Juice extractor makes a difference for me in losing weight

[spring]

I bought a juice extractor the other day thinking I want to go on a juice fast and I think I've found a way to stick to Wai's diet at last!!!!

I am drinking homemade juices and I am starting to lose weight and I feel fantastic!

I am no longer obsessing about munch food all the time. In fact I am quite content to consume juices all day long.

I wasn't like this before, and I could not stick to Wai's diet in the past for long periods and it was a constant battle, like "I was on a diet".

The things that could have caused these changes are:

1) I use a juice extractor instead of a blender.

With a blender that I used to use in the past, the juice was a pulpy mess. It couldn't be strained because it was like puree. It didn't look good and it didn't taste so good.

Add oil and egg yolks to this and the concoction was like medicine - to be hurriedly consumed for health reasons.

With the juice extractor, only clear liquid is collected. A juice extractor - I have one that works as a food grinder as well - it has a turning screw kind of setup - is expensive - mine was $130 - but it's worth it. I find it easy to use and easy to clean up - rinse after use.

2) I do not add yolks to the juice. I eat the yolks separately. Before I was adding yolks to the juice because I did not like the taste of yolks and thought the juice would disguise the taste but I realize doing this detracted from the taste of the juice for me anyway (others may disagree) and made the juice-drinking even more unpalatable (when I was using a blender).

3) I add only a small amount of oil and although this is not part of Wai's diet I have been adding sunflower oil with olive oil to the juice. Personally for me, I have to have a small amount of polyunsaturated oil to function better and because I don't like nuts, I think that's why I am drawn to sunflower oil. This oil is a bit lighter and less strong tasting than o.o. and that's why I like it in juice. I hardly notice I am drinking oil in the juice now.

4) The other thing I am doing is I am carrying the juice in a screw top bottle instead of a drink canister (with a large opening). I have bought a big funnel and I pour the juice into the narrow neck of the bottle (just a 500 ml drink bottle I bought from the shops - I poured out the contents) and screw the lid tight. I zip from the bottle and don't have to worry about the juice dribbling on the outside of the container making things messy and sticky and hard to carry around.

I always carry the bottle in a plastic bag just in case of leaks and punctures though.

5) I am juicing greens as well: celery, parsley, cucumber. And carrots. Now I know this is not part of Wai's diet but I do this for taste reasons. I sometimes want a savory tasting juice after consuming sweet all day and a green juice gives me that. I put that down as part of my munch food allotment and don't feel guilty about doing that. Most people who drink greens do it for supposed health reasons - see vegan sites - and don't really like the taste much. I am the opposite. I like the taste - it 'cleans' my palate - and I am not doing it for health reasons. I understand that in the Wai diet you can live without greens (not including cucumber which is a fruit).

I feel when the savory munchies come on and I start thinking of eating savory cooked munch food, I can nip that in the bud by drinking greens and enjoying the drinking of that. It might be psychological I don't know but it seems to work in preventing me from going on cooked food binges.

6) I supplement this by drinking store-bought tomato juice. I know this is not part of Wai's diet because you should make your own as this is fresh and 'uncooked' as possible but I like to alternate orange juice and tomato juice at work, and tomatoes are rather expensive to juice. So are oranges as this is tangerine country where I am living but I am splashing out to make the diet work.

And I find I am saving money! I thought buying these huge quantities of produce would be expensive and I do go through a lot in a short time but I am not wasting anything, and I am not frittering a spare dollar or two everyday buying this snack and that snack which all adds up calorie-wise and moneywise.

7) Because of the extractor, I can juice a wide variety of fruits - I juiced oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, greens and carrots the other day. Four different juices and I had tomato juice at work too so I felt satisfied by the variety and not bored. This helps me keep on the diet and motivated - I am thinking of what fruits I'd like to juice - it's like a menu at a restaurant so this is good - not all the same everyday though orange is the main juice. I am even thinking of making juice combinations like at the juice bars - ginger and lemon and apple for instance.

With this juice extractor it is like having a juice bar at home.

8) Because I am zipping from the juice bottle whenever I feel like it, I am not allowing my energy levels to ever plummet. So I feel that I am losing fat at a faster rate than I was before. I feel energized and high. I can concentrate for sustained periods at work and I do not feel lethargic after meals.

9) I add sugar to the juice for taste.

So I found that Wai's diet is working and I am sticking to it more easily than before: the main differences for me is that I am using a juice extractor and adding less oil and a combination of oils and I am leaving out the egg yolk.

I do feel that I need egg yolk still as the other day I got depressed and I think that was due to lack of cholesterol. I have been eating sashimi - frozen fish though :( but this didn't seem to prevent the depression - it was that time of the month though.

I am starting to get the hang of it - zipping whenever energy levels are low and not worrying about consuming too much and trying to avoid fasts (going for long periods without food).

I have noticed my seemingly stomach bloat has gone down considerably and I can even notice faint muscle contours in the abdominal region.

I feel optimistic and I like the diet (for the first time) now. I feel I can stick with the diet longer than I could in the past as it's almost effortless these days. In fact, juicing is less work than all the cutting up, drying, and "cooking" I was doing when I was trying raw vegan gourmet recipes like making cakes and live pizza and so on. Actually I don't regret that period because it least satisfied my curiosity about what raw cakes etc tasted like as they looked so good in pictures .... verdict: the food looks much better than it tastes.

But now I am back to following Wai's diet almost 100% and I feel good. I think whenever I am thinking of lapsing I will go on a juice fast but do it Wai-style with the oils and making sure I eat egg yolks along the way.

Homemade juice tastes SO much better than store-bought juice too. I love orange juice now.

I am also going to buy a 600mL juice bottle and use that instead of the 500mL because I go throught the 500mL really fast. I might even have to carry two bottles - different juices in each as I don't want to be caught hungry at work.

I didn't think of cooked munch food at work at lunchtime all week. I used to eat my fruit and feel deprived and think of the 'nice' munch food my coworkers were having in the cafeteria but when I now think of the clean sweet taste of freshly squeezed orange juice and the greasy overcooked mashed up stuff they dish up in the cafeteria heavily dosed up with spices and salt, I realize now I was eating very unnatural and unhealthy food that was addicting and made me sleepy and fat.

I really have little time to eat cooked food. I have so much juices (five oranges, 1 grapefruit, four tomatoes, 3 punnets of strawberries, 4 sticks of celery, bunch of parsley and 1 large carrot all in a day) that I have no room for cooked food or for a lot of cooked food, I must admit I have a small bowl of rice with my sashimi sometimes.

And then food is not on my mind all the time. If I start thinking about food, I zip from my bottle and then I forget about it.

The only question I have about doing all this is the lack of fiber in the diet. I have asked that in the fruits section.

[claireelis]

that's great news that juicing is working so well for you!!!! when reading the forums juicing + oil really seems to be a key component of the diet working well for people.

[Oscar]

Good to hear!

I personally don't like adding egg yolks to OJ either, but my mom does...guess it's personal.