In order to give up coffee in the morning I needed something that would replace it that would give me a good shot of energy. All my life I counted on the caffeine high to get me started every day. When I switched to Raw Juicing I never once missed the old coffee kick. The boost that I got from drinking raw juice was a much smoother and better feeling energy source.

One of the things I discovered was that it takes a lot of fruit and vegetables to make a nice size juice. Of course choosing foods that have a high amount of water content will minimize that down a bit. I started out with all fruits in the beginning but I was dropping body weight very rapidly at this point. One of my goals was to hold onto my muscle mass while reducing my body fat levels but unfortunately I was losing both!

I did some research online to find out how to get more protein in my diet so that I could hold onto the muscle and discovered that fruit for the most part acts more as a cleanser and does not have a lot of protein or fat in it. Leafy green vegetables on the other hand are considered builders because they are higher in protein than fruit. So, I began to add things like kale, spinach and swiss chard to my juicing to get the protein from vegetables. This helped but it was hard to get a lot of juice from leafy vegetables so I decided to create a two-stage mix for my breakfast.

I would juice a combination of fruits like citrus (oranges, lemons, grapefruits), apples, and melons (honey dew, cantaloupe, water melon), along with celery, carrots, beets, and ginger. Then I took that and combined it in the blender with foods like kale, spinach, sprouts, straw berries, basil leaves, and mint leaves. This turned out to be a very good idea for me as I was now getting super concentrated nutrition in the form of this smoothie combination.

My weight loss slowed down a bit and I later added things like chia seeds, hemp seeds, almonds and even a raw egg to the mix in order to increase my protein intake. Adding these crucial protein rich foods allowed me to maintain and even increase my lean muscle mass over time.

This meal of super concentrated nutrition was not only filling but also gave me the boost I needed for several hours and was easy to digest which helped maintain those energy levels because there was very little energy lost in the digestion process.

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