Day 1 - STARTING NEW

Good Morning All.  I have decided to start new on my fresh start journey.  It is always good to come back to the beginning and cleanse your body - flushing out the toxins that have accumulated since I stopped juicing.  So, I am committing myself to a fresh start, starting today, Monday, 11/21/11.

Since I last blogged, both my daughters are into juicing.  My oldest daughter joined us and she is doing really good.  She loves it now.  We all went to the Farmers Market today and bought most of the vegetables in bulk.  This was my first time there and it was like walking into a candy store. I will definitely return.  When you want to juice, it takes alot of vegetables and fruits to make juice for all 3 meals so it is best to buy in bulk if you can.  A good thing about buying in bulk, we can divide it into 3 parts and we all save money.

I will not be able to post all the ingredients I am using because lack of time.  I have to be out of the house early, but I will take a picture of the juice prepared and will list ingredients later.  I will weight myself in the morning as I did before.  So for the next 10 days, I will be juicing, morning, lunch and a drink and salad in the evening.  This is going to be hard, since Thanksgiving is this Thursday.  I know, you must be wondering why I am starting.  Well, for 3 days I will get a good start with juicing.  I will not feel guilty and drool over the turkey that will make its debut at the dinner table by my nieces house.  Cravings will be less and I can still eat and enjoy myself.  I am also going to the 5k Turkey Trot with my daughter early in the morning.  I will need to be fit for it.  I am blogging this to keep myself accountable to what I am saying.  So here it goes.  I am starting out with a 6 oz glass green drink

My first time on the scale in a while.  No numbers will be posted here as I didn't post it before but I will say how many lbs I lost. Yep!!..I gained 3 lbs from my last blog.  Not what I like to admit but that is it.  Thank goodness it isn't more than 3 lbs.!!!.

Tonight I will put the ingredients down.

Thanks for stopping by..please leave a comment!!

Day 47 - I have made some changes

Hi everyone!!..I know I have not written a blog in a while.  That is because I am getting pretty busy and revamping my business site Sodie's Inc. since I am getting calls for catering.  That is good since the economy has hit me hard with less calls for almost a year.

So, here I am, still juicing but I also added regular meals to my juicing.  I want to add that I have lost another 4 lbs since my Day 40 blog.  I have now lost 29 lbs and do I feel great...You betcha I do.  I still have alot more to lose and I will get there eventually along with improving my health. This morning I had a half of a cantaloupe and for lunch I had a 6" veggie sandwich.  It was good!!. Now for dinner we had a delicious stuffed acorn squash..oh yes!!..I can say it was heaven divine! This is very filling!

Acorn Squash Stuffed with Wild Rice

Ingredients

1 acorn squash 

1/2 cup of Wild Rice

1/2 cup chopped onions

1/2 green pepper

3-4 Shiitake Mushrooms

Serves 2 

Cut the Acorn Squash and scoop out only the seeds.  Place 2 halves facing down on a plate and microwave it for about 10-12 minutes depending on the size of the squash.  Check with a fork to see if squash is tender. In a separate pan saute chopped onion, chopped green peppers and chopped Shiitake Mushrooms.  Stir all together with a little bit of olive oil, a pinch of Herbamare salt and black pepper to taste.  Let this cook for a while and add the cooked Wild Rice to the mixture and then spoon it into the squash shell.  And there you have it..did I say it tastes scrumptious??!!!  ENJOY!

Nutritional Information

A medium-sized acorn squash has approximately 172 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 13 mg sodium, 45 grams carbohydrate and 3 grams protein. Acorn squash are rich in Vitamin A, and are also a good source of vitamins C and B6.

• Acorn squash is rich in phytonutrients, which help the body get rid of toxins and may help prevent cancer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture notes that "it appears that an effective strategy for reducing risk of cancer and heart disease is to increase consumption of phytonutrient-rich foods."

Fiber & Potassium

• Acorn squash are also rich in dietary fiber, folate, beta-carotene and potassium. One cup of cooked acorn squash has 9 grams of fiber, 895 mg of potassium and almost 2 mg iron.

Thanks for coming here to check out my blog.  I will be posting more delicious recipes here.  Have a blessed day!!

Day 40 - God Gave Us A Clue As To What Foods Help Our Body

God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish... all before making a human. He made and provided what we`d need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.  We are such slow learners!!

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!...We call this God's Pharmacy!!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don`t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body..

Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today`s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?  It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries

Oranges, Grapefruits , and other Citrus fruits look just l ike the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body`s cells. Today`s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

How much healthier would we be if we were to pay a little more attention to the foods we are consuming.  If we want to be at our absolute best in body, mind and spirit, check out God's pharmacy...there are no food coloring or preservatives added..everything is fresh!

It has been 10 days since my last blog..(Day 30)  and today is Day 40.  I have lost another 2 lbs which brings me up to 25 lbs.  I am eating more and juicing morning and lunch and in the meantime I am gaining strength and feeling better on the inside.  It is a huge improvement from where I was before I started this diet.

Thanks for stopping by..have a blessed day!!

Day 30 - What Are The Benefits of Collard Greens??

WOW!!..I made it to day 30 and I am walking on a regular basis and I am feeling GREAT!!.  I lost another pound today so now I lost 23 lbs.  I am on cloud 9..I have accomplished what I thought I could not do and I proved myself wrong.  Isn't it great when we are challenged and we feel we can't accomplish the task and it shows us how we are capable of completing that challenge and even go beyond it.  If we only change our thinking to a positive reaction, we can accomplish more than we expected to.  

So, here is a vegetable I have not had yet...Collard Greens.  What you see on the picture is a whole bunch of it which I juiced and here is the recipe

1 bunch of collard greens

l lb abt. spinach leaves

1 bunch of celery stalks w. leaves

8 carrots

2 cucumbers

1 apple

Wash all the vegetables and if not organic..peel the skin.  Enjoy!

When you juice vegetables together to make a green drink..it all looks green..but the taste is not the same.  This has a mild taste to it.  I thought the collard greens would make it bitter but it didn't.  

Here is a recipe for collard greens

Health Benefits Of Collard Greens

Collard Greens help lower cholesterol, collards have proven cancer prevention properties. Collards contain more vitamin A than any other vegetable. It is only over matched by the amounts of Vitamin K found in collard greens.

Vitamin A

Collard greens contain more than 20 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin A. One small cup of raw collard greens contains 2400 IU of Vitamin A. If the collards are cooked, then 15,000 - 30,000 IU of vitamin A is released. Amazing!

Vitamin A plays an important role in promoting healthy eyes, skin and a great boost to the immunity system to help fight disease.

Vitamin C

Collard greens are rich in Vitamin C, 3/4 of a cup of semi-cooked collard greens contain up to 60% percent of the daily recommended allowance of Vitamin C.

Vitamin C is important to maintaining healthy, bone, blood vessels, and healthy skin condition.

Any of the Collard Greens antioxidant phytochemical or sometimes referred to as phytonutrients such as zinc are plentiful in collards as well.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K helps form healthy bones and is essential to prevent blood clotting.

Conclusion

Collard Greens is an important food in the diet of any serious diabetes prevention program. Make it a routine to consume collard greens several times a week. Add collar greens to that favorite green smoothie, yummy:)

Collard Greens Nutritional Rating?

Collard Greens receive a rating of excellent and very good in all twenty two of the vitamins and nutrients found in collard greens.

Thank you for stopping by and being part of my journey.  Have a blessed day!!

Day 29 - The Watermelon Cure

Today is Day 29 in my Fresh Start Journey and I lost another pound which brings it up to 22 lbs in 29 days.  Not bad.  I could not walk since I was not feeling so good.  I think the change of weather brought a slight cold that made me a bit tired.  Now I feel energetic again and went for my walk this morning.  So I decided to juice me some watermelon.  I cut one in half and this is how much juice it gave me.  I am surprised but then watermelon is mainly water.  It's really a treat to find information on food that I am consuming.  The watermelon is just one of the ones I an surprised to learn about.  

Watermelon is everyone’s favorite summer fruit, or is it? Did you know that the Watermelon isn’t even a fruit? Yep!!, neither did I. Here are ten other interesting facts about Watermelon.

The Facts:

1. Not only does it quench your thirst, it can also quench inflammation that contributes to conditions like asthma, atherosclerosis, diabetes, colon cancer, and arthritis.
2. Over 1,200 varieties of watermelon are grown worldwide.
3. Watermelon is an ideal health food because it doesn’t contain any fat or cholesterol, is high in fiber and vitamins A & C and is a good source of potassium.
4. Pink watermelon is also a source of the potent carotenoid antioxidant, lycopene. These powerful antioxidants travel through the body neutralizing free radicals.
5. Watermelon is a vegetable! It is related to cucumbers, pumpkins and squash.
6. Early explorers used watermelons as canteens.
7. Watermelon is grown in over 96 countries worldwide.
8. In China and Japan watermelon is a popular gift to bring a host.
9. In Israel and Egypt, the sweet taste of watermelon is often paired with the salty taste of feta cheese.
10. Every part of a watermelon is edible, even the seeds and rinds.\

For more information on Watermelon's history and nutritional and health benefits..click here

Thanks for stopping by..Have a blessed day and please leave a comment.