The following is a guest post from a subscriber and regular reader Peter Gibson. You'll find his Interior Living Room site here. He has been juicing for 2 years now, and with my advice has grabbed a few fitness and cleansing products (this one's his favorite ;)) and adopted some juicing techniques that have - to date - helped him lose over 25 kg.
Since this is my first guest post on Juicing Recipes I really felt I should share my first and biggest influence, the one thing that really turned me into a juicing fanatic. (Aside from this site that is :)) That one thing was The Juicing Bible (by Pat Crocker and Susan Eagles). No I'm not affiliated with the authors (as Phineas is prone to say) however you can grab your own copy via Amazon through any of the links provided on Juicing Recipes (or by clicking here, here, or here).
Now you may be wondering why I would waste my introductory article here to rant about someone else's books and advice, so please keep reading and I'll try my best to explain.
You see, not terribly long ago (in dog years) I bought The Juicing Bible book because I was wondering just how best to use a new, fancy juicer I received as a Xmas gift. There's a picture of my juicer somewhere within this post (again, all nicely linked to Amazon should you wish to purchase one for yourself).
When I first opened up the juicer I thought it was a partially assembled Death Star, complete with some sort of quasi nuclear reactor. It was expensive according to my brother (who always finds it necessary to mention his financial commitment to gifts). I immediately thought to myself "wow, here's something I can secretly refund and put the money towards a new flat screen!!". Once my brother shared the fact that this juicer could juice super-foods like wheat grass and goji berries, well I was thoroughly convinced that my larger screen TV dreams were about to come true.
I need to qualify that back then I had become a lazy slob, and my brother knew it. That might not be such a big deal for some, except for the fact that for most of my adult life I've been involved heavily in physical activity. However, at or around my 35th year on planet Earth I had lost my energy and interest in so many things as my work in interior design overtook my entire life. I stopped playing racquetball with my mates, I'd lay around watching bad TV all day, I had Zero energy and couldn't for the life of me figure out why. I wish I could avoid mentioning that I also gained a spare tire that made me look oddly similar to Mr. Magoo. But I can't. My belly looked horrible and my skin became loose and just a big pile of whale blubber.
It was at or around this point that my niece and nephew started calling me "Grandpa", and by adding insult to injury, that very same Xmas my wife put Geritol vitamins in my stocking - as a joke. Now I do love my wife a great deal, but deep down that just wasn't funny to me. Oh sure I laughed and hugged her, but secretly I fully realized I'd become listless and in poor spirits without ever knowing why. Heck, just walking upstairs to lay down in bed was a chore.
Of course I went to the doctor in the new year to find out just exactly what in blue hell was wrong with me. As Doctors do, they offered me prescription after prescription in order to boost my energy level. Their various Diagnoses went from the sublime to the ridiculous. According to one GP I potentially had low blood sugar, another mentioned a possible thyroid condition, and yet another called it depression, or sleep apnea. Most of these conditions involved semi-extensive and invasive tests and expensive treatments, and I really didn't feel like being poked and prodded at that point.
So, instead of taking back my Star Wars Juicer and filling up the medicine chest, I set out to try juicing on the advice of my brother in law. In his words "It'll fix you right up".
Of course I had no idea how to juice oranges, let alone try an elaborate juicing regimen. Off I went to the Amazon site, where I grabbed The Juicing Bible. The book is exactly as the title represents. It is the bible on juicing. It makes for an excellent nutritional reference and espouses the many benefits of adding juice (in many a weird and great tasting combination) to you daily life - for a boost of energy and to improve the quality of life.
So back to the question, why did I waste my first guest post promoting this book? It's simple. That book forced me, through the vast quality of information presented, to plug in my juicer and have at it. As such, it became my body's owners manual for 6 months. Without that book I would have been lost, even with the best of intentions. Like I said previously, when you get a juicer - either by choice or as a gift - it can be a tad intimidating - learning how to use properly and clean the parts when finished. If you don't know a smoothie from a rum and coke, figuring out what to juice can be slightly less difficult than quantum physics. With some things, trial and error is not the best way to go, and where juicing recipes is concerned, knowing what to juice is just about the biggest issue. With the advice listed in The Juicing Bible and other similar juicing manuals I was able to do it right the first time - all while keeping me from becoming bored with the process.
The end result was that my energy level not only returned, it increased, and I haven't been a lazy slob since. It took roughly 2 weeks to feel the positive effects from daily juicing, but when it happened it was brilliant, shocking, and a total surprise One morning I simply woke up feeling as if I could run a marathon. Now, 2 years later I am 26kg lighter, my niece and nephew have to strain to keep up with me again, and the only spare tire I own is located in the trunk of my car.
So if you're feeling like a half-sucked orange, before you start taking anti depressants and blowing a pay check on elaborate multivitamins, go and grab yourself a quality juicer and The Juicing Bible. It may just be the one thing you need to pick yourself up from that middle age slump. Worked for me.
