Juice Cleanse! Day 9!

Still going strong… but had to adapt a little more. I had a few green juices today, but I was gone for too long to not eat. I also got a headache at one point, so I knew my body needed food today. I had 2 salads as well as a few clean snacks in addition to my juices. And I’m truly feeling great now. Tomorrow is going to be an even busier day as I will be gone from 10am until 11:30pm. So I’m going to have to plan several juices as well as several meals. I will keep in the same theme of the salads and what not, so I’m still definitely cleansing, it has just been adapted on this second round. No workout today… I took a rest day. Tomorrow I’m gonna try to get one in early and I also have band practice for 2 hours at the end of the day. So… I will still get some physical activity. And that’s pretty much the story for day 9. Not the most exciting report but all is well and there lot’s more to come. Have a great night!

“If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” – Bruce Lee

Juice Cleanse! Day 8!

It’s late and I have an early start tomorrow, so I need to keep this short. Today we started the second round of juicing and it was tough. My body was hungry all day regardless of how much juice I drank. I did manage to workout this morning. I went with the P90X Cardio X routine… a nice 45 minute workout and that was about as much as I could do. I feel good, but have also realized that I will need to slightly adjust this part of the cleanse. While I do plan on consuming mostly raw green juices for the next 3 days, I also must supplement with some clean food. About 30 minutes after my workout I ate a cup of organic blackberries. An hour later I had another juice.  Tonight we had a nice clean salad as an evening meal. I will continue like this for 3 more days and then it’s back to eating and juicing. I will say, I have gained an entire new respect for my digestive system and I am so much more aware of how it works, what it likes and dislikes, etc. I plan to continue juicing daily even after this cleanse and I expect my body to continue to improve with each day.

Nite nite and here’s a little inspiration for ya…

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can! and I will!

Juice Cleanse! Day 7!

This is actually yesterday’s blog, just coming a little late. I spent several hours editing video last night and then was just too tired to even try to put something together. Today is already slammed, but I wanted to share a little something.

Yesterday was the last food day before returning to another 4 days of pure juicing. As with all of the food days, we began with a juice. Here’s what it looked like before…

And after…

This recipe included: Chard, Cucumber, Celery, Romaine Lettuce, Parsley, Lemon, Lime, Ginger

I ate very well yesterday. Lots of veggies and proteins, salad, protein shakes, greens, almond butter, alkaline water with chia seeds, etc. With these 3 food days, I also did 3 days of weight workouts. Yesterday’s was P90X Chest, Shoulders, Triceps and I did my own Abs routine.

Today began Day 8… juice day. These next 4 days are going to be a bit of a challenge as my entire week is filled up with meetings, auditions, and a lot of work away from the home office. Being that I will be gone for long stretches at a time, I will probably have to eat a little… just some veggies and stuff, but something to keep me from totally crashing at work or totally bombing an audition. lol.

We are half way done and this has been an amazing experience thus far. In the first 7 days, I actually lost 6 lbs… not that I wanted to lose weight, but obviously it is to be expected. I will gain a little back naturally after the next round of food days, but the best part is that I will now have a perfect and toxic-free foundation to begin building healthy, lean muscle.

Until later… have a fantastic day! And chew on this…

Fear is a habit; so is self-pity, defeat, anxiety, despair, hopelessness and resignation. You can eliminate all of these negative habits with two simple resolves: I can! and I will!

Juice Cleanse! Day 6!

Just wrapping up day 6 of my cleanse. I must admit, days 5 and 6 have been quite good. Even though I’m still cleansing, I am eating well. Once again, the plan calls to start the day with a juice. Here’s what ours looked like before it became juice this morning…

Ingredients include (all organic):  Spinach, Collard Greens, Cucumber, Celery, Dandelion Root, Lemon, Lime, Ginger

As with many of my juices, I topped it off with a few shakes of Cayenne Pepper and Turmeric.

After that it was protein shake and workout time! Today brought on P90X Legs! I’m sore already… but my body is feeling great. I have eaten a lot of good foods today including 2 plant based protein shakes (one with greens), a gluten free oatmeal blend, raw almond butter, tempeh, pumpkin seeds, and a delicious dinner that Mary made us as seen below…

Photo by Mary as well.
Ingredients (all organic): sprouted tofu, spinach, mushroom, broccoli, green peppers, and onions

She very lightly sauteed this and only seasoned it with a little pepper and sea salt. It was a bit like a scramble, but halfway between raw and cooked. We topped it off with avocado. Yummy. 🙂

So far so good. I have been eating smaller amounts at a time and really focusing on chewing better and swallowing with less air. Most of my life I have swallowed food with a lot of air as well as not chewed as much as I should. As I’ve learned, that can have a negative effect on my digestive system. When gas is created in the intestine, not only is it uncomfortable, but the food is not being digested as completely and therefore some of the nutrients are not being used by the body. This cleanse is most definitely more than just resetting my body… it is teaching me a whole new way to fuel myself.

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful weekend. Goodnight.

Juice Cleanse! Day 5!

FOOD DAY! 🙂  Yep, days 5-7 are food days and boy was today awesome. I proudly made it through 4 straight days of nothing but green juices and today was like a special treat. On the food days, we start with a juice and then eat clean veggies and proteins all day, but no sugars, fruits, or starchy carbs.

Here was breakfast…

This turned into our morning juice. It was an improvised recipe including: kale, chard, parsley, cucumber, celery, dandelion root, and lemon.

After this juice I had a little raw almond butter and than a plant based protein shake. I had more strength today, so I did the P90X Back and Biceps with Ab Ripper X workout. After my workout, I continued my eating orgy with another protein shake and an oatmeal blend. As the day went on I added tempeh, cucumbers, and broccoli. Of course, lots of alkaline water and water with chia seeds, etc.

Mary and I had the pleasure of seeing a special screening of “Silver Linings Playbook” this evening which was followed by a Q&A of the entire cast! On the way home we stopped at the Sun Cafe for some delicious organic raw food. I have noticed that my taste buds have never been more alive. Everything is so delicious and I feel great putting this optimum fuel into my body. I have also learned that eating less at a time is so much better for me. So instead of eating everything we ordered tonight, we ate until we were satisfied but not full and brought the rest home. My digestive system is so much happier… no bloating or discomfort like I have gotten in the past when eating a big meal. As a matter of fact, I am already hungry again, so I’m going to go eat more! Yay! 2 more days of this and then back to juice. Before I go… my thought for the day…

Waiting to develop courage is just another form of procrastination. The most successful people take action while they’re afraid!

Nite nite.

P90X – Round 2, Day 81!

Slammin’!

P90X – Back Chest and Biceps
P90X – Ab Ripper X
Total Time = 73 Minutes

You will notice a line through Back above and in it’s place Chest.  Today I guess would have been a chest and something day.  But I wanted more bicep action… especially since we got the new 90 lb. stretch bands.  I gotta be honest as well… tomorrow I am working on the NBC show “The New Normal”.  This is the rescheduled date from last week.  I will be playing a Go Go Dancer in a gay night club and of course will be shirtless.  I wanted to get a good pump today so that I’m looking extra swelled tomorrow. lol. Chest, biceps, and abs seemed like the best way to go.

I did the back and biceps routine today as that is the best bicep workout in the program.  During the back exercises, I subbed in chest.  I pretty much followed the chest routine from the chest and back workout.  I hit em both hard.  Using the new heavy duty stretch band, I really was able to work my biceps.  It felt like I was pulling a lot more weight and I was diggin’ the challenge.  Overall a great workout… and then I hit abs.  I was pretty burned by then.  The last few workouts, I did Ab Ripper X first which proved to be a good idea.  Doing it at the end of an insane workout is tough.  But I chugged along.  I wanted to mix it up anyway today, so I did about half the moves from the program and the other half with my own twist… planks, various crunches, etc.

Ok… now it’s off to groom and prep for my shoot tomorrow.  I probably won’t be checking in here again til Friday, so enjoy the rest of your week and have a great night!

P90X – Round 2, Day 80!

First lift with new stretch bands and rockin’!

P90X – Shoulders and Arms
Total Time = 64 Minutes

The other day we picked up some new resistance bands.  I had just burned through another one and it was time to step up.  We found a pretty cool band system that actually comes with 3 equal bands at 30lbs of resistance each.  You can attach 1, 2, or all 3… 30, 60, or 90 lbs. of resistance options.  I put on all 3… and didn’t look back.  🙂

I powered hard through this workout.  The new bands definitely made a difference as it felt like I was lifting heavier.  So I really got to feel the extreme of this workout.  Even with the heavier bands though, I still could have used even more on some of the exercises.  But this was definitely an improvement and the gym workouts will allow the true heavy lifting, as I am striving to do more and more of that these days.

I left out AB Ripper X today because I did it yesterday instead.  I feel quite good right now.  My arms and shoulders definitely got worked today.  And if you’re keeping score, today was officially workout 80 of 90 of this 2nd round of P90X!  Whoo hoo!  Although on this 2nd round, I not only have been swapping in gym days which has caused the official count to take longer on P90 workouts, but at this point, I’ve completely gone AWOL from the exact program breakdown.  I’m still doing the workouts in similar orders and groupings, but I have really changed it up a lot as I feel that right now my body needs more focus on heavier weight training.  I will knock out 10 more P90 workouts… not sure which ones yet.  It will probably take more than 10 days as I am sure to hit the gym a few times as well.  But, I will finish what I have started and then re-asses how my workout structure will go.  Stay tuned!  And have a great night!