Playing Catch up!

I haven't been on my blog in quite a long time! This is primarily because nothing exciting has been going on. My life is basically school, work, sleep, and treadmill. I don't even cook anymore my body runs on luna bars, smoothies, and grapefruits, not really picture worthy food. So I thought I'd give a creative update of what's new with me + some ABC's!

1) I dressed up as a doctor for Halloween! I know, I know, throwing a lab coat over some scrubs and grabbing my stethoscope isn't very creative but there isn't anything more comfortable than wearing what's basically pajamas and tennis shoes for a night of revelry. 

2) Speaking of revelry.. I shotgunned my first beer! I somehow made it through four years of college, three and a half which were spent in a sorority, without having every shotgunned a beer! So, finally at 22 I did it! It was awesome and probably really funny to watch! 

Lone Star yum!

3) I bought new shoes! Saucony Cohesion 6 shoes! I love them! I bought them in a 9.5 but I'm wishing I had them in a 9, they are just a little bit too roomy. Regardless I'm not parting with them. Plus I managed to dominate in flag football AND pick up basketball in these bad boys! I think it was the pink... definitely the pink.

4) I went on a crazy Cost Co, Whole Foods, H-E-B shopping spree! I bought tons of kale and spinach and beets and grapes, and a bunch of other fruits and vegetables. My fridge is literally stuffed with fruits and vegetables, I can barely close it. 

5) So why did I buy so many fruits and vegetables? I bought a juicer!A juicer was on the kitchen wish list I made a couple months back! I didn't pick up one the the original ones I had researched because they were a little pricey but I did get a Big Mouth Hamilton Beach juicer for about $50-ish plus a $10 warranty. Don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVE my Vitamix and I've tried juicing with it and I was successful. But the downside to juicing with it was that it took me a long time to juice 6 carrots, 4 apples and some ginger - I mean a really long time. Then after the juicing I had to strain the juice through a fine mesh bag to separate the pulp. The whole process was rather lengthy so I bit the bullet and bought a juicer. I am now very in love with my juicer AND my Vitamix. 

6) I've been juicing! I love juicing and it is wonderful and delicious and surprisingly easy to clean up after! 

So far I have made three different types of juices. 

a) Carrot, Apple, Ginger

• 6 Carrots
• 4 Apples
• 1 inch piece of ginger

I am not a huge fan of carrots, I eat them raw because I love the crunch but you will never, ever see me eat cooked carrots (not even in soup). The apple, on the other hand, offset the carrot-ness of this juice and I really did enjoy it. 

b) Green Citrus Juice

• 2 Green Apples
• 2 Oranges (peeled)
• 6 handfuls Spinach

Probably my favorite of the three I've tried. It also exposed the one downside to the juicer, when I blend my spinach in the Vitamix it yields a lot more juice. The pulp from everything else I juice is very dry but the spinach pulp isn't which supports my theory. Regardless, if a recipe calls for spinach then this is how I'm going to juice it because it really is easiest. 

c) Green Lemonade Juice

• 6-8 leaves of Kale (Australian Tuscan Cabbage)
• I used 3 handfuls of baby Kale since it's little and I don't have the big leaves
• 3 handfuls of Spinach
• 1 Green Apple
• 1 Cucumber
• 2 Celery Sticks
• 1 lemon

This was very celery-ish, yummy but celery-ish. I had an extra 3/4 of lemon in the fridge plus some orange wedges which I threw in at the last minute, and um... bad call, this made it so, so sour. Surprisingly, my stomach has been doing okay despite the large amount of citrus I've been ingesting. Yay! Juice! 

7)  I'm planning a juice fast! Not a 1 day, not a 1 week, not even a 1 month juice fast but a 60 day juice fast! You know me, I go big or go home and if I fail I like to fail big also! 

Ahhh, Green Citrus Juice over some ice :) 

I finally watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and even though I was already inspired to do my juice fast this movie totally validated my decision to do so! Regardless of your opinion on juice fasts this movie is really inspiring. 

I did a lot of research before making this decision and I feel really good about it. If you're interested here are some of the resources I checked out before making this decision:

• http://www.rebootwithjoe.com/rebooting/
• http://www.justonjuice.com/7-day-juice-fast-plan/
• http://veganvagabonds.blogspot.com/2013/05/tessas-30-day-juice-fast.html
• http://amandapanda84.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/day-26-of-juice-fast-weigh-in-results/
• http://full30dayjuicefast.blogspot.com/
• http://theindiechicks.com/health-and-fitness/diet-and-nutrition/7-day-juice-fast-results/
• http://www.sparkpeople.com/myspark/team_messageboard_thread.asp?board=0x54149x51021490
• http://justjuice.org/

Also if you're juicing and not sure what to peel and what not to peel here is an awesome list: 

• http://justjuice.org/2012/juicing-tips-to-peel-or-not-to-peel-should-you-juice-the-peels/

I'm slowly incorporating juice into my diet. Currently I'm eating one meal a day of real food and juicing the rest. I have a mandatory etiquette dinner I have to attend Thursday and then after that I'm at 100% juice until 2014. Is it weird that I'm not really that freaked out about drinking juice for 60 days? I'm sure that's pre-juice fast Annie talking and by Saturday I'm going to be craving food so much I'm going to have to lock myself in my house to avoid chewing anything! I'm iPad video-diarying to keep track of how this all feels. I also just downloaded the blogger app on my iPad so I think that's going to make checking in on here easier! 

Before this blog becomes all crazy and jonesing-y I'm going to do something new... the ABC's of me! 

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