DIY Detox Diary: Day One

Dear Detox Diary,

Today is my first day of my DIY Detox or my fruit and vegetable juice cleanse.

6.30am – Wake up after only 5 or 6 hours of sleep and get to work making our first 4 juices for the day. So glad I portioned up the fruit and veggies during my preparation yesterday but it is still taking ages to make 8 juices! Squeeze myself some lemon with warm water.

8.00am – Finish juicing just in time to send the boyfriend off to work with a detox goodie bag of 4 juices and some detox tea. I start on Juice #1: Spinach, Snowpea, Apple, Honeydew and Chlorophyll aka “Mean Greenie”. This one is really yummy!

8.30am – Getting a bit sleepy and exhausted with a slight headache, though this could be due to my lack of sleep and stressful morning of juicing and not the detox.

8.50am – Decide to go and rest in bed, so glad to be a uni student on holidays!

10.17am – Get a call from my boyfriend at work and chat about how we’re feeling and our plans for the week, finish my last quarter of juice one and feel refreshed but still a bit lethargic.

11.36am – Just got a tiny hunger pang, time for Juice #2: Celery, Apple, Ginger and Kiwifruit aka “Immuno Booster”. Another green one, this one is nice and refreshing. Feeling good!

12.42pm – Still working on Juice #2 (I’m such a slow poke!) and actually feel quite full!? Who knew juice could be so filling!

1.30pm – Called my boyfriend who is struggling, “Baby, this is so shit”. He’s not enjoying it at all! I wouldn’t want to be at work and having to use my brain too much today, must be hard.

2.00pm – A bit late on Juice #3: Carrot, Parsley, Beetroot and Ginger aka “Ginger Minge”. Holy crap, this one is disgusting! Way too much ginger! Pulled the foulest of faces attempting to skull this one, it helped a little bit to heat it up as a soup as suggested in my recipe book. Couldn’t for the life of me finish it, absolutely gross. Exchanged some texts with my boyfriend about how horrible it was.

3.15pm – Out shopping for more ingredients – I’m allergic to almonds which is a major ingredient in Juice #6 so was on the hunt for hazelnut milk and hazelnut meal to substitute. Wandering around the supermarkets looking for anything hazelnut and my inner monologue is going something like this: “Ohh look at all the bread, No! No, I don’t even want bread, I don’t even like bread. So doughy, mmmm. What’s that? Sushi! I mean..pffft who likes sushi? I don’t. I don’t even want any. I’m gonna go home and drink some juice, awww yeah. What’s that? Pizza! OMG I WANT PIZZA! Wait, no I don’t. Pizza sucks. Detoxing is good. Healthy healthy healthy..chocolate!?” The moral of the story being: For the love of God don’t go to a supermarket/anywhere that sells food while detoxing! And while we’re at it, don’t even listen to the radio. Or watch TV. It’s insane how many food ads there are or how often people talk about food. Torture.

4.30pm – Just got home from shopping. A bit late again for Juice #4: Rockmelon, Watermelon, Blueberries and Mint aka “Summer Burst”. Was looking forward to this one – it sounds so yummy! – but was a bit disappointed by the blueberry floaties which make it hard to enjoy drinking. Anyone who knows me knows I hate “bits” in my food, I’m weird about texture. Yes, other people are too, I’m not that odd.

6.00pm – My boy gets home from work and the first thing he says when coming in the door is, “Ahhhhh, I’m so hungry!”. Good thing I’m making our Dinner Juice/Soup #5: Tomato, Carrot, Basil, Capsicum and Garlic aka “Martie Toe”. Now this one is good. It tastes just like a yummy tomato soup – well, a watered down version. The basil in it is delicious. We decide to replace the ghastly Juice #3 with this one tomorrow. So much tastier.

6.35pm – The two of us set up in the kitchen to make up the four juices for tomorrow. After the crazy rush this morning, we decided it wasn’t worth draining our energy in the morning making juices on a deadline. As much as we couldn’t be bothered doing it now either, it was much better to do it now than in the morning. Ideally, the juice should be consumed as close as possible to the time it was juiced – which is why it makes more sense to juice your fruit and veggies in the morning. We’re happy to sacrifice some freshness and some loss of vitamins for the sake of our sanity.

7.45pm – I prepared the pumpkin juice earlier for Juice #6: Pumpkin, cinnamon, Hazelnut Milk and Hazelnut Meal aka “Pumpkin Pie” so I just popped the rest of the ingredients in a glass and stirred it around for our “dessert juice”. We were a bit skeptical about this one but it was surprisingly tasty. An acquired taste, but drinkable – even if it did have a few floaties.

8.00pm – We sit down to watch a movie, both pretty exhausted.

9.00pm – Bedtime! I know, ridiculously early, but the detox kit recommends you get an extra long sleep tonight and we were both ready to just pass out.

10.13pm, 11.17pm, 12.34am – Keep waking up to pee – too much damn liquid in my system! All I want to do is sleep!

1.23am – Wake up again with an incredibly dry throat and a bit of a cough. Try to have enough water to help my throat but not too much so as to wake me up an hour later to pee again.

Well, that was Day One of my DIY Detox. All in all, not too bad. Yes it really sucks not eating solid foods but I keep trying to remind myself of why I am doing this and how great I will feel afterwards. My body will love me for it. I think it’s much harder for my boyfriend – a first time detoxer – as he hasn’t experienced the amazing post-cleanse feeling so it’s hard for him. I’ve been trying to remind him to think positively and about the goal – but then he just starts talking about cupcakes and opening the pantry to smell some crackers or something. I think he’s getting a bit delirious.

Here’s to Day Two! Wish me luck!

Eleanor x

DIY Detox Diary: Preparation

Around this time last year I decided to do a detox that I had been told about. This one wasn’t about eating only carrots or living off lemon juice, cayenne pepper and water for 2 weeks (like the Lemon Detox Diet – worst detox you can do, so unhealthy!). Instead, this was a Juice Cleanse. The idea is that you only drink juice for 3-5 days while detoxing. The juices are specially formulated to provide you with adequate nutrients during your detox while also being packed with vitamins and minerals to help restore, revitalise and rejuvenate your body.

Last year, I did a 3 day, Level One cleanse with Urban Remedy which set me back over $200 as all my juices were delivered fresh to my door. I had amazing results after just 3 days and felt the healthiest, clearest and most energetic I have ever felt before in my life. Amazing!

So, it is no surprise that I was keen to do another detox this year (ideally I’d like to cleanse once every few months). Unfortunately, however, my bank account wasn’t willing to shell out another $200-$300 for the 5 day cleanse I wanted to do this time. So, I started researching for recipes to do it myself at home – because I was lucky enough to receive a brand spanking new juicer a few weeks ago from my ever so wonderful boyfriend – details here. Lucky for me, I came across the DIY Detox Kit offered by Schkinny Manniny (I know, horrible name right?).

The Schkinny Manniny DIY Detox Kit

This Kit Contains:

• Recipe Booklet
• Daily Cards with Do’s and Don’ts
• Esky
• 6 Water Bottles
• Liquid Chlorophyll
• Detox Tea
• Bath Soak
• Psyllium Husks
• Loofah for Dry Skin Brushing (not pictured)

After waiting desperately for over a week to receive my kit I hurried out to my local fruit shop as soon as I finally got my kit with the recipes and ingredients to buy all the fruit and veggies I would need for my 5 day cleanse.

Somehow, my boyfriend managed to jump on board so we went shopping together and bought double the ingredients listed in the recipe booklet. We were in the fruit shop for a good half an hour getting everything – I worried we might clean them out! We had 3 baskets full and I dreaded the total. Luckily, it always pays to go to local fruit shops over supermarket chains and we were set back only $88.30 for 5 days worth of fruit and veggies for the tow of us. Pretty damn good if you ask me!

Trolley full of fruit and veggies - there's more underneath!

I’m a bit of an organisation junkie. So, I decided it would be easier for my sanity in the morning to portion up all the ingredients into groups for each juice so I could easily throw all the ingredients in the juicer rather than spending ages chopping and peeling and riffling through the fridge to find the ingredients for each juice I had to make for the day. I have to admit, I also got a kick out of organising, ordering and labelling my fruit and veggies into containers and freezer bags.

mmm so organised 🙂

Well, that is all from me for now. I will be updating my blog with my progress with daily posts throughout my detox – stay tuned!

Have you ever tried a detox/juice cleanse? What did you think?

Eleanor x

Confession: I Murdered a Mango

Let’s begin with the homicide that occurred in my kitchen this morning, shall we?

It was a quite Sunday morning, I awoke early to head across the road to the park – dumbbells in tow – for my Tough Mudder training.

All was well (apart from feeling physically ill from training) and I truged my way back up to my apartment with my mind on one thing: MANGO. Yesterday, after celebrating Ethiopian (or, Orthodox in general) Christmas at my boyfriend’s mothers house, I was given a bag full of food – injera, siga wat, mesir wat, basil, rosemary, strange cup-a-soup stuff and the mango.

christmas lunch leftovers for last night's dinner

So, anyway, I was given a mango and had plans of juicing that baby for my post-training morning juice. Now, my brand new, shiny, whizz bang juicer may be brand new, shiny and whizz bang but unfortunately the juicing of a mango in this machine first requires said mango to be peeled and pitted. “Sure thing! No worries! Easy done!” I thought. Little did I know what was to come…

I have never peeled a mango in my life. There, I said it. Weird, I know. I have long been impressed by the skilful way so many of my friends a family members slice up a mango all too casually into to enviable little cubes, like this…

oh, perfect little cubes, how you taunt me!

Now, I have observed this technique in passing and I thought I had it down. How wrong I was. I started by cutting my mango in half. Only to encounter the giant mother of a seed in the middle. Yes, I knew it was going to be there, but when I got to it I was stumped. “How do I get those nice little semi-circle “cheeks” from which I gracefully slice my perfect little cubes?”, I pondered. I was then left to rip off the skin of the mango, crudely scraping the sweet, orange flesh from the thick outer layer. My next dilemma: “How on earth do I get the fruit off that goddamn seed?”. Try as I might – or should I say, scrape as I might – I had very little luck removing the flesh from that whale of a seed (I mean really, they charge us for that? Mangoes are pricey as it is!).

And thus, at approximately 8:54am on Sunday, January 8th 2012, a murder was committed in my kitchen. The crime scene was not a pretty sight…

mango murder

ALAS! All hope was not lost. From the ashes of a brutally murdered mango rises the almighty juice. Some kiwi and strawberries were willing to sacrifice themselves as well and later persuaded an apple and a pear to join their humble pursuit.

The end result: juice perfection

So, while my mango made the ultimate sacrifice – it all worked out for the best. He’s in a better place now – aka “my belly”.

Eleanor x

Note: I found this video on YouTube far too late. I now realise that (attempting to) cut it in half was possibly the worst decision ever made. Instead, one should cut the mango twice. On either side of that mother of a seed.

You learn something new every day, don’t you?

Watermelon, Pear, Cucumber, Grape and Mint Juice!

That’s right! And it was GOOD! I used:

• 1/4 of a 1/4 watermelon (I bought a quarter slice of watermelon and chopped off a quarter to juice..I guess that makes it one sixteenth? Ugh, math. Who needs it? Just use some watermelon!)
• 1 pear
• about 1/4 of a cucumber (ever so many quarters!)
• 10 grapes
• 3 leaves of mint

and it's pink! bonus!

I’ve basically been throwing together any fruit I have in the fridge so far and crossing my fingers and toes that it is drinkable.

Please, do share your recipes with me! It may end badly next time..I have broccoli in my fridge….

Eleanor x

Yummy Smoothie Recipe

Today I decided to use some fresh juice to make myself a smoothie. I just juiced up all my fruit (in my shiny new juicer) and then blended it together with a banana – and that’s it! No need for milk, yogurt, ice cream, sorbet or any of those nasties that often get added to smoothies that you buy from the juice bars. Just fresh, healthy fruit! Speaking of which though, I need to get a bit more adventurous with trying more veggies in my juices/smoothies.

kiwi, strawberry and apple juice blended together with banana for a yummy smoothie!

Do you have any good smoothie or juice recipes with fruit AND veggies? I’d love to hear them!

Eleanor x

Juice #2

I made a super yummy juice this morning….

 

pineapple, apple and mint!

 

It was SO GOOD.

Eleanor x

My First Juice

I was ever so excited to break in my shiny new juicer that I went down to my local fruit shop this morning and stocked up on yummy fruit and vegetables! I’ve been googling juice recipes and so I bought a whole range of things to mix and match to try out. I managed to get all of this for $27.95:

fresh fruit and veggies just waiting to be juiced!

 

Eleanor’s First Juice

• 2 apples
• 1 pear
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 leaves of silver beet
• 2 mint leaves
• Handful of grapes

yum!

 

I first tried it with no grapes but wanted it to be a little bit sweeter, so I added about 10 grapes which made it perfect!

If you try it, let me know what you think!

What is your favourite fresh juice?

Eleanor x

 

 

I Got a Juicer!

My fabulous boyfriend was recently out shopping for some shorts (all he had were inappropriately short board shorts) and the dear came back with a shiny new juicer for little old me! I have been mentioning that I would like to get a juicer at some stage for the past few months and the boy listens! I didn’t even think I was dropping hints – I was more saying it so I would remember myself to save up for one! He can’t go past a bargain and apparently it was on sale (post Chistmas sales) so he picked it up for me.

It’s a Breville Juice Fountain Plus and is apparently the #1 selling juicer in the world! Not too shabby huh?

so shiny!

I am so excited to go out and buy a whole lot of fruit and veggies to create amazing juices!

So, my question to you: any juice recipes you would care to share? I’d love to hear your ideas!

Eleanor x