For something completely different, we have decided to try juicing. This has nothing to do with knitting or crafting or anything so I will understand if you stop reading now! I thought I would share some personal thoughts about my weight loss journey since tinytuna was born.
Along with a friend of mine, we are sticking to Weight Watchers quite diligently. I have had some success with it in the past and post-partum, I thought I would sign up again for the online membership. I have lost 5lbs thus far since getting back on the wagon in October. Ideally, I would like to slim back down another 10lbs to my pre-pregnancy weight.
What I really struggle with, though, is fruits and vegetables. I know I should eat them. I love the taste of them – I’m not a picky eater. I really enjoy most all foods except olives. Truly. I’ll be honest: I actually eat very healthfully. My shortcomings happen when I am hungry. Is that the case for most people? I kind of think so. Snack time is the worst for me! Particularly 10am and 4pm. It is just that when I’m hungry, I would way rather eat a piece of bread with jam. Or chips. Or candy. Or just about anything but fruit and veg.
How to overcome this?
There are a couple of reasons I would like to ‘overhaul’ my eating habits (I’m not calling it a diet because this needs to be sustainable forever):
- We want more children and the idea of heading into my next pregnancy heavier is a bit daunting to me (I think about post-partum the next go round!),
- I want to feel healthy inside and out, and
- The food that I love is calorie-rich but nutrient-lacking.
Hello Rachel. I came to your blog after your comment on mine yesterday in regards to my juicing post. I smiled to see we are thinking along the same lines. I smiled even a little bit bigger to see that you are a knitter and I just finished posting about a little knitting project that I am currently enjoying. And I also loved to see that you are a Canadian girl like me! So, I will be spending some time looking around your blog…
It's the first time I've seen the juicerecipes site. Thanks for sharing! My husband and I have been juicing on and off for over a year and we're really enjoying it. It also helps to kill the evening urges for something sweet. We also invested in a juicer, it hasn't been an expensive one, but it has been so worth it. I'm also yet to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Are you juicing as in not eating anything else at the moment? Because that's what my husband doing for the whole of January right now, after all the holiday meals and because he wants to lose 10-15pounds asap. He says the first 3-4 days are the worst, by now he's used to it.
Hi RachelI have issues with fruit and veg too being that I hate the texture of all fruit. I've been doing smoothies for the past couple of months and throw in frozen fruit, yogurt, greens and a splash of milk. I like my shakes thick, like ice cream so blender is time consuming but so work it.
This may sound like a very stupid question but… do the juices replace meals, or are they snacks, or…? I've also always been curious about juicing vs. smoothies (because I thought a lot of the benefit to fruit/veg was in the skins and fibre.) I suppose I have more research to do! Since the new year I've been starting my day with green smoothies but that's mostly just fruit with a bit of plain yogurt and kale. (Orange-banana-pineapple-kale is my all-time fave!) I have yet to venture into real veggie juice territory!
ps – so looking forward to the diaper update! Thanks for humouring me :)
Hi Everyone! Thank you for the comments and questions :) We aren't replacing any meals with just juice and actually we both were not enjoying throwing away all the pulp since we both felt it was part of the reason we were wanted to up our veggie intake was for the fibre, so we decided to buy a better blender (ours konked out and started smoking shortly after this blog post!) and now we are making green smoothies. We have them with our meals (the consistency is like Orange Juice) and because they are so filling, I'm finding I am eating less for sure.I was talking to a dietician friend of mine about juicing and smoothies, etc. She said that because our bodies aren't able to absorb more vitamins and minerals than it's able in a 24hr period, if you're having more than the recommended serving of daily fruit and veg then it's just moving through you. A lot of raw foodists advocate just juice because it's absorbed more effectively and there's little to no digestion needed for juice unlike a smoothie (fruit, green or combo) but the problem is that once your body has absorbed its vitamins and minerals for the day, you just have really expensive urine and should just drink water. Same goes for milk/yogurt smoothies: If your smoothie comtains all of your calcium intake for the day (for women it's 1200mg per day), you will only absorb 500mg of that calcium because that it all your body can absorb at a time. She said it's better to have HALF of the smoothie and save the rest for later in the day when you can absorb the REST of the calcium! Lastly, I've started counting my veg and fruit daily servings to ensure we aren't going hog wild – so I'm ensuring we are on the upper end of the recommended daily intake: 8 per day. Both of us are feeling good and it's not overkill on our stomachs if you know what I mean ;)
Thanks for the question Katy — I did a reply at the bottom of the post for everyone to see!
I wish your husband luck with his adventure! I hope he has lots of success! To answer your question, I did a reply all at the bottom of this comments section :)
Thank you for visiting! I really enjoy reading your blog :) I hope your juicing is going well!!
I like mine thick too — I'm not a big a fan of juice as I thought I would be. I prefer the smoothies to the juice.
You're welcome! I'm hoping for some photos today :)