summer to study health, have some leisure time,

write blog posts, and make the recipes on my blog more accessible. Obviously that didn't happen since you have been checking my blog all summer and not finding any new posts. I have lots to share with you and many new recipes I am VERY excited about. But first I thought I would write a post about what I did this summer. Even though this summer ended up not being the best for me health-wise I did find some fun healthy food items and different, healthier ways of cooking some fun things.
The first thing we did this summer was to go camping. We always take a week off the first week of June for our anniversary (and because I am exhausted from school). We have been married six years now! I still can't believe its been this long. homemade graham crackers and dark chocolate bars with sea salt. We also got to go White Water Rafting down Brown's Canyon, which is so much fun! and I have found an enjoyment of bike riding. We did a 36 mile round trip ride to the museum and back to our apartment for the free day. We were so tired at the museum we saw one exhibit and then sat down to rest and drink our green juice for the rest of the time before we rode home.
We didn't do anything super exciting this year, just chilled at home and went camping for a few days

near Buena Vista, which is beautiful! This camping trip did not include many of the food items that I am used to eat when we went camping. We did still eat canned vegetarian hot dogs and we roasted a lot of veggies over the campfire. I think my favorite food was sweet potatoes cut into strips and cooked inside aluminum foil on top of the campfire--YUM! I don't think we used the camp stove once during this trip. I also made sure to bring sprouted hot dog buns and I ate roasted zucchini instead of the hot dogs. This year I found some vegetarian marshmallows, which are still full of nasty sugars, but don't have the gelatin in them that most marshmallows have, after seeing a picture of bones on facebook, which gelatin is made from, I can't eat things with gelatin anymore. The marshmallows did not burn like normal marshmallows and I didn't have quite as much fun with them, but they did taste good, especially with some sea salt dark chocolate.

The next week I started my summer class, which turned out to be a lot of work, but very informative and now, if I can't tell you all about Special Education Law--I can at least tell you where to find what you want :) 

Chava and I only had about two weeks to get started on our summer classes and then some of our very good friends came to visit us. We got to go to the Aquarium--very nice, go hiking, and spend a day at Water World--soo much fun. We did eat at Cinzetti's after Water World, which I hope not to repeat. I am learning that one of the best ways to realize I don't want to do something unhealthy is to do it and realize how awful I feel afterwards, I am much less likely to repeat the same mistake because I remember that feeling.
We then traveled to Ouray for the Fourth of July with my parents and tried out my dad's Land Cruiser which he just finished rebuilding. He climbed up Poughkeepsie Gulch right after someone who had rolled a very nice jeep down the steepest part. While in Ouray I learned that when I do not have a juicer around a Green Smoothie makes an amazing breakfast! I am sad we didn't get to see fireworks this year, but the nighttime jeep parade was super fun:)

So then after a week of being home and trying to get caught up on classes, we drove to Lincoln Nebraska for a good friend's wedding. Which was very beautiful and it was so much fun seeing some friends we hadn't seen since college.
The last two weeks of summer were spent finishing my paper for the summer class and putting my classroom back together after the summer. I was not ready to start back to work, but as soon as my new students walked in the door I remembered why I decided to teach! I am loving my new preschool class (not that I didn't love my class last year, but every class is different and I love each of them for different reasons) and I am also enjoying my new assignment as the first and second grade reading teacher. Its a new learning curve for me so I wasn't able to start my fall class and I hope this gives my some time to write a little more on my blog :) (no promises).
To end the summer we just got back from visiting some friends from high school, one of whom is moving and I am going to miss her very much! but we had such a fun weekend! we got to make-up not seeing fireworks on the Fourth by watching the show at Fort Carson! A nice end to a very eventful summer.

So now that summer is over and I have slowly gotten into eating less and less healthy I have planned some new goals, which I will talk about later, but I have started a month of eating raw food and am excited to see how my body handles a totally raw diet. I don't feel ready to go completely raw forever, but I am exited for a challenge this month. I hope to keep you updated and post some recipes which have been waiting since April to be posted, but again no promises:)

Happy Juicing!

How was your summer? Did you do anything excited? Did you keep up with your health goals this summer?

Exciting Juicy Stuff!

Sorry I haven't followed up after the juice cleanse. I have been very busy and super stressed! My job and the children I care for have taken all of my thoughts for the past two weeks and I haven't been able to think about much else, but the problems seem to be mostly resolving themselves and I can go back to thinking about other things :) Only now I have a final paper to finish in one week! Well, I guess it will have to get done!

So after the Big Juice Spring Clean you could send in a video about your experience to win a prize to Jason Vale's newest juice retreat in Portugal. You could also send in a picture. My husband sent in both and, while he didn't win the prize we are getting Jason Vale's Funky Fresh Juice Book for creativity and the video is posted on the website! So I wanted to share it with you because I am so proud of my husband:) 

 His picture also did not win, but it was featured in the collection of pictures that were sent out on email.  See if you can find it!
 

That is what I will leave you with tonight, but I have three really exciting recipes to share with you! Look for another post soon, I can't wait!

Till then...

Happy Juicing!