Alternate Title: The Incredible Shrinking Man

So here he is in all his glory (with his underwear strategically hidden behind red squares, for your viewing pleasure) –  Zak the Juice Fasting Maniac:

April 22, 2013

Juice Fast Day 1

May 13, 2013

Day 22 Juice Fast

And today, one month exactly from the juice fast start date,

May 22, 2013

Juice Fast Day 31

(Don’t mind the toys on the floor that we failed to kick out of the way for this picture.)

A little excel spreadsheet chart to see his weight loss trend:

Juice Fast Weight Loss Chart

In my post about Zak’s juice fast, a couple of you asked about some of his favorite juice recipes.  Let’s just say that there has been a lot of experimenting on his part lately.  He often makes what he calls “Kitchen Sink Juice”.  I’m sure this title needs no explanation (but here I go anyway.)   He basically piles together whatever he finds in the fridge and then proceeds to shove it into the juicer.  From where I stand there does appear to be some rhyme and reason to what he makes for himself – often adding greens, carrots and beets for the nutrients, plus some apple, pear, lemon, lime and/or ginger to help with the flavor.  But then there was that time that he juiced an onion.  And that day when he juiced 4 cloves of garlic.  We’ve put garlic in juice before – but not 4 cloves.  And not until we had that vampire problem.

I’ve been hoarding links and things to share all month – I better get down to it before the month is over!

Why You Should Drink Warm Water and Lemon

After I read that article (the comments in particular!) I decided to try it.  Hot water with just lemon?  And no tea or anything else?  It was very simple, and I felt like it was worth a shot.  (a shot of lemon.)

It was… nice.  And then I made coffee (with coconut oil) because coffee is nice too.

Have you heard of Cuppow?

Cuppow

It’s a drinkable lid that you can use with a canning jar.

(I think I’ve made it obvious that we like to drink out of canning jars here?)

I love canning jars as glasses mostly because they’re so sturdy – when the girls were really little I was frustrated with how frequently regular glasses were breaking.  I soon noticed that the few small and wide mouth canning jars we had hanging around were the only glasses that were holding up.  I eventually stopped replacing our broken glasses altogether and just used canning jars and old almond butter jars instead.  Soon, our entire glasswear collection consisted of glasses with threading at the top.  Oops.

The Fountain of Juice

April 3rd, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (4 Comments)

Yesterday was my 34th birthday.  Thirty four.  What a perfectly ordinary age.

Although I think I’m officially in my “mid-30’s” now.  How about “early in my mid-30’s”?  That’s a little easier to swallow.

Getting older isn’t so bad, it’s the looking older part that doesn’t thrill me.  There are more gray hairs sprouting from the top of my head than I can/should pull out now.  I’ve been noticing more fine lines around my eyes lately too.  And there is definitely less distance between the floor and my butt these days.  Hmmm, what other embarrassing things about myself should I admit here?  I think I’ll stop now.

A Few Juicy Details

March 25th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (8 Comments)

I am definitely on a green juice kick right now.  Let’s chat a little bit about juicing today.

We’ll start with a quick primer on the differences between fresh juice and smoothies because this is a question that many people have.

Fresh Juice

(This was Carrot Apple Ginger Juice – it’s one of my favorite non-green juice combos!)

Carrot Juice

Juicing extracts the liquid from fruits and vegetables, bringing much of the plant’s nutrients, vitamins and minerals along with it, while leaving the pulp behind.

This Post Contains Three Useful Items

December 19th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Life - (9 Comments)

I’m on reprieve from my usual cooking, cleaning and other domestic duties for a bit here thanks to an early Christmas gift for the girls.

Surprise Toronto Trip

We’re in Toronto! Me, two girlies, one fetus and one Granny Weeds.

CN Tower

We had to leave Dad at home to go to that pesky thing called work. Don’t feel too bad for him though. He threw a party over the weekend, he gets a three night break from the bedtime routine and I left him with a crock pot full of No Fry Refried Beans.

Crockpot and Pinto Beans

The Ungreen

November 16th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (6 Comments)

Behold! The most beautiful box on earth.

Kashi Blueberry Waffles

When I spied that magnificent cardboard cube in the freezer case, it looked to me as though each one of those little waffle squares was delicately hand carved by fairies riding magical unicorns through the mystical forest. A magical mystical forest where streams of real maple syrup poured over majestic waterfalls and not a single creature in all the land felt as though they were living with a perpetual hangover.

Now you see why I had no choice but to bring those blue babies home with me yesterday.  This is also why I dove head first into that box first thing this morning.

She Missed the Bus

September 8th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Life - (12 Comments)

Today would have been Ava’s first day at school. Kindergarten, to be more precise. But as the saying goes, she missed the bus.

She Missed the Bus

I’m very grateful that the homeschooling seed was planted in our minds early on because it took me a while to get comfortable with the idea. I use to resist the instinct to hyperventilate at the idea of NOT schooling our kids in the traditional sense. But fortunately we have a large homeschooling community in our area and we’ve gotten to know a lot of homeschooling families and kids, including a couple of incredibly amazing grown up homeschoolers.  I know that homeschooling DOES indeed work and the pros easily out weight any cons. This confidence enables me to take a picture of a school bus driving by the house this morning and I can continue breathing in a normal fashion.