Adventures In Juicing: My Son's 2 Bottler

I had some concerns about my health. I wanted to lose weight, but my main concern was to improve my health. I had been getting warnings that told me that I really needed to make some changes.

With that in mind, I realized that I needed to make changes in my diet. I had been seeing and hearing a lot about the benefits of juicing, so it was on my radar as being one of the best options for recovering your health quickly.

I realized that the need to breathe well is important too, because oxygen must get to the brain and the heart. The blood must be oxygenated. If you are experiencing shortness of breath as I was, this is definitely a warning sign to pay attention to. So this is the reason I started on my path of juicing.

I decided that I would start walking and keep track of the changes I was making online through podcasts for the purpose of accountability. One of the things I have always struggled with is consistency. I'm not one of those super structured, well-ordered people that has everything scheduled out to the "T."

I'm more of a free spirit. The most "ordered" thing in my house is my drawers in my bedroom furniture. So making any type of schedule is very difficult for me. I have learned to write out a schedule for about four days in advance, but I haven't been able to consistently write out more every 3-4 days. I do the schedule for a few days, and then life happens, and something happens, or somehow, we get off track, and I lose it. I really need a personal assistant to keep me on track. One day.

At any rate, this inability to be consistent applies to many areas of my life. Its been a mountain I've been steadily climbing, in an attempt to make a change. So now, concerning my inconsistent health and diet patterns, I am making a real effort to stay on top of this. Does that mean that I will eat only a particular diet, or do a particular activity for exercise? No.

What staying on top of it means for me, is that I have to be making a concerted effort in being conscious of what I am eating, as well as in doing some sort of activity for physical fitness. I set about to start a habit of walking. I did pretty good for the first few weeks, until I discovered my weakness in being consistent in that pattern, which I talk about in the podcasts.

In fact, part of the reason doing the podcasts are helping me, is that while walking I have thinking time. Most people don't think, and don't set time aside for thinking. We're just "On" from the moment we awaken, to the moment our heads lie back down at night. I love the walking because it gives me time to think, and I have started figuring out reasons for my inconsistency with my health and habits.

So, true to form, I have missed the past week of walking. However, I'm not disturbed by this, because I have also begun to work on creating an exercise system to open the hips and release low back pain. Because of this, I don't feel so bad that I've missed my walks, because at least I'm doing something, and I feel really great!

Not only do I feel so much better because of the stretching I'm doing, but I've noticed that my shape is changing. I had not weighed myself in about 2 weeks, so I was greatly encouraged when, after eating dinner, we stopped at the store I normally weigh in at, and I was still down 3-4 pounds less than the last time I had weighed in!

So despite the fact that I'm not consistent in any one thing, the combination of what I'm doing is working. However, I think one of the best things I'm doing is juicing regularly. This is one of the new habits that I almost have a full lock on now. I believe at this point that the juices I make have become integrated into my diet enough that it is almost 50% of my food intake. So I'm thrilled with that.

My son is probably one of the biggest hindrances to my success with regulating my food intake. This is because he is 18 and a junk food junkie. I'm trying to convince him of the benefits of making some of the changes I've been making. He's been watching me struggle to be consistent in these changes, and has even attempted to join me walking.

However, he's very critical of my cooking because as he constantly complains I'm always making things with "too much vegetables!" He complains that I make too many stews or stir frys, and he's sick of the vegetables all the time. He is constantly trying to get me to spend whatever little money I have on dining out.

So imagine my surprise when, after weeks of trying to get him into my juices, I made a mix he actually liked. I was further surprised when he began to occasionally sample my juice after they were made, and claim a bottle or two as his to drink. So last time something like this happened, he actually asked me to reproduce one of my blends. Sooner or later, I'm going to get him there...wanting the juices all the time. I've just got to be patient. Here is the recipe of the one he wanted me to replicate.