Day 181: Juice Cleanse, Day Two

Juice Cleanse Day Two went an awful lot like juice cleanse Day One. I drank juice and water, didn't eat food, and generally felt pretty good throughout the day. I'm still disappointed at how easy this was.

By "easy" I mean easy-in-all-ways-except-drinking-the-juice. One of the last cups of juice I had was really pulpy, and, combined with the sourness of the whole thing, kinda made me feel like I was drinking vomit. Needless to say, I didn't make it very far through the second gallon.

Did I want to eat food? Yes, of course. But there wasn't much need to do it because I was full on juice, feeling good and committed to goal.

The end of the day was pretty hard because I was starting to feel irritable and pretty tired, but I don't even know if those things were related to the cleanse. Sometimes I'm just irritable, especially when the puppy was dragging me around, acting up, and pooping in the apartment. I also wake up at 6:30 AM, so staying up past 10:30 generally makes me tired.

Otherwise, when I woke up on Day 182 (the day after the cleanse), I felt really, really good, as if I had been eating well for a couple of days and drinking lots of water. That was really the purpose of the cleanse after all, detoxify and rejuvenate. I don't think my hair was shinier, or my skin brighter. My pants fit the same and I didn't lose any noticeable weight, but I did feel rejuvenated. So much so that I'd actually do this again. Like, make a ritual out of it.

This isn't a great, dramatic, horrifying story that makes great blog fodder, but it was a good learning experience! I would recommend it for anyone needing a pick-me-up after the holiday season, after vacations, after bouts of bad eating, as the seasons change.

Honestly, I'm all into this cleansing thing :)

Day 180: Juice Cleanse, Day One

Day 180 was the first day of my juice cleanse, and I'm really disappointed by the results. Mostly because I think it's going TOO well. I was hoping for drama, pain, suffering, failure, and all the other things that make blog posts great.

I thought the hardest part would be not eating breakfast on the first day. I'm a big advocate of eating breakfast, and I tend not to function very well without it, but surprisingly, after 8 ounces of juice for, I actually wasn't very hungry. I also wasn't horribly tempted to get any Cheerios or toast to supplement my juice either.

I figured the hunger, headache and bitchiness would set in around 11:00 AM while at work, but truthfully, it didn't.

I brought a huge Big-Gulp-sized plastic cup to work, full of my juice, pretty sure I would drink all of it before lunch and be caught crouched in a corner eating the whole two-pound bag of pretzels, covered in saliva and crumbs. But, since the juice is really sour, I didn't drink it that quickly, meaning there was a lot of it there whenever I started to feel hungry. Then, I would take a sip of the juice, which filled me up and kind of killed my appetite.

Frankly, I was almost hoping that this would be harder than it is! I'm really not having any problems, except for the fact that I want to chew something. And that's even easily remedied by gum!

...I wonder if I just killed my metabolism for a day?

Day 179: Arden's Garden Two-Day Detox

[Check out how it went! Day 1 here, Day 2 here]

One of the "New Things I have to do this year" was a cleanse. I have always wanted to attempt cleaning out my intestines and also wanted to know what it might feel like to be "cleansed." Will my hair be shinier? Skin smoother? Excess weight gone? Will I be rejuvenated? I didn't know...and therefore, I must cleanse.

I felt this particular week of the year was well-timed for a cleanse. I have just gotten back from Portland where I consumed way too much bad-for-me food, I had just run a 10K, so I didn't need the extra calories, and my yoga class card ended, meaning I won't need energy for that. This was the opportunity to clear out the belly and "purify" or "detoxify" or "whatever-ify" my body.

I found a place close to my apartment that has called Arden's Garden, which is a fresh juice store with a couple of cleanse programs. They've got all sorts of juicy concoctions that range from delicious sounding (apple!) to retch-inducing (wheat grass).

They've got two kinds of cleanses, a two-day and a three-day. The two day involves drinking two gallons of one kind of juice over the course of two days.

Benefits: two days only, Downfall: Same freaking juice for 48 hours.

The three-day requires you to eat raw for one day, have a variety of juices over three days, and eat raw after the cleanse too--which sounds an awful lot like five days to me.

Benefits: Different types of juices, Downfall: That's a long freaking time to think about juice.

So I opted for the two-day. I can do anything for two days. With that decision, I bought two gallons of grapefruit/orange/lemon juice from Arden's Garden.

Want to cleanse with me? Here's the recipe, from their website!

What You Will Need For The Two Days:

48 oz. fresh grapefruit juice
32 oz. fresh orange juice
16 oz. fresh lemon juice
160 oz. quality steam-distilled water
Empty 1 gal. jug for mixing
Funnel (optional)

What To Do:

Mix together for each gallon:

24 oz. fresh grapefruit juice,
16 oz. fresh orange juice,
8 oz. fresh lemon juice and
80 oz. distilled water
- the detox mixture -
Drink 8 oz. every hour -til the total 128 oz. have been consumed- and that's it! No food.