What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW): Juicy Recipes

To say I’m loving my veggies this month is an understatement.

I’ve been eating veggies — or rather, drinking them — for every meal. Mark won an 30-day guided juice reboot from Kelly at No Sugar Sweet Life. I decided that since I enjoyed juicing in December and that it seemed to help clear up some of my GI issues, I’d do a few days of juicing with him.

Since I’ve juiced before, I know what ingredients I like to juice (ginger, ginger, ginger!). I’m getting creative and straying from recipes. And I’m adding chia seeds to the mix (for fiber, fat, and texture).

Pictures of juice are kind of boring. And some of them are downright gross-looking. So instead, I’ve collaged the ingredients together for my juices. So pretty! Oh, and I tried coming up with quippy names, but my mind about exploded after naming one of them. And it wasn’t even that quippy.

Here are some recipes for my favorite juices!

You know how I feel about beets. This is my favorite juice that I’ve made so far. And I didn’t even add ginger. It’s a bit sweet, so I had to take a break from it and do my green lunch juice partway through the day. But I finished it off right before my workout for an added boost of energy. I’m going to revisit this recipe to see if I can reduce the sugar content without compromising the fun flavors of the orange, pineapple, and beet. Maybe if I ditch the orange and add a cucumber and toss in an orange rind for flavor it could be similar? I’ll give it a try. 

All of these recipes make between 20-24 oz of juice. I usually make 2 different juices in the AM to bring to work with me and sip those throughout the work day.

I like to do my fruit juices in the AM and veggies the rest of the day, and I never juice fruit on its own. It’s too much sugar for my system to handle at once, and leaves me craving more sugar (plus, who knows what it’s doing to my system!). I’ve also been adding chia seed to my fruitier juices because it tastes best in those, and the fiber in it will hopefully counteract some of the sugar in these juices.

I never really gave a recap of my December juicing experiment … whoops. Well, here it is.

December Juicing Experiment Recap

• I set out to do 15 days of juice-only, which was a lofty goal for a first-time juicer. I got to about day 6 and we had to travel, so I had to break the fast. After I broke, I did the rest of my juice fast with one meal included. I ended the month (so about 20 days) with an entirely vegan diet.
• After the juicing experiment, most of my GI issues subsided and have been kept in check. No more daily stomachaches — I don’t even remember the last time I had one. No more aversions to random foods (gluten, etc.). Though, I’m still limiting intake of foods that were seeming to cause issues. No giant bowls of pasta any time soon, but am not being quite so picky with things in smaller doses (hello, wheat beer). I have no idea how or why juicing helped this, but it did, so I’m happy.
• I had so much energy during my juicing experiment. I never guessed I would have that much energy while fasting. It was like drinking 15 coffees without the nasty side effects on my tummy.
• My tastebuds changed, and my portion sizes have shrunk. I have a hard time eating more than a small serving of higher fat foods at a time. I am not interested in baked goods anymore. I’m loving fresh fruits and veggies. Though, I probably had a good start on this — I’ve always eaten pretty healthfully. But I probably wouldn’t have thought to mix in carrot or beet fiber with my morning bowl of oats before my juicing experiment.
• I lost about 7 lbs during the first 6 days (and kept 5 of it off with no effort after the juice fast, thanks to intuitive eating).
• I plan to do a 3-5 day reboot (likely 3 days) every month. This is to hopefully continue to keep my GI system in order. But I’m having a hard time getting started with this because I discovered intuitive eating, and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed food like this — guilt free eating whatever I want (seriously, I’ve been dieting since I was like 8). I did a week of juicing during the day, and eating dinner, but I don’t think it’s the same. I have started seeing minor GI symptoms, so I think I need a few days of juice-only each month. But it’s really hard for me to commit to even a couple of days of only juice because I’m having so much fun eating whatever I want, so maybe next month. 🙂 

Anyway, I’m on day 4. I was going to go juice-only, but then decided it would be more beneficial to Mark if I went 30 days with him, so I’m doing 1 meal a day at dinner time. This allows me to remain flexible and work on my intuitive eating while reaping most of the benefits of a juice reboot and helping Mark along the way. I was going to restrict that meal to raw vegan, but decided against it. I’ll likely not be craving cheeseburgers or anything, so I’m going to leave that meal open-ended.

Have you tried juicing?