The New Series & Other Things You Have Been Wondering About

Welcome back! It's an unusually tense Monday for me. Things at work have been very tense. Plus, the bakery has kind of had a busy month as well. This past weekend, I had two weddings and a funeral to attend plus the big order from the previous few posts to take to one of the weddings. All in all, I have been running non-stop since leaving for Italy. Of course, the blog is in a sad, sad state of affairs with puny excuses for posts. However, I am attempting to make good on that now with the new series I hinted at earlier last week.

Last month, I watched a documentary called, "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead". The film tells the story of an overweight man, Joe Cross, who travels across the country for 60 days while drinking only juice derived from freshly ground fruits and vegetables. He starts the trip at over 200 lbs, and requires something like 10 medications a day to manage his multiple health conditions. Over the trip, you see his weight melt off, and by the end, he is medication free. It was truly an amazing transformation.

Now before you think I got all caught up in the glamours of the show, I DID do some research on juicing. Many people have talked about how juicing has not only helped them lose weight, but has helped them with everything from rheumatoid arthritis, to skin conditions, to auto-immune diseases. This is very much in line with the documentary. So, there might be something to this.

After much debate, Jon and I decided to buy a juicer.

Which is now sitting ominously in my living room. 

Jon is very nervous about this endeavor, and now that the juicer has actually arrived, I am too. The expense of a high quality juicer is just (forgive me) Goddamn ridiculous. Part of me wants to send it back just so I can see that cash back in the bank. Him and I both worry that we won't catch the "juicing bug" and we will have a $200 paper weight taking up kitchen counter space. I am worrying about that even more now that the thing has actually arrived, where before I was absolutely without reservations.

So why did I do this...? Here are my reasons.

1.) I am fat. Not like cankle fat, but fat enough to be causing me problems. I am insulin resistant at this point, which means I'm just one or two jelly packed kolaches from Diabetes. Not a great thing to have when you bake cakes as a side job. I hope to lose at least 5-10 lbs.

I love everything about Wilford Brimley, except the diabeetus.

2.) In 2009, I had a knee surgery due increased arthritis pain in my knee. I had a complication that included a blood clot in the leg and 3 in the lungs. I had to relearn how to walk correctly and climb stairs at the age of 27. Since then, I have to be very mindful of my knees, and while my new job has helped me keep 10 lbs off because of all the walking I have to do to get from Point A to Point B, I'm still running heavy for my frame. Taking some weight off my knees would seriously help with this.

3.) Skin disease; another big reason I am interested in juicing. I have has horrible acne since I was born. There are baby pictures of we with zits. It is disgusting, painful, and disfiguring. I'm very self conscious about it, and always have been. When I first started the blog, I considered never showing my face on it at all. Of course that didn't work out. Now, I am hoping that the nutrients from the juicing will help reduce my breakouts and heal my skin. Acne medications are very bad for unborn babies. Which brings me to...

4.) We may be trying to get pregnant soon. I have Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome, which causes fertility problems and weight related problems. In addition to that, I have already been dubbed a high-risk pregnancy candidate because of my history of blood clots. This means that I already know I will be getting two shots of blood thinners to the stomach for 9 months to prevent a stroke from another clot. The thought of getting gestational diabetes on top of that (which requires insulin shots) is enough to make we not want to get pregnant at all. Jon has had to give me the blood thinner shots when we take long flights, and he will be the ones doing it while I'm pregnant. It breaks his heart seeing me all bruised up on the stomach and crying when I get them. The shots cause stress on us both. The less shots we have to do, the better.

So these are my reasons for going for this. I decided to do a 10 day juice fast starting (hopefully) this Friday night. ( I want to give my body and digestive system the weekend to get itself on track if you catch my drift). I am going to try to do a video diary of my experiences for you if I can figure out how to make it work on the blogger platform. I will try disclose as much as possible about the experience, and will field any questions that are posted in the comments. I will also try to give the recipes I am using and the a critique of the flavors of my juices.

If I am doing well at the end of the 10 days, I may try to extend it to 30 days. And yes, I know how crazy that sounds. However, many of the people that I read about, who started on 10 day fasts, felt so good at the end that they extended it to 30 or even 60 days. Wish me luck.