I took the plunge and bought a juicer. When my former roommate had a juicer, I thought it was something for vegan, yoga instructors with a strong interest yet half-assed practice of eastern religions, and preferred travel by bike (you know, the young urban hippie types). I never in my life thought I would get one.

Two weeks ago I was recognized by a Taco Bell employee. She knew my order before I approached the register. Being recognized at a fast food establishment made me feel guilty and ashamed. I am okay being recognized at the coffee shop, or the gym, or occasionally a bar, but I had never frequented a fast food chain enough to be remembered. Later that week, I went to the doctor and found out I had gained 5 pounds in 2 weeks. I was officially 15 pounds heavier than I ever had been in my life, even at my largest. This isn’t me being a stereotypical white girl and complaining about being fat, it was a wake up call for change .

My doctor said that I needed to up my dosage of medications. I already take about five daily prescriptions for anxiety, hyper vigilance, and an autoimmune bowel disease. I stopped my doctor as she was writing the script, asking her if she had noticed that I had gained weight consistently in the five years I have been seeing her. She said I was “still beautiful.” I was upset, I wasn’t asking my doctor if she liked my hair or my scarf, I was asking her to help me with my weight as it was becoming a struggle and I was starting to feel it in everything I do. I for sure would steal as many bandaids and tongue depressors when she left the room, cause screw her.

My doctor makes money on me coming back to see her, and I made a snap judgment that she gets richer the sicker I get. When I asked for help losing weight, she told me to eat eggs for breakfast. That was her recommendation: to eat eggs. That’s all she had for me. I left, upset with her, still hating on the Taco Bell employee, and mostly disappointed in myself. I started reading about healthy eating, vegetables, lean protein, and decided to get vegucated. I watched some documentaries, read some books and articles online and decided I was going to take a plunge into a healthy life.

Walking around with belly and arm and thigh fat made me feel like I was wearing too many layers. I found myself not wanting to go to social settings due to self consciousness or the emotional and physical strain of psyching yourself up for spanx. I had finally put clothes that no longer fit me into a box so that I would stop apologizing to the “skinny clothes” that they had to stay in the closet because I had outgrown them. It hurt, on the inside and out, especially when I had to bust out the Crisco and fishing line to slide into certain pants. Woof. 

Our bodies were made to work like a machine and withstand famine and times of harvest. Fat occurs when our bodies are storing food to be used at another time. We don’t live in a society where most of us have to worry about famine. We are surrounded by low nutrient, high calorie, food product and not much REAL FOOD. I started this blog to help people make gourmet food on a budget and so college-aged and the poor post-college 20 and 30somethings can eat delicious food and see everything that goes into it. It’s about time we started eating for health, so we can eat for life. I needed to be more conscious of what was going inside of my body. From medication to food, I needed that wake up call of that damn Taco Bell employee to think about how much longer I can live before I die at her chalupa fingertips as I spend my last $1.64 on a Dorito-loco-taco-laden casket.

I bought the Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain 700-watt Juice Extractor from Amazon for $99. I had read many reviews and all agreed that the Breville brand was the most reliable, yielded the most juice, and was easy to clean. When I went on Amazon, I noticed that the juicer I bought had over 3,000 reviews and still held a rating of about four and a half stars. I ordered it and started to think about all the ingredients I was going to buy. Check it out here:http://www.amazon.com/Breville-BJE200XL-Fountain-700-Watt-Extractor/dp/B000MDHH06/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1393309053&sr=8-3&keywords=breville+juicer

Luckily, the produce store not far from my house was having a 2 pounds for a dollar sale on most of the basics- apples, oranges, celery. I went and bought a ridiculous amount of produce for the low cost of $56. This may seem like a lot of money for about a week worth of food, but I had a full fridge and two copy boxes full of additional produce that had to sit on my porch with no where else to keep it cold and fresh. I didn’t think I’d be able to finish it all, ever.

A week later and I have dropped a significant amount of weight. I can feel that my thighs don’t stick as much together when I walk, my meat beard has decreased significantly, I am more attentive and focused, my skin cleared up and has an awesome glow to it that I thought only pregnant ladies got, and I found my hip bones again.

I am done doing a strictly juice cleanse, but will slowly work better foods, like lean meats, fruits, vegetables, etc into my diet as I ween myself off the juice. The juice is super good though.

Here are some of the recipes that I enjoyed the most, I didn’t even like most vegetables to begin with, but now I don’t mind or actually like them juiced. Weird.

Mean Green Juice

• 1 cucumber
• 4 stalks of celery
• 1 handful of parsley
• 2 apples
• 6-8 kale leaves, stalks and all
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 tbs ginger

Farmer’s Market Juice

• 6 strawberries
• 1 cucumber
• 1 apple
• 2 carrots

Cucumber Melon Juice

• 2 cucumbers 
• 1/4 honeydew melon
• 3 celery stalks

Pink Juice

• 1 beet, peeled, but keep the stalks and leaves to throw in
• 4 carrots, peeled
• 1 orange
• 1 sweet potato
• 1/2 lemon

note: beets do make your urine a pinkish color. I was unaware of this and afraid for a good 2 hours that my kidneys were bleeding. It’s all good.

Tomato Vegetable (aka Bloody Mary) Juice

• 1 handful spinach
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/4 of a jalapeno, seeded
• 1 small clove garlic, peeled
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 celery stalks
• 1 carrot
• 1/2 lemon
• 1-2 shots of vodka, if needed, to taste, or oblivion

Blueberry Cabbage

• 1/4 head of red cabbage
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 apple

I Can’t Elope (Texas Gay) Juice

• 1/4 cantaloupe melon
• 1 orange
• 1 sweet potato, peeled
• 2 carrots
• handful of mint

I make some of these the night before and store them in glass water bottles to bring with me to work or out around the town. During my cleanse, I had about 5 juices a day. It’s best though to consume them the moments after juicing, to maintain the nutrients. Also, make sure you clean the juicer as soon as you are done, or else it is a bitch to clean.