Day 21: Finale!

Okay, so, slight differences between juicing and raw foods as far as results goes. Eating raw foods for the past 5 days has gotten me about 60% of the weight loss I was getting with the juice. I also have another confession to make... two days ago, I reintroduced sodium to my diet, which I think was hindering the weight loss as well. The interesting thing though, is that for the past 4 days, my BFP has continually dropped. Which means I'm actually losing fat while maintaining my weight. This is a good thing! Think about this for a second... I've added solid food, which means I now have solid waste. I'd say over the past few days, I've added at least 1-2 pounds of solid food to my body. The fact that my BFP is still dropping is fantastic. Just means that my body is readjusting to having solid food and I may have hit a plateau for a week or so, but it should start dropping again soon. Tomorrow should have begun my raw food portion of this juice extravaganza, but I think I'll transition to light meals and ADF over the next week instead. I've dropped 25 pounds in 3 weeks and I'm pretty stoked. But this is just the kick start. I'd like to be able to take my shirt off this summer, which is going to take another 30-35 pounds. I'm going to set small, incrimental goals for myself and hopefully that makes everything easier.

Weight: 220.8 lbs
BFP: 32.8%

Next goal? 215 lbs. I'd like to hit 215 by the end of the month. So, that gives me 10 days. Reasonable, I think. Half of a pound per day? Not too shab. Updates to continue!

Day 18: Thoughts.

I did some math and I'm intimidated. Healthy is 18-19% BFP, right? If I wanted to drop down to 18% BFP, that'd put me at 186 lbs and in a very good, healthy position. It's been three years since I was 185 lbs. I remember how much discipline it took to get there and I'm really not looking forward to it. It took a mass amount of effort and an extremely long time to get down there and an equal amount of time and effort to keep myself there.

I'm heading to Austin, TX on February 25th (38 days away). I'm gonna have to let this marinade for a bit and think about what a realistic goal would be. After this 21 day extravaganza, I'll obviously stop losing weight at such a rapid rate. I'm currently losing about 1 lb per day. From today, that'd put me at around 220 lbs on Friday (which happens to be Day 21). Another week of raw foods might put me down around 215 lbs by the end of the month. How realistic is 15 more pounds by the time I get out to Austin? I think it might be realistic... That's about 1/2 pound per day. Once I hit 220, it'll be MUCH easier on my knee when I run.

Pretty sure this is going to evolve into some kind of nutritional/fitness blog after a while. I might have to research how to build a site that holds multiple blogs and let "Getting Juiced" stand alone. Tah-tah for now.

Day 18:

Alright, so I have a confession to make... I'm totally juiced out. Drinking juice is honestly one of the most monotonous things I've ever done. The exciting experiemental factor wears off after the first week and in the second week, you've already decided what you like and what you don't, so you start drinking the same rotation of four or five juices. It's just not fun. So, I sort of cheated... I went raw food about 2 days ago. I've noticed a few things: My stomach is EXTREMELY small right now; I can really only eat two fruits at a time before I feel like I've over-eaten. I don't get the up-and-down hunger attacks like I did on juice. And most importantly... I'm still losing weight!

Weight: 224.2 lbs
BFP: 33.7%

Now, my BFP hasn't changed much since I started this whole ordeal and it was a little upsetting until I really sat down and thought about it. On day one, I was 245.2 lbs with 34.5% BFP. For those of you who are mathematically challenged... that's 84.59 lbs of fat. Today, I'm 224.2 lbs with 33.7% BFP. That's 75.55 lbs! That means, overall, I've lost 9 lbs of fat from my body and the other 12 lbs is water, sodium and solid food. So, in reality, once I start eating a semi-normal diet again, I'll be around 10 lbs heavier than I am now. Which sucks ass. Time to step it up and start running or biking. I'm tired of being fat. 75 lbs of fat is not cool. I'm not happy with that. 25 lbs of fat down and I'd be pretty stoked... So, 50 lbs of fat on a 200 lb body... 25% BFP. I'd like to be down around 18-19%. I'll figure out the numbers and make that my new goal.

Day 16:

I took a break from going out today, because, honestly, being around that much temptation has a way of wearing down your willpower. So, I kicked back at home today, watched some football, did some laundry and caught up on my DVR. I was proud of myself for not giving in and having any of the amazing looking foods I had to look at all day yesterday. This morning, my reward was issued:

Weight: 225.2 lbs
BFP: 33.6%

Ah yes... 16 days and EXACTLY 20 lbs lighter. 1.6 lbs and 0.5% BFP down in one day? I couldn't be happier right now. I've got 5 days left and I'm excited. I figure, by the time we hit the end of January, I should be down around 210. I can't tell you how amazing that feels.

Day 15:

It's definitely been a lot easier lately to sit back and watch as everyone eats amazing looking food around me. Last night, I went out for a friends birthday... to a bar. I'm pretty sure I would have caved in and had a few drinks and maybe a bite to eat, if it had happened a week ago. But last night, I held strong and not only stayed sober, but sat quietly while my friends ate at one of my favorite Mexican joints after the bar. I had zero desire to have even a bite of the most amazing looking nachos and not a drop of alcohol all night. This morning... I was rewarded:

Weight: 226.8 lbs
BFP: 34.1%
Visceral Fat Rating: 12

So, not only down in the mid-220's, but dropped another point on the Visceral scale! And what's today? NFL Playoffs. So we headed down to the local pizza joint to watch the game! Pizza, wings, cheese sticks, chili fries and, of course, 3 pitchers of beer. It smelled fantastic, but I didn't have a single piece of pepperoni or sausage or EVEN a vegetable off of the pizza. No chicken, no cheese, no fries, no pizza and no beer. I'm excited to be under 220! Should be no more than 4 days away! We'll see...

Day 14:

So, I lied... I didn't go running last night. I'm just too burnt out when I get home to do anything other than lay on the couch, hypnotized by the flicker of the TV and the comfort of two or seven blankets. It was still a good day. No processed juice for me. All natural stuff. Bananas, apples and oranges. That's right; back to basics. I've been careful about switching up which fruits and veggies I'm juicing every day. I want to make sure don't overload on some vitamins and lose sight of others. So, here's the deal:

Weight: 227.6 lbs
BFP: 33.9%

Theory confirmed! Au naturale = weight lost. I have no idea what it is in Naked Juice, but something isn't right about it. Two days of Naked Juice stalled my weight loss. Weird. Anyway, back on track. BFP seems to be hovering, but slowly dropping. We'll make it work. There's 7 days left and, judging by my current stats, I've lost 17.6 lbs (or 8.8 lbs per week). So, realistically, I should expect to be around 218.8 lbs by the end. I can't say I'm too happy about that projection. It's a jump-start, I suppose. The end goal is 195-200 lbs, which is 45-50 lbs overall, and I'll be over halfway there at the end of this three week long masochistic assault. I've decided to work my way back into solid foods, by going raw food for the week following juicing. I'll probably continue to lose a little weight for a while before plateauing.

Day 13:

Another missed day of writing. At least it was only one day. Here's the scoop: it's official; The seaweed salad was a bad idea. As was the Naked Juices. The past 2 days have been odd. If you'll recall, Tuesday night, I decided to indulge a bit and had some seaweed salad for dinner. It was all of maybe 1/8 cup. When I woke up in the morning, I could feel the sodium in my body. It was the most disgusting feeling ever. The days biggest disappointment came when I stepped on the scale in the morning... Yesterdays stats:

Weight: 229.2 lbs (What?!)
BFP: 34.7%
Hunger 1-3

What do you mean I GAINED 0.2 lbs?! I'm ingesting MAYBE 300 calories a day. How is it possible that I've GAINED weight?! Oh... right... seaweed salad from a sushi joint... has salt in it. What does sodium make our bodies do? Retain water... got it. Fine. If nothing else, that number on the scale definitely solidified the fact that I need to finish out this quest without any further deviation, because I am not satisfied with 229lbs. I've grown tired of juicing, so I've been looking for an alternative. Like pre-juiced... juice. For example: Naked Brand juices. The ingredients clearly state nothing but fruit juices and fruit purees. And only 10mg of sodium! Excellent! So, I had one for lunch yesterday. Which brings us to todays stats:

Weight: 229.2 lbs (No way.)
BFP: 33.7% (Interesting.)
Hunger: Why bother. I'm not really hungry anymore.

For the second day in a row, I haven't lost an ounce. The only deviation I made was the Naked Brand juices. Using linear thinking:

Juice + Naked Juice + Seaweed Salad = No weight lost
Juice + Naked Juice = No weight lost
Juice = Weight Lost
Therefore: Naked Juice = No weight lost (?)

Interesting thought. Anyway, as I get closer to the end of this experiment, I'm worried that I won't reach my goal. I'm only halfway there, and in terms of stats, I SHOULD have been 226 lbs this morning. I'm 3 lbs behind! Am I gonna make it? Or have I hit the proverbial "wall". One thing to notice from this mornings stats is the BFP. It's below 34% for the first time during this foray of fatlessness. So, I may not be losing weight, but I'm losing fat? I know it works the opposite way when you're trying to put on muscle. Maybe this is just the peak of my water retention and everything that's left is fat. Time to start running? Maybe I'll try it out tonight.

Update:
Here's a thought: Intermittent Fasting. I'm thinking I'll run a mile tonight and if I don't see any change in tomorrows weigh-in, it's time to start ADF (Alternate Day Fasting). We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Day 11:

Ugh... I have to say, juicing is becoming monotonous. There's only so many ways you can mix juice. It gets more and more difficult every day to continue this whole deal... but when I wake up in the morning and step on that scale... it reassures me that I can make it another 10 days. The juice of the morning, pear and cherry. Pearry? Anyway, it was pretty good. Tonight... I kinda switched it up a bit... I had food for dinner. Kinda... I had about 1/8 cup of seaweed salad before I got full and couldn't eat any more. Can I just tell you that briny, fishy, slimy seaweed is not exactly appetizing after a week and a half of fruits and veggies. Stats:

Weight: 229.0 lbs
BFP: 34.9%
Hunger: 2-3

That's right folks. 229 lbs. I'm officially under 230 for the first time since November 2009. The weight loss seems to be slowing a bit, but I'm not too worried about it. I feel good and I can definitely see a difference. All of my clothes fit better. It works. What I'm REALLY excited for, however... is getting a haircut. I haven't cut my hair in well over 4 months. It'll be interesting to see how I look 30 lbs lighter, with my normal haircut and clean shaven (I don't think I've shaved in 2 weeks either). I'm pretty sure I'm going to start cheating and I'm going to buy a bunch of the Naked Brand juices. It'll probably end up being cheaper, to be honest. I've probably consumed around $180 in fruits in veggies so far... not exactly economical. I can get the same amount of all natural juice out of a bottle for about $6/day. I'll work it out... 16 lbs down so far makes me happy.

Day 10:

So, I missed two days of updates. That doesn't mean I quit on my task! This weekend was ridiculously busy and I've got a few updates. I stayed in Friday night, for the first time in a while. I knew that going out meant being faced with lots of food and drinks that I wasn't allowed to have. On top of that, none of my friends know about my little experiment, so I'd get "You're not eating anything?!" comments all night long. Staying in was easy. I popped on Netflix and watched a few movies. Badabing, go to bed. Wake up Saturday morning. Almost out of fruit. Time to go shopping again. I didn't need a whole lot to get the inventory back up. The testing and curiosity about juicing different fruits has died off since last week. All I snagged were some red pears, cherries, kiwi and oranges. I can't remember what I juiced over the weekend, to be honest, but it was pretty good! Here's Saturdays stats:

Weight: 232.0 lbs
BFP: 35.1%
Hunger: 2-6 (At times I'd be starving to death and I'd have a sip of juice and it'd be gone)

I stayed in Saturday night too, because it's just easier. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. NFL Playoff Sunday. The plan was to get up and jump on the train to go check out this restaurant/bar we heard about. So, we did! I juiced 2 kiwis, 2 green apples, and 1 orange and it was pretty darn tasty. Sunday's stats:

Weight: 231.6 lbs
BFP: 34.7%
Hunger: 2-3

Buffalo wings and bleu cheese sauce, grilled cheese sandwiches, 2 ice cream sundaes and a whole lot of beer. Being out with friends definitely made it more difficult to keep my willpower in check. And of course, I got "No beer? Come on, I'll buy you one!" and "You're not hungry? Come on, I'll get you some food." Nah man, I'm good. Thanks though. By the time I got home, I was so tired, I just made a quick pear juice, watched a few movies and crashed out. This morning, I feel good. Stats:

Weight: 230.2 lbs
BFP: 34.5%
Hunger: 0-1

I'm not able to bring my Thermos with me everywhere today, so I choked down 15oz of juice. I want to switch it up a bit to get different vitamins in my system, so I went with kiwi, carrot and cucumber. The taste of the juice was fine, but it's getting more and more difficult to drink down the juice multiple times a day. It's Day 10 and I'm officially 15lbs lighter than I was when I started. 1.5 lbs per day? I'll take it. That means 31.5 lbs at the end of this whole ordeal. Which just happens to be 1.5 lbs more than my goal! Until tomorrow...

Day 7:

Here's what I'm noticing: I'm lazy. In the morning, I'm all about drinking juice all day. I have no issues throughout the day either. As soon as I get home, I lay on the couch and I have this incredible urge to nap. Sometimes, I give in. Other times, I can abstain. Either way, when I realize it's 10 O'clock and I have to get to sleep soon... but before that, I have to juice everything for the next day, I get really upset about juicing. I get this "Am I really still doing this?" feeling. But then I spend the 5 minutes juicing whatever it is and cleaning the juicer, and I go to sleep. The only thing I don't like about this juice fast... is the physical juicing part. I'll drink juice all day forever... I just don't want to have to do the juicing. That's the epitome of lazy. Anyway, onward:

Weight: 234.2 lbs
BFP: 35.2%
Hunger: 3-4

Another pound down and still no change in my BFP. What's interesting though, is that my visceral fat dropped by 1 point. I haven't been posting my visceral stats on here, because I wasn't sure if anyone cared. For those who aren't aware, visceral fat is the fat inbetween your organs! It's more dense and more difficult to get rid of than subcutaneous fat (the fat that sits under your skin) and can have some serious adverse effects on your health if you have too much of it. My rating (14) is horrible. You should have a visceral fat rating of around 7-8 to be healthy. Anything over 13 is unhealthy. Visceral fat is what causes "pot bellys" and "beer bellys". The biggest concern is that having high amounts of visceral fat has been directly linked to heart disease. This morning, my VFR dropped from 14 to 13! Sweet! A new stat.

Today's juice is pretty darn tasty; 4 pears, 2 apples, 1 banana. Juice, juice, blend. Gotta use these bananas faster. They're starting to go bad. Something my Aunt told me: Don't buy more fruits and veggies than you'll use in 3 days (she knows her stuff). As for my comment yesterday about my pants not fitting any better; I'm a liar. I was sitting down when I wrote that. I've been pulling my pants up all day. I figure I've probably lost around 2" on my waist, but I have no way of knowing, because I didn't measure. Anyway, 1 week down. Two weeks to go.

Day 6:

Ughhh... being sick is horrible. Day 6 of juice, day 3 of sickness. I noticed yesterday that I was hungrier than I had been in previous days. I finished my 35oz of juice for the day around 3pm. This morning, I got SUPER hunger around 9am, which is about an hour earlier than I have been. Anyway, last night... juice. I broke out the fennel bulb. Now... I love black liquorice. If you don't, you don't want to buy fennel bulbs. I grabbed the dark black cherries and some raspberries, juice the fennel bulb (on high) and threw the stalks in there too. Then I blended the juice from the bulb with the raspberries and cherries. I think they called this recipe "The Cherry Surprise" or something like that. It's good stuff, but the cherry kinda gets lost, which I'm a little bummed out about. Onto the good stuff:

Weight: 235.2 lbs
BFP: 35.2%
Hunger: 5-6

10 lbs down in 5 full days. Not too shabby. I haven't noticed any major bodily changes. My face looks a little thinner. My pants don't fit any better. That probably has something to do with the BPF still being up around 35.2%. That's the main reason I decided on such a long period of time. I figure it's going to take some time to get rid of all of the sodium and other garbage in my body. So, after all the water weight is gone, my body will finally start burning some fat. And we'll see that in the BFP.

I'm losing approximately 1.6lbs per day. If I can keep that pace for the entire 21 days, we're looking at a total weight loss of 33.6 lbs at the end. That'd put me at 211.6 lbs. It's been over a year since I've been 210 lbs. The major benefit to losing that 33 lbs is not having to carry that around with me when I run. Imagine carrying a backpack with 33 lbs worth of weight in it everywhere you go. Can you imagine running with that?! It's pain, I'll tell ya. Anyway, day 6. Here we go.

Day 5:

Good morning folks. Still sick and not getting much better. Still drinking juice. I've been crashing out as soon as I get home after work and then waking up 2 hours later. The problem with this is that I can't get back to sleep until 1-2am and that throws off my whole day. Last night, I just finished up the juice from the day after my nap and then threw together my juice for today: 4 pears, 2 fist-fulls of spinach, 1 orange and 1 apple. This is really good stuff. The pears make an unbelievable amount of juice! After juicing the 4 pears, I already had 25oz. If I were to juice 4 apples instead, I probably would have had around 10oz. Taking that mental note and keepin' it close. Here's the goods:

Weight: 237.2 lbs
BFP: 35.1% (still no change)
Hunger: 1-2

My stomach has pretty much shrunk to the size of an apple. One cup of juice and I'm pretty full, which is a huge change from the norm. I typically have an ever-expandable stomach and can shovel food into my face for as long as food is available. Keep me away from buffets; it's not a pretty sight.

I'm a little bummed that my BFP isn't dropping with my weight. I suppose it's to be expected for a while, but if all I'm losing is water and muscle, what's the point? I guess we'll see what the final product is at the end of the 21 days. Yes, 21 days of juice.

I've been thinking a lot about what to do after the 21 days to slowly work myself back into real food without overdoing it. Raw food diet? Benefit would be that I'm going from raw juices to raw foods and I think that it'd be easier on my stomach. Then I thought, "Maybe vegetarian? Maybe even vegan?!" I think, short term, any of these would work, but as a long term solution to losing weight and keeping it off, they're just not reliable ideas. I'll keep you updated.

Day 4:

System went down at work, so I've got some time to kill. Day number 4. I woke up this morning with a sore throat, feeling extremely tired. I had read before I started that you should not start a juice fast if you have a weak immune system. I'd normally say that my immune system is anything but weak and I'm hoping that this is a mere coincidence that my health decided to fail on me 4 days into a liquid diet. One major thing that I've noticed is my lack of hunger. It's really weird. The first day, I was STARVING. I read that when your body is so used to eating the same things over and over again, it can develope both an allergy to it as well as an intense craving for it. So, essentially, your body is working against you, craving the things that it knows are bad for you. Well, on Day 2, the cravings were gone and now I almost have to remind myself to eat. It's really weird.

Okay, so, day 2 back at work and that means night-before juicing. Last night, I decided to get back into the carrots and I had started feeling sick, so I thought "Bring on the oranges!" 4 carrots, 4 oranges, 1 large cucumber, and 1 apple (for sweetness). It's good! And the scale still loves me. Here's this morning's stats:

Weight: 238.8 lbs
BFP: 34.9% (still not much change here)
Hunger: Meh. 2-3

I felt sick this morning, so, I didn't make a breakfast drink. No bueno. So far today, I've got down about 1/4 gallon of water and about 20oz of juice. I'll probably kill the remaining 15 oz before work is over.

The scale doesn't lie... 6.4 lbs lost in 4 days, but hardly any change in body fat percentage. Essentially, I'm still working through my excess water. We'll see how it turns out.

Day 3:

My first day back at work since beginning my fast and it's been a lot easier than I had imagined. I premade my juice concoction last night and stored it in the fridge, in my brand new 52oz Thermos. Yes, 52oz. And it looks like a coffee mug, so, being a recovering caffeine addict, walking into work with a 52oz mug definitely drew in some attention. I went with 2 apples, 4 kiwis, 4 oranges and 2 mangos and ended up with around 40oz of juice. Pretty tasty, if I do say so myself. I've been taking pictures throughout this whole ordeal, so expect to see those up soon. In the mean time, here's the stats for the day:

Weight: 241.4 lbs
BFP: 35.1%
Hunger: 2-3. I'm getting used to the small stomach.

3 days in and 4lbs down. Notice I'm not losing any BFP though! Very important to watch that number. Right now, all I'm losing is "water weight", which is basically just excess water that my body has retained due to all of the sodium I've been ingesting. No more sodium = no more water weight. When that BFP% starts dropping, I'll be happy.

On a side note: The lotto is up to $330 million today, so I bought a ticket. Yeehaw!

Day 2:

Last night, I went out and stocked up on some new produce: some mango, sweet potatoes, fennel, kiwi, pears, cherries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and bananas. I decided to experiment for my dinner juice... cantaloupe, spinach and celery. Bad idea. Cantaloupe juice was really the killer, to be honest. I ended up putting together a carrot, sweet potato and spinach juice, which was actually really good.

Well, I have to say, I woke up this morning feeling fantastic. I was a little hungry, but had no cravings. It's been a good day so far! I started off the day with a kiwi, orange and banana smoothie (juice 2 kiwi's and 2 large oranges, then throw in a blender with the banana). REALLY good stuff. That might be the best drink I've made so far. Bodily stats for the day are impressive:

Weight: 243.6 lbs
BFP: 34.4%
Hunger: Not too bad. 3-4 this morning. After a glass of juice, I was good to go.

Day 1:

New Years was a success. We brought in the New Year with food and alcohol in hand, staying up late into the first morning of 2011. What did I have for dinner last night? A double burger from a popular food chain... and fries... animal style... It's currently 12:24pm PST on the first day of my juicified promenade. My current weight is 245.2lbs with 34.5% body fat. For the mathematically challenged, that's approximately 84.5lbs of fat that I have on my body right now... I've never been hungrier in my life. I open the refrigerator and just stare. Everything looks so good. I've got chicken, steak, guacamole, GIANT tortillas, aaaaaaand fruits and veggies... I begrudgingly grabbed the apples, grapefruit and spinach and made my first juice of the new year.

It's good. 3 apples, 1 grapefruit, and two fist-fulls of spinach. I have no idea how I'm going to keep this up on a day-to-day basis. Wish me luck.

Weight: 245.2 lbs
BFP: 34.5%
Hunger: IMMENSE (we'll say a 9 on a scale of 1-10)

In the fridge right now: Grapefruit, Apples, Pineapple, Spinach, Beets, Oranges, Bell Peppers (should be interesting), Carrots, Tomatoes, and Celery.

Day 1: Part 2-

It's 2:30pm and I'm STARVING. I read that you're supposed to alternate juice and water every time you're hungry... so I did. It doesn't help that I'm watching TV and every 5 minutes, there's an amazing looking food commercial. This is not going to be easy...