The Summer of Juice!

Today was the first day of The Summer of Juice!  No, I am not going to only consume juice for the next three months, but I am going to focus on juice, smoothies and raw veggies for many of my meals and snacks.  All of the biking that I have been doing has been building muscles and helping me to lose a few inches, but I have not been losing any weight.  I am hoping that by emphasizing fresh produce I will both be healthier and drop a pound or two. Of course, summer is also the perfect time for smoothies, juice and salads!  

I have all the appliances that one might want for the task too.  For my smoothie making we have a NutriBullet. (Okay, it is not a VitaMix, but it makes really good smoothies considering it is less than 1/4^th the cost of a VitaMix.) For juice making we have an Omega 8400, which is a fabulous juicer.  

Today I had two smoothies (or what the NutriBullet people would call “Nutri-Blasts” - I will be calling them smoothies). The first had chard, strawberries, yogurt, banana, chia seeds and coconut water. It was quite tasty. My second smoothie had dino kale, mixed berries, raw cashews, goji berries, chia seeds, kava and water. It was not quite as tasty as my morning smoothie.

I have been using the NutriBullet since December and today I learned something new while making that less successful smoothie. I did not blend it enough at first and one frozen strawberry was still whole.  So I put the blade back on and re-blended it.  The longer time in the NutriBullet made all of the components perfectly smooth.  In the past I have had many a smoothie with bits of nuts still in them, now I know that I need to let the NutriBullet run longer until everything looks smooth not just mixed.

Any way, I am not going to chronicle my smoothies every day, but this gives an idea of what I will be making. When I make special smoothies, or if I make an interesting juice, I will post them.  Mmm…  I think tomorrow I will be making Watermelon Juice! 

Clipart of bright yellow sun with sunrays available at ClipartPal.comt

National Bike Month: Day 31

3.2 Miles

And so ends National Bike Month. 306.51 miles is not too shabby! I had hoped to have several more miles banked towards my 1500 mile goal, but what can you do?

Today will be the last day I use the Strava app to map my ride. I think that my cell phone is not up-to-date enough to run it properly. I may look for a standalone GPS device. I think it would get a better lock on the GPS signal and save my cell battery to boot.

Well National Bike Month might be over, but I do have some ideas for nest month and beyond. Stay tuned for updates!

Miles Today: 3.2
Total Miles 2013: 467.6
Total Miles National Bike Month: 306.51
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 306.51
Days in a row: 61

National Bike Month: Day 30

4.4 Miles

Yay! I made it to my 300 mile goal! Now tomorrow I can just take a leisurely ride. Today's ride was really quite wet. I had thought that I would ride to Walgreen's to get a card for Rodney (it is our anniversary tomorrow), but it started to rain on my way. So I changed course and rode to Jensen's. The rain stopped by the time I got there, so when I came out I thought I would take the long way home. Well, that was a mistake. It was pouring rain by the time I got home! Oh well, I got my miles in so I am happy...if a little wet!

Miles Today: 4.4
Total Miles 2013: 464.4
Total Miles National Bike Month: 303.31
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 303.31
Days in a row: 60

National Bike Month: Day 29

6.1 Miles

Drat! Look how close I am to 300 miles! I wish I had realized how close I was to making it, I would have ridden another mile or so. But now that I look at that map I see that the GPS did not hold its route very well.

Miles Today: 6.1
Total Miles 2013: 460
Total Miles National Bike Month: 298.91
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 298.91
Days in a row: 59

National Bike Month: Day 28

3.9 Miles

A short ride today. I am hoping to get a longer ride in tomorrow night. I am so close to my 300 mile goal for the month!

Miles Today: 3.9
Total Miles 2013: 453.9
Total Miles National Bike Month: 292.81
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 292.81
Days in a row: 58

National Bike Month: Day 27

Happy Memorial Day! 

I hope everybody is having a great Memorial Day. I took a nice ride today up to the Veterans Memorial in Bunker Hills Regional Park. Along the way I rode across the floating wood bridge trail. I find it freaky to ride on, but I was the only one on it today so it was okay. I then stopped for a short yoga session along the trail. The maps at Bunker Hill do not mark the Veterans Memorial, so I had to search for it a bit. When I got closer to it there where signs pointing to it, so that was helpful. I did not mean to ride past the tank, but it turns out the trail I set out on just went in a loop around it! 

Miles Today: 9.5
Total Miles 2013: 450
Total Miles National Bike Month: 288.91
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 288.91
Days in a row: 57

National Bike Month: Day 26

I saw a small flock of turkeys on my ride today. 

Hmmm.... I am not pleased with Strava today. Again, it is probably not the app's fault, it is probably my phone. Still the GPS did not read correctly and says that I rode 11.2 miles, but if you look at the Strava map below you will see that it did some funky things to my route. I remapped the route in Google Maps and it was really around 9 miles. I am going to give Strava another chance on a sunny day, since my GPS works better without clouds, but if it does not work that way I am going to let it go. 

Strava was wrong again today it says 11.2 miles.

9 Miles when mapped in Google Maps. 

Miles Today: 9
Total Miles 2013: 440.5
Total Miles National Bike Month: 279.41
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 279.41
Days in a row: 56