Juice.

A little break from the love-oriented writings.

I've wanted to write something about the juicing I've been doing the past three weeks or so, but it would be too long for a fb status, awkward as a tumblr post... No one will really see it here, but, since I'm testifying with the likelihood of it coming off as proselytizing, this may be exactly the place for it.

It was my ex who put the nugget into my head about juicing. He spoke of how it helped him lose a significant amount of weight, and how, now, he can't easily put on weight, so long as he continues to juice fairly regularly.

So, I asked for a juicer for Christmas. I always ask for kitchen gadgets for Christmas, and some have been more successful than others. The crank-operated pasta maker I asked for ten years ago still has never been used. The Dutch oven I asked for last year has sat silently in the cupboard. I can't remember the last time I used my standing mixer, as I never really make anything that needs anything more complex than the hand mixer. When I got the juicer, I hoped for the best. Motivation would be everything.

When Chris and I started to fall apart rapidly, I turned to the juicer. I was already mitigating anxiety over the situation with a lot of mindfulness techniques, and they were working, but I thought, hey, a bit of fresh veggie and fruit juice can't harm the process.

Shockingly, I noticed effects almost immediately. My anxiety did plummet. So did my tendency to dwell and get depressed. My body temperature got higher--I have a helluva time, often, holding onto a steady core temperature. For a mammal, I am pretty cold blooded, and during the winter, usually have to have a cup of scalding hot tea attached to me constantly and typically shower twice daily to keep my body warm. That has not been the case since I started juicing, and I am, in fact, too warm as I write this.

I sleep better. I'm going through a breakup, where, for the first time in a decade, since my anxiety became chronic, I don't have to medicate with sleeping pills (or the less effective alcohol which comes with its own battery of issues and drama-triggers). I sleep, mostly, through the night, and though I have awakened with a bit of a panic, I am able to calm myself and fall back to sleep. Most of this is the mindfulness, but I definitely feel like the added nutrients in my system help, too.

My brain feels clearer overall, and I've only taken one nap, whereas I would normally take one four times a week or so, for twenty minutes typically. I have skipped the juicing two days, and noticed I was tired by the end of the day and didn't feel like I was firing well in general.

I've lost ten pounds, by doing almost nothing. I am, about every other day, doing some crunches and pushups and weight lifting, but those are all things that add to body mass, and yet my weight keeps dropping, incrementally. I am back to 125 lbs, which is the weight I feel most comfortable in my own skin. Once it warms and I can start biking again, I can desquishify better, too. I tallied my calorie count per day at about 1000-1300, which I'd guess is about 500-700 calories less than I was ingesting/craving pre-juicing. And there aren't cravings for bad foods; even after a night of drinking (and THAT is something I have to be careful with now, with so fewer calories in my system, drinking gets me drunk, hard and fast), I eat well the next day, and the hangover is both not as bad and disappears quickly after I down my juice.

What do I put in my juice? Sometimes, it is up to 10 different things, some combination of tomato, kale, red cabbage, celery, cilantro, parsley, orange, grapefruit, apple, carrot, green pepper, beet, lemon and cucumber. The learning curve happened pretty fast, and by the third time I juiced myself, I was able to gauge what would make it taste best (half a lemon in each batch is key to cover up the earthier taste of beet and celery, and going carrot and tomato heavy always makes for a better tasting juice). If there's anything I DO crave now, it's my daily juice.

Which I'm about due for.