F2H Fit Tips: Living the Juicy Life

During my career as a Patch editor, I have made many changes. 

I can now text at the speed of light (comparatively speaking). I traded in my Pontiac for a Kia. I learned how to use Instagram. 

But the biggest change has been joining the F2H Fit effort and pledging to lose weight, get healthier and have more birthdays. I will celebrate my 55th birthday later this year, and my children are in their 30s. It's time to stop hanging on to the "I could just never drop the baby weight" excuse. 

Because I joined in the dead of winter, I decided to start off by eating better. One step at a time, right? 

The first - and easiest - way to accomplish that was to eat more meals at home. I don't enjoy cooking, but I discovered plenty of low calorie, ready-to-eat meals in the freezer case at Busch's, Kroger, Harvest Fresh and Orchard Ten grocery stores. I now read labels and, thanks to Dr. Oz, I know the difference between "whole wheat" and "100 percent whole wheat". 

The more I paid attention, the more information about nutrition started to drift my way. The documentary "Hungry for Change", which touts the benefits of juicing, had a particularly profound effect on me and on my dear husband, who suggested we purchase a juicer. 

The shiny Black & Decker has been sitting on our kitchen counter for more than a month, and we have used it almost every day. Along the way, we learned a few things that I thought might be helpful to share, for anyone interested in improving their health: 

1. Subscribe to a juicing newsletter or buy a recipe book, but don't just drop things into the juicer that sound healthy. (Bonus tip: As one might imagine, beets and parsnips taste terrible together.)

2. Save the pulp, but be sure you have a plan to use it. The first week, we stored seven bags of pulp in a box on our back stairway. Not a good plan. 

3. Buying in bulk sounds like a good idea, but unless you're juicing for the Detroit Lions, it probably is not. Apples, oranges and carrots did okay in the refrigerator for a week or so, but we tossed a lot of parsley and cilantro.

4. Most important: Make sure that you securely attach the pulp bin to your juicer, especially when juicing beets. Take it from the woman who cleaned up the vegan version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

You can sign up for F2HFit here, and be sure to hop onto the Patch team!