Detox Extravaganza - Smoothie and Juice Detox (Week 2)

As I look at the title, I have to say that the week somehow became just a smoothie week, but I'll get more to that later of my neglect of juices. Before you ask, yes, it's true - I ONLY drank smoothies the whole week, actually ate NO real food. As bizarre as that sound, it actually wasn't really that bad and quite yummy!

With the guidance of my friend (we are doing this detox extravaganza together), I was to put coconut water in the veggie smoothies and then almond milk in the fruity smoothies.

1st comes the coconut milk. After much excitement when I spotted this at the grocery store (I was just going to buy it off the shelves, he he), I spotted baby coconut! Despite the labor of getting it open, alas came out this delicious fresh coconut water...

And that's it!! Ha! I guess I'd I bought 3 of them!

Even better was scooping out the flesh from the coconut, because I was able to use this in my smoothies. 

Pretty much the exact opposite of what my friend suggested to keep things "simple," I stuffed as much as I could in the blender and.... having said that, had to do it in bouts and was quite a process to keep things even. Needless to say, the blender was working quite hard and by Day 2 started smoking a little...

My "fruit" smoothie

My fruit and veggie smoothie

My veggie smoothie

Ta da!

Above and below: My leftovers! I actually ended up having enough for several "meals," so that was good to save time!

I had the "green smoothie" the one on the left, as a 'snack' smoothie and the one one the right, the fruit smoothie, it was more filling (and I think that mug is bigger), so it was my lunch smoothie. 

So here I am sitting in our pantry, enjoying my smoothie, then in walks in a bday lunch that someone brought in: 

Can I just say this is even worse than UN-Detox!!! It was soooooooooooooooooooooooo gross! Even if I wasn't detoxing, I would NEVER eat that crap!!! Ew!!! No wonder our staff is mostly overweight. BLAH!! So pretty much after that (which of course was the 2nd day, and the day before had almost equally as bad for you Phillipino food, I ate quietly and peacefully in our office. Hahahah! 

Soo.... as before, this is a reference for ME about how I felt just in case I do it again. Again, it was supposed to be 3 days of smoothies and 3 days of juicing, but then we decided to just what we felt like, as long as it was in liquid form, ha ha: 

Day 1: Definitely different NOT having food... But easy to satisfy hunger pangs with a sip of smoothie. Just felt I missed the concept of eating. F x 3
Exercise: run (jog) x 30 min, elliptical x 15, light weights. Tennis!!
Day 2: Although felt my cheeks went down (they got soo puffy during my un-detox, this was my main focus, ha ha), felt I majorly lacked energy :-( Very fatigued... and just tired. Also didn't feel too hungry. Energy picked up in pm, but overall today was just a sluggish day. F x 2.
Exercise: FlyWheel (spin) am, swim pm.
Day 3 - Better mood, not fatigued or tired at all (??)! Feel relaxed and def less appetite. F x 0.
Exercise: None!!
Day 4: Slept really well! Less appetite, feel energetic and good! Although was supposed to start juicing, still had a lot of smoothie left over and you know... didn't want to waste food (I think I've juiced for so long and haven't smoothied in awhile, it was a nice change!). F x 1.
Exercise: none!
Day 5: Blender broke last night so had to buy a new one! Supposed to juice, but because still had smoothies left over, did another smoothie day and bought a new blender and hehe, just had to play with it! Feel energetic and happy! F x 1.
Exercise: swimming
Day 6:Today again feel 'normal.' It's funny how the body adapts... I almost think it's weird to eat food! Just kidding. F x 1.

Exercise: 11km slow'ish run, bikram yoga

*Generally had veggie smoothie breakfast and snack, fruit for lunch, and combo for dinner!
*KEY!!! This REALLY  helped, I think I was sooo fatigued and tired that day 2, I just needed something extra. So after that starting adding chia seeds, nut butters, coconut flesh to make it more filling, which really worked!! 

Here are some examples of smoothies:

-Smoothie green: spinach, kale, broccoli, cucumber, parsley, pineapple, celery, dates
-Fruit smoothie: mango, blueberry, pineapple, parsley, spinach, celery, cucumber, banana.

-Snack smoothie: kale, spinach, cucumber, orange, celery, lemon, dates, pineapple.

So day 3, da da dum, I think all this "hard" blending was just a little bit too much for my little 'ol blender/food processor. Although it was a Kenwood, which I found out isn't what it used to be, I did buy it 2 years ago and it has had a LOT of use :-) At the time I was pretty much buying my whole apartment ($$$) and looked for something middle'ish range. Soo... when it broke, although I was sad, it was due time. And as these things go, I bought my new one and it is like a whole new world! Soooooooooooooooooo nice and powerful!!!! I zipped up these "hard" smoothies in no time flat! The cool thing though was that I was certain I wasn't going to buy another combo unit of blender and food processor, I ended up buying one that was one machine unit and then you attach the different components. It's space efficient and compact, so I am super happy with hit!!

So here it is, out with the old....

And in with the new!!!

My first fancy new blender smoothie - I don't think I could have stuffed anything more in it! hahah!

Ta da!!

Not to be neglected, tested the food processor, and although it didn't really save on any time, it worked well and I was able to make my favorite nut butters (almond and walnut):

So there you  have, I survived! I thought this was going to be hardest week, but it really wasn't too bad. Again, initially just weird not having solid foods, but it actually was a bit better to sip on these thick liquids when I felt hungry, it really quenched my hunger!!

Next week (tomorrow) starts Whole30 (www.whole30.com). Now this is the REAL test! This other stuff was a week, but this is a whole month! What can I say about it except for it is similar to the Paleo diet - okay with most all types of meat or fish, but after that NO dairy, sugars, grains, even things like beans and lentils. Gasp! Most disturbing for me is NO oatmeal (my breakfast!) or quinoa - which I have regularly. I did some shopping in prep, came across this simple recipe for a snack, prosciutto wrapped around asparagus! It  is a costly snack.

I of course will write when I finish it, as far as in between, we'll see how things go!! Happy days!