Well, friends, it’s the New Year! Happy 2013. For me, 2012 was like every year prior – awash in great rivers of chocolate and fields of pastry. And I know I will make several resolutions this month and break them by February, but I am determined to put in some effort nonetheless.

This year’s big resolution: eat healthier. Perhaps inspired by the likes of Jessica Simpson (60 pounds lighter thanks to Weight Watchers) and Anne Hathaway (she shed some pounds via a strict oatmeal paste diet which is probably not for me, but so happy for Anne and the future boom in dried oatmeal paste), I decided to concentrate on healthy calorie intake via the juicing scene. It’s a big scene and getting bigger.

I first heard about the BluePrint Cleanse while watching Elisabeth Hasselbeck espouse the life saving virtues of “green juice”. BluePrint’s founders, Zoe Sakoutis and Erica Huss, have many many celebrity advocates (Olivia Wilde and Bethenny Frankel among them) and their story (Zoe cured her common cold with raw foods or something like that) is inspiring. They are also everywhere: their green juice recipe or a version of their juice recipe has appeared in almost every January magazine (duh…) I pick up. It must be my destiny to juice…even if I follow it with a slice of chocolate cake.

The basic Green Juice recipe includes spinach, kale, apples, parsley, lemon and cucumber, but you can really toss in any ingredients (healthy ingredients) into the juicer itself. As I am a HUGE fan of ginger, I added a little raw ginger. No harm done. BluePrint recommends having two juices per day followed by a raw vegan dinner. Unfortunately, this is just impossible and nearly comical in my world. I recommend one juice per day, followed by a “light” lunch/dessert/dinner and more dessert. And now off to try on my skinny jeans. Again, Happy New Year and Happy Juicing.

Green Juice adapted from BluePrint Cleanse

Ingredients

Spinach- Handful (3oz)
Kale- 3 medium stalks (3 oz)
2 Golden Delicious apples, cored and quartered – I recommend Fuji apples
Parsley – small handful/ long stems removed
1 lemon- cut and peeled
1 cucumber – cut into pieces small enough to fit through your juicer

(I recommend adding a little raw ginger and a celery stalk)

Directions

Process all the ingredients through the juicer. Run any wet pulp through the juicer. Scrape off the foam and serve.