Facelift

Even though today I should be working on my business, and sewing a robe for Imbolc, and cleaning the house, and thinking about clearing the greenhouse while it's sunny..... I've spent the morning giving my blog a facelift. *oops*

I was link hopping through a couple of crafty blogs and spotted one with a little badge in the top left corner (like mine now has) and clicked it (like you do). The badge takes you to Shabby Blogs who have created a bunch of backgrounds, headers, badges, and dividers that can be used free of charge to pretty up blogs. It is a rather girly selection but even I managed to find something not pink (I'm not a pink 'n' fluffy fan). So thank you Shabby Blogs!

My "Juice Yourself Slim" weigh-in

The 7 days of nothing but juices, smoothies, soups, and salads is over. This morning we've done the final weigh in, photos, and measurements, and I'm looking forward to a breakfast of toast from my freshly baked loaf *drool*

I want to keep up the juicing though, and I want to try and have at least one juice or smoothie a day from now on, and eat healthier generally. I like how when I'm doing a juice week my mind is so much clearer, when I just eat "normal" food (i.e. anything I like, usually junk) I feel like my head is constantly battling with fog. I also want to cook more from scratch, which will help towards eating healthy, as it's hard to accurately recreate junk food because of all the additive crap they put in it.

So, drum roll please, the final results are in:

Weigh-in

Myself:

Starting weight: 11 stone 13 lbs
Weight after 7 days juicing: 11 stone 2 lbs
11 lbs lost

Sam (my boyfriend):

Starting weight: 21 stone 1 1/2 lbs
Weight after 7 days juicing: 19 stone 11 lbs
1 stone 4 1/2 lbs lost!

We also measured some areas to see how many inches we lost:

Mine, 6.4 inches lost overall:

Sam's, 7.65 inches lost overall: 

P.S. I also forgot to mention that neither of us has done any extra exercise this last week, in fact we've done less than usual. It just shows how effective this method is!

My "Juice Yourself Slim" week

Haven't posted for a while, mainly because I've been gearing myself up to juicing. This week (18th to 24th) I'm doing a juice "diet". I hate the word diet by the way, I like to think of it more as a fast or programme, while the author of the books I follow wants it to be a lifestyle change. The author is Jason Vale (AKA Juice Master), I've previously completed his "7lbs. in 7 days" book (where I lost about a stone I think, can't find my notes). Due to all the crap going on in my life at that time it didn’t become a lifestyle change, and my juicer soon started gathering dust again. Since then my boyfriend has moved in with me and I've put the weight back on that I originally shifted with juice. *sigh*

Soooooo I've talked him into doing it with me (no tempting smells in the house that way!) and I'm using a slightly different plan this time from "Juice yourself slim". This one is juices and smoothies in the day and a soup or salad in the evening. I just didn't fancy nothing but cold raw juice alone in January.

The basic ideas behind juicing:

• Your body gets more nutrients than usual from foods you wouldn't necessarily usually eat. (I'm a fussy eater so I don't eat celery, spinach, etc, but I've got no problems drinking them)
•  The smoothies are made with things like whole avocados, bananas, and live yoghurts, so you are still having "whole" foods as well. (The first time I juiced I was having driving lessons and my instructor was reluctant to let me behind the wheel till I explained I wasn't about to pass out from not eating! In the end she borrowed the book and did 7 days herself too!)
• Giving your body all these vitamins and minerals in liquid form means it's easy to digest, your body is getting more fuel than usual and not having to work as hard to use it, so you have more energy not less.

It doesn't upset your stomach either. Each day is mapped out with a list of recommended juices/smoothies/soups and it's all been planned to give the best nutrition and balance. This plan recommends 4 juices/smoothies in the day and then a soup or salad at night, I've only been managing 2 or 3 juices and the soup. I'm genuinely not that hungry. It shows how much food I usually eat that my body just doesn't need.

Here's some pics:

This is some of the stuff I had to buy, was still missing the apples and a couple of other things at this point:


Some juices and smoothies:


The 2 soups we've had so far:
Carrot and butternut squash:


"Souper green stuff" (leek, courgette, spinach, brocolli, celery):


I wasn't very keen on the green soup but I think if the recipie was modified a little and we ate it with bread then it wouldn't have been so bad. The carrot and squash soup was lovely though, will definately be doing that one again post-juice.

I did have a major headache on day 1 as I was detoxing from my normal food (No tea or chocolate this week!). If the results are good enough I may post the before and after pics of me on here too. Final weigh-in and pics of myself and boyfriend to compare will be the 25th.

If you want more info on Jason Vale's juice programmes here's his site: JuiceMaster.com

Chainmail from pull tabs - help me!

First off, Happy New Year to anyone reading this! We've made it to 2010, congratulations.

I want to show you a project I'm working towards, chainmail made from the pull tabs on drinks cans. This is the method I want to try: Instructables - Genuine-chainmaille-from-pop-tabs

I'm not sure exactly what it is I want to make (apart from chainmail) maybe a bag, maybe a costume, meh, it's the idea and the look of it that attracted me. I have a problem though, I hardly ever drink soft drinks (without alcohol in them anyway!) and I can't stand the taste of beer, bleurgh. So I've been relying on other people remembering to save them for me, which isn't working out too well so far. I've been collecting tabs for about 12 months now and this is all I've got:

It's a mixture of silver and gold in a couple of different styles of tab, I'm keeping them all till I decide what I want to make. I thought maybe the gold could be used to make an image or for decoration amongst the silver ones..... anyway.

In America people save these and sell them on ebay, but no ones does it in England, and I can't afford to ship them over. So I thought I'd write a blog about it on the off chance someone who drinks lots of cans wants to help me, or in case someone knows how I can get hold of them faster.

So if you can help or you want to help could you leave me a comment please? I'd be eternally grateful, you could possibly save them and post some and I'll reimburse the postage?*



*within reason, if you sent it from america with it's own first class seat I'm not going to obviously.