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Monday, June 22, 2015

Doin' It: My Attempt At a 10 Day Juice Fast

So for the past 5 months, I have been working out and eating a reduced calorie diet. I started in January at a whopping 192 lbs...and I'm 5'2". I'm not proud to admit the harm I was doing to myself but I also found that it began to seriously limit the number of cosplays I could do. After all, there aren't a bunch of larger girls in anime/video games/comics. However, I did not have the desire to lose weight because of cosplay, but for my health. Over those 5 months I was able to get from 192 to 165. I am quite proud of that but I wanted to go further, thus I decided to just try a juice fast.

It started when I watched the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" on Netflix. I know for a lot of people this was their inspiration to start a juice fast. For me, I was just tired of working my butt off 5 days a week in the gym and losing only .5-1 lb a week. I couldn't eat any less, since I was on a 1250 calorie a day budget. So I decided to confuse my body by doing something radical, the 10-day juice fast. The TL;DR version: I drink nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables juice for 10 days.

I use an omega vert juicer that I got from craigslist because I wanted a masticating juicer and not a centrifugal. Basically I wanted my juice to keep longer so I could make larger batches which is only possible from the masticating juicer.

Currently I am on Day 4; and mostly feel great. The only reason I don't feel amazing today is that it is 'Bagel Friday' at work and I get to smell hot bread all day. I decided I will give a day by day break down of how I've felt up to this point, and will update this each day afterwards, including my weight that is taken each morning at 5 am.

Day 1
Starting weight: 165.8 lbs 36.9% body fat

I didn't have any trouble, other than I didn't make enough juice for the whole day. I normally have a breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner juice. I didn't have my afternoon snack juice so that made me a little cranky.

Day 2
weight: 163.6 lbs 37.2% body fat

Another trouble free day. I know most people start having serious withdrawals at this point, but I have been off of soda/caffeine for a couple months by this point so no caffeine headaches. I have also found out I don't care for beet-based juices.


Day 3
weight: 161.7 lbs 36.9% body fat

Keep having spurts of energy and that's awesome. Every time I get a little hungry I just drink my juice and I'm okay. However, my co-workers decided to have an ice cream sundae bar 10 feet from my desk...I wish ice cream wasn't so awful for you! I also had a protein shake today, because I was going to be working out with my personal trainer. However, my trainer never showed up, so I workout intensely for 15 minutes then left home. Too angry to go further. However I believe this is why my weight didn't go down as much :(

Day 4
weight: 161.3 lbs  37.1% body fat

I blame the protein shake for my mere .4 lbs loss. I want to eat everything! Stupid 'Bagel Friday' wafting your sweet, sweet odors in my face all day. I desperately want a bagel, but I don't want to ruin all that I have already accomplished. If I can push through today, then I will be able to push through anything! I have noticed consistently high energy today, so that is a plus.

Also, during all of this I am drinking a TON of water because being dehydrated is super bad for you, and it helps curb my appetite. I'm sure tonight, I will be dreaming of steak and potatoes.

Day 5
weight: 159.9 lbs 36.7% body fat

Wooooo! In the 150s! I haven't been in the 150s since high school, and this is awesome! Overall, today I feel great and I am excited about the juices I have. I decided that I was going to pamper myself today because I think it is important to treat yourself when you are on a meal plan that is so restrictive. I had a wonderful facial, which apparently I barely needed or so she said. My skin has cleared up a lot on this juice fast and it shows. It got a little tough on my way to my appointment because outside smelt like barbecue. A quick swig of my juice though made the temptation fly away.

Day 6
weight: 158.3 lbs 37% body fat

Had some running around to do, and house maintenance which I did not feel like doing on my last day off from work. Managed to get it all done in under 2 hours, so I didn't want to but I buckled down and got it done. The rest of the day I spent playing the Sims 4...a girl's got to relax sometime!

Day 7
weight: 158.8 lbs 37.3% body fat

This baffles me, don't know how this happened but I'm not going to let it get to me. Usually this corrects itself by the next day. I'm not worried about it, it is just a little irritating. I know my body fat keeps changing because I am losing muscle with my fat. I can build my muscle back up so I'm not terribly worried about that. Just not a good way to start a Monday...on a side note, my co-worker need to stop making the workplace smell like a darn Cinnabon !

I broke the fast that night. The mere thought of having to make juice made me legitimately angry. So my hubby and I broke the fast with a salad and rotisserie chicken. It basically tasted like the best chicken on planet Earth! In hind-sight I did realize that I lost a lot of muscle along with the fat which is not the way I want to go. I enjoy being strong and I felt really weak after getting off the juice fast. Overall I wouldn't call it a bad experience, it just wasn't for me.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Resurrection from the Dead

Well...I don't know what to say. I may have forgotten about this lovely blog. No excuses, so I'm sorry.

So now that is out of the way, UPDATE TIME! So Kerrigan was going really well. I had the whole body suit sculpted and ready for molding/casting, the hair was done and I had most of the materials I needed. Problem #1: when I molded one of the legs I found out that the material I chose for making the mold cured WAY too quickly. so $150 down the drain there.


But probably the biggest issue, I've actually lost 15 lbs and am still losing. So now, that foam copy I made of myself is too large and Kerrigan's design does not lend well to splicing together. To make it correctly I would have to make another foam copy of myself ~$200 and redo ALL of that magnificent sculpting. No thank you.






At the end of the day, looking at what would have to be done work wise and what I would still have to purchase to finish her (around $600 ish) it is no longer worth it. I will chalk this up to a wonderful learning experience but I am going to prefer simpler costumes in the future. Maybe more complicated cloth/thermoplastic work but I am going to try to stay away from casting unless it is only 1-2 parts.