30 Day Experiments .com

Today is the 21st — the 21st day of the juice diet.

Thin Soup and Fruits for Dessert

I added solid vegetables and fruits into the diet this week.  I kept it simple and drank juice all day until dinner when I had a thin soup every night made of carrot, parsnip, onion, garlic, mushrooms, celery, and some Vegeta for flavor. Good stuff. I had cherries and strawberries for dessert. More good stuff. One day I had an avocado for lunch and

Special Weekend Meals

Weekends are special. Saturday, I grilled eggplant, zuchini, white onion, green onion, and carrots. I brushed them with a little oil and salted. Awesome stuff.

Sunday (today) I had a salad of spinach, tomatoes, avocado, garlic, and mushrooms. More good stuff.

Back to Juice Fast

I am going back to full juice mode for a few more days except I might throw in some fruits in the evenings.

I can see why people become vegetarian for “I just feel better” reason.

This weekend I am going to start introducing solids into my juice diet.

I’ve lost 15 pounds, which is a great thing because I needed to anyway. Actually, I’ve lost about 18 or 19 pounds per the scale but I consider the fact that I have little to know food weight in me to account for 3 or 4 pounds.

I will probably still lose more weight after introducing solids but come on, I’ve lost 15 pounds in 12 days — more than a pound a day. I haven’t been counting calories but on  a few days when I was extraordinarily busy I know I only took in 500 or 600 calories.  I’m not really a small guy, either.  I’d burn that off watching a day-long Scrubs marathon.

I might feel fine but I don’t think that’s healthy which brings me to…

Adding Soup and Salad

By “solids”, I mean vegetable soups and raw salads with no dressing for one meal a day and probably some whole fruits. The soups and salads will be natural.  I might use a bouillon cube and some pepper for soup.  Salads will be raw with maybe a little oil, lemon, or pepper.

I’ve been “juicing” with V8.  Get over it, hippies.

V8 = Convenient Way to “Juice”

I cannot afford an assistant to juice everything for me and I’ve been busy as hell lately — and V8 is readily available at every grocery store and most convenience stores.

The thing about juicing is that producing all of the juice you need for a day is fairly time-consuming.  It typically takes me a little over an hour to juice enough to get me through the next day.  When I get home at 8 or 9pm, I don’t always feel like breaking out the juicer and a counter covered with vegetables.

Does Drinking V8 Count as Juicing?

I think the answer to that question is a fairly solid “no”.  Is it healthy?  meh.  Yes and no.  Natural?  Not totally.  This article about the healthiness of V8 juice gives a great breakdown but here’s a quick list of the veggies in it.  Here’s a very “purist” view on the issue.  Here’s a very logical and holistic way of looking at V8 nutritionally it that you can probably appreciate.

Vegetables in V8

• Carrots
• Celery
• Watercress
• Parsley
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Tomato Juice (makes up something like 86+% of V8)

V8 has vitamins A, C, Potassium, and probably some flavonoids and carotenoids. However, regular V8 is exceptionally high is sodium — really high (690mg, about 30% daily value). I’ve been drinking the low sodium version when I find it, though, which has considerably lower sodium.

So, I definitely don’t think V8 is a real substitute for juicing but I feel fine about falling back on it when I’m running around visiting clients or after a 14 hour day of work.

Besides, the rules of this 30 Day Experiment are basically to eat fruits and veggies only and V8 pretty much falls into that.