TIPS FOR STARTING A JUICE/SMOOTHIE CHALLENGE

Walnut Pate Collard Wrap

I posted these tips on our Facebook Calendar Entry, but realizing we have quite a few newbies doing this particular juice/smoothie challenge, I felt I should do an entire post dedicated to providing a few tips to help make this challenge as easy as possible for you.

• Before beginning any major change to your dietary habits, as with anything, be sure to get a physical and check with your licensed medical professional to make sure the prospective dietary changes will work well with you.

• Two weeks before any Juice/Smoothie Challenge stop eating the following:



MeatLESSloaf, Mac and Cheese and Kale/Cabbage




• Anything processed including but not limited to: potato chips, frozen dinners, snack cakes and cookies, etc.
• Anything with "white" sugar. Start sweetening your tea's, coffees, with raw sugar, raw blue agave, date paste or raw organic honey.
• Meat and Dairy.

By gradually removing these foods from your diet, you help your body to adjust to the cleansing that is going to take place during the juice/smoothie challenge. 

This doesn't mean starve yourself. This doesn't mean you can't eat "real food". This means start making whole food meals to provide your body with the proper nutrients it needs. And get rid of the foods with the high sodium, preservatives, sugars and such. This will also help alleviate those strong cravings and help your detoxing time to be less emotional. (more to come on the emotional aspects of doing a detox)

• One week before stop eating:

Raw Spinach Lasagna (click image for recipe)

• All of the afore- mentioned, and...
• anything cooked...Try your hand at making raw food meals. 

This will help your body begin to get adjusted to the prospective cleansing it will undertake with this juice/smoothie challenge. After all, the juices and smoothies will be made from raw foods...just in liquid form. Doing this, also teaches your body to get full from the whole food nutrients its getting, thus allowing you to fully enjoy the entire process of this juice/smoothie challenge.

Now I know the holidays are here and we want the foods we're accustomed to, but if you could just try to make at least a few raw plant based desserts, you'll really do your body some good. Raw Desserts Here.

Before you know it, Jan 1st will be here and you'll be roaring to go! Your body will begin to get energy from the nutrients of raw foods and you'll surprise yourself with how well you can glide through this.

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Related Posts:

Join Us For the FREE Juice/Smoothie Challenge
5 Steps To Making Juice Without A Juicer 

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PLEASE NOTE! This sites content (including but not limited to: all food, hair and skin care recipes; tips; tutorials; writings; and, downloads) are absolutely free to the public! Because it's free, I ask one simple favor in return, as your token of appreciation for my humanitarian effort...I realize you may want to share and maybe even use Veg Vivaciously's content in your business(es) (including but not limited to: blog(s), e-zine(s), website(s), free publication(s), etc). You can, as long as you (1) do not charge a fee; (2) cite the direct link of the Veg Vivaciously content used; and, (3) include the verbiage below with the Veg Vivaciously content used:
 

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This content was originally from Veg Vivaciously, a website that teaches healthier alternatives one veggie at a time. You can get your FREE (food, hair and skin care) recipes, tutorials and other writings and tips directly at www.vegvivaciously.org. PLUS you can stay connected and join the Veg Vivaciously community on Facebook, Twitter and/or even download the Veg Vivaciously Toolbar and/or Phone App to stay in the know!

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Copyright © 2011 Veg Vivaciously All Rights Reserved.

JUICE/SMOOTHIE CHALLENGE: 5 Steps To Making Juice Without a Juicer

So you want to join us and do the Juice/Smoothie Challenge but you're a bit apprehensive because you don't have a juicer? Well this is for you! I always post my juice/smoothie recipes with 2 explicit ways to make your juice. One way, through the juicer (obviously)...The second way through the Vitamix! That's right you can make juice through your Vitamix! Now...before I get started telling you how to do this...let me just say, if you don't have or can't afford a Vitamix or any high powered-industrial kitchen blender...don't fret! You can use any blender, it just might take a little longer to blend everything up. 

Here's what you need:

• Nut Milk Bag or Paint Strainer Bag
• Big Bowl
• Blender 
• and of course the ingredients to whatever juice you're making

TIPS: 

(a) A nut milk bag and a paint strainer bag both work the same. However, the paint strainer bag is less expensive. I bought 4 from Ace Hardware for $2.99. I think the average nut milk bag is about $10.00 or so. 

(b) Wash them and reuse them. 

Here's the steps for making juice in your blender... 

(1) Put your ingredients in the blender. Tip: Always add at least 1 cup of water.

(2) Blend like crazy until everything is emulsified...kind of smoothie(ish).

(3)Wrap the elastic top of the paint strainer bag around the top of the blender.

(4) Pour the blended mixture, with the bag on top of the blender, in the bag-inside of the bowl. 

(5) Take the bag with the smoothie remains and milk it like you would a cow. Sounds silly, but its the best way to describe it. I usually twist the top of the bag real tight so no pulp leaks out...then I get to squishing the bag until there's nothing left to squish.

And Voila! You now have juice! Pour it into your glass or containers to drink throughout the day. It's much simpler when you actually do it. When I first discovered how to do this, I stopped using my juicer because it was less clean up and much faster doing it this way. 

TIP: Put your pulp in a freezer baggie and throw it in the freezer and make crackers, cakes, cookies, veggie burgers, etc from it. 

Just in case you need a visual of what I explained above. I found a video that someone did that shows you how to do exactly what I've been saying for all these months...hope this helps.

 

Please Note: Veg Vivaciously is not affiliated in anyway with the person in the video and do not have rights to this video in any way.

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Related Posts:

Join Us For the Free Juice/Smoothie Challenge

Listening to Your Body

Transitioning Tips For A Healthier You

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PLEASE NOTE! This sites content (including but not limited to: all food, hair and skin care recipes; tips; tutorials; writings; and, downloads) are absolutely free to the public! Because it's free, I ask one simple favor in return, as your token of appreciation for my humanitarian effort...I realize you may want to share and maybe even use Veg Vivaciously's content in your business(es) (including but not limited to: blog(s), e-zine(s), website(s), free publication(s), etc). You can, as long as you (1) do not charge a fee; (2) cite the direct link of the Veg Vivaciously content used; and, (3) include the verbiage below with the Veg Vivaciously content used: 

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This content was originally from Veg Vivaciously, a website that teaches healthier alternatives one veggie at a time. You can get your FREE (food, hair and skin care) recipes, tutorials and other writings and tips directly at www.vegvivaciously.org. PLUS you can stay connected and join the Veg Vivaciously community on Facebook, Twitter and/or even download the Veg Vivaciously Toolbar and/or Phone App to stay in the know!

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Copyright © 2011 Veg Vivaciously All Rights Reserved.

Join Us For The FREE Juice/Smoothie Challenge

Greetings Veg Heads!

In case you haven't heard. Veg Vivaciously is teaming up with Raw Raw Life to do a Juice/Smoothie Challenge. I'm writing this pre-challenge post to help prepare everyone for the Juice/Smoothie Challenge that's creeping up on us. It starts January 1, 2012 and is going to go on for 60 whole days, ending March 1, 2012. What better way to start the New Year? During this time, I will post on this blog page a Juice or Smoothie recipe every day for the entire 60 days. Usually I do this on facebook and twitter, instead it will be hosted on the blog. This may be helpful for those of you who may be "on the go"...you can download the free Veg Vivaciously phone app and get a daily juice/smoothie recipe that will come right to your phone! Not to mention, Raw Raw Life will post either daily or weekly youtube video's, which will make you feel like you're literally walking in her shoes as she unveils every ounce of herself by sharing her juice/smoothie experience. If you have not checked out Raw Raw Life's video's then you really should check them out...go on! Check them out here!

(shameless plugs for our blog sites and such are over)

This post isn't for my tenured Veg Head Vets! It's for all of the newbies out there that say, "I can't do that," "I can do it for a week," "I can't afford that," "I might be able to afford it for a week, maybe two," "I can do it through the week, but on the weekends I need to eat solids." Trust me, I can relate to these comments and more! I didn't just wake up one day and decide to have the lifestyle I have...okay maybe I did...but even in doing so it takes time. I had to go through some transitioning periods, and let me just tell ya, it hasn't been...wait, I'm speaking in past tense...ha ha ha...it ISN'T easy! 

My first Juice/Smoothie Challenge, I joined some group (forgive my moment of dementia but I can't remember which group on facebook hosted it...) but I do remember I lasted all of 3 days...3 days...and got off of it and ate a calzone (of all things) and uum it was super loaded with cheese! The thought of that calzone is making my mouth water as I type...so lets just move along...

My second Juice/Smoothie Challenge, I lasted a week. *the crowd goes wild* I was ecstatic that I lasted a week.  I remember feeling so accomplished. Then I got off of it and ate raw food. I didn't come off of the Juice/Smoothie Challenge properly at all. But hey, at least I did it!

In between going on to my next challenge I did a 3-day watermelon cleanse. (yet another shameless plug) After doing that cleanse, I felt I could do anything. Not because I had accomplished this cleanse without cheating, but because this cleanse was the "research initiator" for me. Doing this cleanse really opened my consciousness to learn about foods, their nutritional value and how to let my food be my medicine and my medicine be my food. After researching everything under the sun about watermelons. I wanted to learn more. But about health and temperance and the proper way of doing things. So there were two books I immediately read: Ministry of Healing, by Ellen G. White and Soak Your Nuts, by Karyn Calabrese. 

Now, I'm not posting these books for you to run out and get them, unless you absolutely want to. Also, I am not a paid sponsor for either one of these books, I'm really sharing the information about these books because they both reached me on different levels. Ministry of Healing helped me to see that this new lifestyle change wasn't just about "diet"...that it actually formulated and worked with 7 other areas that were necessary in my life. Sunlight, Rest, Air, Water, Exercise, Abstemiousness and Trust. Without realizing the full potential and importance of these 7 areas, the new diet would fail and be nothing. Soak Your Nuts, helped me realize the importance of letting my food be my medicine, by the way that Karyn (yeah we're totally on a first name basis, cause I read her book and everything...) literally opens herself up unveiling every ounce of herself and her journey in her book. Not to mention, she breaks down the nutritional value of specific foods, shares some of her recipes from her restaurant and helps to coach you to a better you. Then she literally walks you through a 28 day detox...which was the next detox I did. 

I did her detox so well. *no pictures paparazzi, please* Why? Because, I had a better understanding of what my goals at that point were. I was open, willing and ready to accept these changes while also learning about myself with all my "stuff---baggage" and I was ready to deal with the emotions that would come out while revamping my life. I was learning the importance of food and how it had a strong role in my personal, social and family life. (I'll speak more on this in blog posts to come)

I'm sharing this to show you that Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will your lifestyle change in a day. Whether you're doing this to lose those pounds you've picked up over the holidays; as a detox; or to jump start your new healthier lifestyle, be patient with yourself...listen to your body...know your expectations...know your limitations... But at the same time, don't doubt yourself...Don't psych yourself into thinking that you can't or else you won't...and last but certainly not least, NEVER CONTRAST YOUR JOURNEY WITH SOMEONE ELSES JOURNEY. Each person is different; Therefore, each journey will be different. I get asked all the time, "How do you have the plant based lifestyle that you do?" The items listed above are some of the things I tell people.

So if you join this juice/smoothie challenge and you only do it for one day, guess what? That's one day of juice and smoothies that you never did before! I applaud you! I thank you! I welcome you! Whether its one day, one week, two weeks, or the full 60 days. Thank you for joining us on this challenge.   

And if you read this and still don't want to do the juice/smoothie challenge...then you're still one step closer...because I'm just willing to bet...there was a time you wouldn't even bother to read about it. So thank you too! 

JOIN THE JUICE SMOOTHIE CHALLENGE 

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Related Posts:

Listen to Your Body

Transitioning Tips For A Healthier You

Veggie Tales

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PLEASE NOTE! This site (including but not limited to: all food, hair and skin care recipes; tips; tutorials; writings; and, downloads) are absolutely free to the public! Because it's free, I ask one simple favor in return, as your token of appreciation for my humanitarian effort...I realize you may want to share and maybe even use Veg Vivaciously's content in your business (including but not limited to: blog(s), e-zine(s), website(s), free publication(s), etc). You can, as long as you (1) do not charge a fee; (2) cite the direct link of the Veg Vivaciously content used; and, (3) include the verbiage below with the Veg Vivaciously content used:

-------COPY BLURB BELOW-------

This content was originally from Veg Vivaciously, a website that teaches healthier alternatives one veggie at a time. You can get your FREE (food, hair and skin care) recipes, tutorials and other writings and tips directly at www.vegvivaciously.org. PLUS you can stay connected and join the Veg Vivaciously community on Facebook, Twitter and/or even download the Veg Vivaciously Toolbar and/or Phone App to stay in the know!

-------COPY BLURB ABOVE-------

Copyright © 2011 Veg Vivaciously All Rights Reserved.