Reintroduction: Alcohol

I reintroduced alcohol this week. I should probably have chosen something else to reintroduce, like nuts or seeds, but I chose booze. And it was wonderful to be able to sip a gin gimlet in the park while listening to a free concert with some friends. And I loved talking to my family last night while we sipped a delicious pinot noir.

I did not love how I felt when I woke up this morning, though. Sluggish and bloated and just a little less vibrant than I had been. Does this mean I'm going to quit drinking all together? No. I'm not a saint, and I'm not really one for extremes. Which means maybe no more taking a sip of Bluecoat Gin right from the bottle...


Where to go from here? Back to my dear old friend moderation. Will I have a glass of wine tonight when we go out to dinner for my dad's birthday and toast his move back to Italy? Absolutely. But my goal -- and this will be a challenge -- will be to have one glass. OK, maybe a glass and a half. Knowing that I want to feel great when I wake up in the morning, though, is going to help me do that.

Additionally, I'm taking preemptive measures today. I know tonight will be rich with family, love, and laughter, not to mention the food and wine. As I lead up to that, I'm focusing on a raw vegan diet for the day. I was late to work because I was making lots of great juice, and I filled up every bottle I have with juice or filtered water. I also rinsed some cherry tomatoes and cut up a cucumber in case I really feel the need to chew something during the day. We'll see if this strategy works.

Happy August -- celebrate with juice!

How on earth is it August already? It's shaping up to be a pretty great month -- a trip to the zoo, a mini family reunion in CT, plenty of long bike rides, and (*fingers crossed*) some kayaking. And that's just the first two weeks! To top it off, today's my friend Linda's birthday. Whew, lots of great stuff.

How to celebrate all this? Why with fresh juice, of course! I got my juicer a few weeks ago, and am crazy about it. I'd been thinking about it for a while, and then when I signed up for the FareWell diet, I needed one to follow the program. My mom treated me to the Jack La Lanne Power Juicer, and we've been spending some serious quality time together. (My friend Jen, also in the program, got the Cadillac of juicers: the Breville. I have a slight case of juicer envy. I'm not afraid to admit it.)


This morning I was really craving my favorite juice -- carrot, apple, fennel (in the mug on the right). I made myself a nice tall glass of that for breakfast, and then cleaned out my fridge to make my day-sipping juice. Usually this is carrot-beet-celery-cucumber, but I'm out of beets (boo!), and had a great tip from Jen to add ginger to the fresh juices, so I'm mixing it up and drinking carrot-celery-cucumber-fennel-ginger-apple-kale juice today. I know it sounds, well, gross. But it tastes pretty good, even though the kale is a little overpowering. I had a huge bunch of it and didn't want it to go bad, so into the juicer it went.


I just keep thinking about the crazy amount of vitamins I'm getting today, just a straight shot into my system. A heavy duty juice like this is a great way to start the weekend, too. Weekends shake up your routine and are usually a little heavier on the indulgences, so why not give yourself an edge and power up with a heavy dose of chlorophyll, beta carotene, Vitamin K, Vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and calcium? And that's just from the kale!

Juicing is great because it's an easy way to get tons of vitamins into your system, but there's always the fine print. I'm a big advocate of juicing mostly vegetables, as opposed to fruits. Because it's liquid, it gets absorbed much more quickly than it's solid counterpart. This is particularly important if you have any blood sugar concerns, like hypoglycemia or diabetes. Fruit juices tend to be loaded with fructose, the natural sugar occurring in fruit. There's nothing inherently bad about fructose, but you do want to be mindful of how much you get, and how quickly.

The other thing about juicing is that it you lose out on a tremendous percentage of the fiber. See that teeming container up there? Fiber, and even more nutrients. There's no way I could eat all the veggies I juiced this morning, but it still makes me a little sad to see all that roughage go right in the trash. (It also really makes me wish I had a compost pile and a garden in the city.) The standard American diet -- SAD (telling, no?) -- is seriously lacking in fiber, and we really need the stuff to keep things moving along. It gives your insides a nice little scrubbing, and that's got to make you feel better.

If you juice or have favorite juicing recipes, I'd love to hear what they are. I have my favorites, but it's always good to mix it up. You get new and different vitamins and minerals, and it keeps your taste buds from getting bored.