Monday, January 2, 2012

Juice Fast - Week 1 - Tips and Shopping List for First Timers

At the end of Week 1 of our Juice Fast, here is where we are:

Husband - down 8.5 pounds
Me - down 5.5 pounds (I had some cheese & crackers)

Going into this we really thought it would be harder than it turned out to be.  Our first trip to the store for produce we kind of  "winged" it and ended up with more than we needed which was a little overwhelming trying to fit everything into the fridge and cleaning.


I would highly recommend having a better strategy than we did on the first shopping trip.  At the bottom of this post I have a shopping list that I think would be a good "first timers shopping list".  After a few days, you will have a better idea of what you like and don't like to tweak your list.

There were times that we got a little hungry, at that time we made a smoothie so there was more fiber from the pulp and helped make you feel fuller.  The Cuisinart Portable Blender we picked up on Amazon works beautifully for smoothies!  If we are making a single, we use the to go cups and if we are both having one, the blender cup is perfect!  The unit is very compact which is great since our kitchen is very tiny (and it comes in pink which is awesome!).

I was a little concerned about getting enough protein and calcium so whenever I make a smoothie, I add 1/4 low-fat kefir.

What we found so far:

*In most instances we used lime where lemon would work just as well, it was just a personal preference.

*Golden Delicious Apples are not as readily available (at least not in December in Virginia) so we used a variety of other apples with great success.  - Red Delicious and Gala give off a wonderful amount of sweet juice and Granny Smiths are also good juicers with a tart flavor.

*Veggie juices are full of more minerals than fruit juices, but they are also higher in calories, Fruit juices have more vitamins, but are higher in sugar.  We mixed veggies and fruits in the same juice sometimes, but mostly we alternated juices.

*Even if your juicer will take whole produce, we got more juice if we did some chopping first (not to mention less noise from the juicer)

prepping-for-vegetable-juice-fast
juicer-is-all-ready-to-go

First Time Shopping List (for two people)
1 XLarge bag Carrots
2 bags Spinach
2 bags/heads Kale
1 5lb bag Apples (Delicious, Gala or Grannies)
6 Limes or Lemons
6 Oranges
2 bunches Celery
6 Cucumbers
1 small Ginger Root