Juicy weigh in

It's the final day of my juice week. Technically if you follow the plan in the 7lbs in 7 days book, you should juice on day 7 and have your first meal in the evening on day 8, but I'm cheating and having my first meal tonight on day 7. 

I've done the plan for the full 7 days twice before so it's not that I can't last that long, in fact I haven't been hungry once this week. The thing I've missed most is the act of cooking something. It's my excuse to have the kitchen to myself and have music blaring out of the ipod. So as soon as I've posted this and organised my playlist, I'm heading into the kitchen to cook up a storm. (Not that I'll be able to eat much, I always find the juice week seriously shrinks your appetite).

The worst part of the week is always the first 2 or 3 days when your body is going through a withdrawal of all the chemicals/sugar/caffeine in your normal diet. I went to bed early on day 1 with a massive headache and slept for 15 hours!

And now the weigh in. This should have been tomorrow morning too but I always like to see what weight I am before I start eating again. In the past I've found that as long as you are eating healthily you continue to lose weight during the week after the detox.

Please bear in mind I'm holding the camera while on the scales (it adds 10 pounds right? Ok, maybe not that much...).

Day 1: Friday 14th Jan:

12 stone 9 lbs

Day 7: Thursday 20th Jan:

11 stone 12 ½ lbs

Total lost: 10 ½ lbs

And as a reward this morning look what the postman bought:

It's the yarn for the crochet along!

Yarn choice - HJCAL

I've finally ordered my yarn for the hooded jacket.

I decided on an aran weight, and wanted an acrylic/wool mix similar to the discontinued yarn the pattern calls for. I had a trawl through various online shops to see which manufacturers made the kind I wanted in the price range I wanted, then went direct to their websites to see all the colours available.

I couldn't picture the colours together very easily so I saved the pictures to my computer and used GIMP to play with the different combinations and patterns. I saved a swatch with my final colour choice and a few versions of the combos (yes, I do have some OCD tendencies thank you):

I ended up ordering it all from one seller on ebay as I struggled to find one shop that stocked all 4 colours and the postage prices were pretty ridiculous. I could buy another ball with what they ask for postage! 

How about you? Have you bought yarn especially for the jacket or are you using it as a stash buster? I don't have a stash big enough to bust yet, but I'm working on it!

P.s. it's day 4 of my juice detox, the end is in sight, all downhill from here!  I'm hoping I do the 7 days as planned but as Thursday is both food shop day and my final day I might have my first evening meal on Thursday instead of waiting till Friday.  Hmmmmmm decisions.

That time of year again...

It's that time of year again. When I've eaten loads of rubbish, my "get up and go" is AWOL, I'm overweight and I feel generally down and pathetic. Time for a juicy detox.

For the next 7 days I'll only be having fruit and veg juices and smoothies, water and herbal teas. I've bought all my fruit and veg ready for starting tomorrow. Two bowls:

And a fridge full:

I'm using Jason ("The Juicemaster") Vale's recipes again, but this time I'm not following a specific book. I'm using the main idea from the 7lbs in 7 days book and the main smoothie, but I've picked recipes from all his other books and made up my own 7 day plan. It's easier this way as I know from experience that I won't drink any of the juices that use ginger or any smoothies with banana in. *bleurgh!*

This was my shopping list:

Starting weigh in will be tonight/tomorrow morning and another on January 21st. Wish me luck!

(Last year's juice week is here and here.)

Plan of action - HJCAL

First post of 2011, so Happy New Year!  I would have posted sooner but I've been feeling a bit down and generally blah so I wasn't in the right frame of mind for blogging.

I'm happy that quite a few of you want to join me in the Hooded Jacket Crochet Along. So I figured we need a plan of action. 

When?

We're aiming at being ready to begin by February 1st. That gives everyone about 3 more weeks to buy yarn and make sure they've got the right hooks.

Pattern

If you've not already grabbed the pattern go to Jolly Plum's blog post and read the text under the picture, the link to the pattern is there. I've printed a copy off because I don't tend to crochet with my laptop turned on. One thing to watch out for in the pattern is the fourth colour has 1 more ball than the others, that is for the separate hat (the "cap") which is at the very end. If you don't intend to make that there's no need to buy a larger amount of the fourth colour.

Yarn

The original yarn recommended by the pattern was discontinued. From googling it seems to have been about 55% wool, 45% acrylic. The pattern uses 2 strands of "sport" weight yarn. In UK terms that's DK or a little lighter. So you could try it with 2 strands of DK or 1 strand of aran or worsted weight. If you decide to use the heavier yarn, like I am, you can halve the amount required for the pattern.

Pace?

Not being strict about this as everyone has varying levels of commitments and free time. I'd say aim for at least  2 or 3 rows a week on the long stretches and more on the shorter parts.
I suggest we share our progress each week to keep each other motivated. So I'll be blogging it here every Saturday after the 1st, hopefully with a Mr. Linky so those with blogs can link up. Those on Ravelry can join the "Hooded Jacket Crochet Along" group where we'll each have a progress thread. 

Places you can get involved. 
Here each Saturday with Mr. Linky, join the Ravelry group, or add your shots to the Flickr pool.

Bloggers grab a badge:

Please let me know if you have any suggestions about anything. This is my first attempt at organising a crochet along!