after experimenting with at home juicing for the past few months i finally did a 3-day Blue Print Cleanse (BPC) a few weeks ago and finish another today.
what's so great about juice? other than that it's the nectar of the gods?
well, i started incorporating juice into my daily routine 6 months ago after going vegan/gluten free for 3 months. it helps ensure you consume more fruits and veggies than you might otherwise (unless you are in the habit of eating 4-24 lbs of veggies a day) and for me helps me continue to make healthy food choices throughout the day.
ok, but why put yourself thru the hell that is a juice cleanse? i'm a masochist.
people juice cleanse (only consuming juice for a period of time without solid foods) for all sorts of reasons - mine probably being the least scientific. i did it because i wanted to see if i could. yup - i literally saw this as an adult version of a "double dog dare". i have absolutely ZERO self-control when it comes to food - dessert in particular - and thought a cleanse would be a good way of testing myself and hopefully practicing to become a member of the elusive "people who have food discipline" group i so desperately long to at least be on the fringe of!
why order a cleanse? are you too lazy to make your own juice? YES - i am too lazy.
there are all sorts of juice cleanses out there and you can certainly do it on your own as well. personally i find it difficult to keep up with the amount of produce and juicing necessary for a multi-day cleanse for multiple people. having a prepared cleanse delivered allowed me to stop thinking about the juicing itself and focus on the cleanse.
we think. you drink. MINIMAL THINKING REQUIRED - my kind of cleanse.
how does the bpc work? they send you juice and your drink it.
no really - that one is true. each successive level of the BPC (level 1 - renovation, level 2 - foundation, and level 3 - excavation) includes less fruit juice and more green juice. since i have juiced before and eat relatively healthy (and lets face it "excavation" doesn't sound like much fun) i went with the level 2 "foundation" twice instead of progressing.
the juice arrived before 10:30am on day 1 and was well packaged including ice packs and a neat little cooler to transport your juices in when you're out and about.
Tip: make sure you make room in your fridge in advance so you can put it right in when it arrives - depending on how many days you do it can be A LOT of juice!
juice for days (10 days to be exact - my bf had to show me up and do 7 days - that dog!)
Tip: we saved the ice packs that the juices originally came packed with and refroze them to use when we were out.
juice to go
Tip: although i did not take my own advice on this one AGAIN (because i don't have a life anyway) - i would recommend doing your cleanse MID-WEEK. it may just seem like the universe is conspiring against me - but i LITERALLY get 10x the average number of dinner invites (which is 0 in case you were wondering) on the nights i am not eating.
how did you feel? i murdered a few people but other than that - just fine :)
unlike most people, withdrawl wasn't a big thing for me. i don't regularly drink coffee or eat an abundance of carbs so for me the worst part of juicing is always just the urge to eat/snack. you really start to notice when you rely on food when you aren't allowed to eat it! i tend to snack throughout the day while working from home - it's a way to break up my day and get away from my desk. i also use food as a social tool a lot more than i realized. now that i'm older (but remember not as old as KT!) i don't really go out drinking or partying - and the cleanse helped me realize that my main social functions involve eating so going forward paying particular attention to what i eat when i go out is ultra important.
i also didn't have too many of the "excavation" symptoms that can accompany some serious cleaning out - thank goodness!
morning staples
after starting every day with hot lemon water i would go through my 6 juices roughly 1 every 2 hours between 9:30amand 9:30pm. it was easy enough to distract myself until it was time to have my next juice - but the urge to chew wasn't so easy to overcome! the cleanse instructions come with a few suggestions for "acceptable cheating" (if there is such a thing) that includes things like: veggie broth, cucumber, avocado. i definitely cheated and had a few slices of cucumber with avo on them on day 1 AND day 2.
so the answer as to whether i could do a juice cleanse or not is a resounding - NO (technically). but i think i still got most of the benefits of the nutrient packed super juices despite the cucumber and avo.
on another note – juicing makes your skin GLOW! for me that’s reason enough to do it.
are you gonna go eat tons of crap now? yes - but veggie based crap!
coming off the cleanse i will be trying to maintain a mostly vegetarian based diet with a bit of fish mixed in and as much raw as I can manage. holy hell, perhaps putting that out there will keep me accountable. i think that juicing gets easier the more you incorporate it into an overall healthy lifestyle. between cleanses this time i stuck to a mainly veggie based diet and this second cleanse seems easier both mentally and physically.
i just have to know more about juicing. tell me more!!!!!
i really got inspired to juice after watching the film "fat, sick and nearly dead" by joe cross.
when joe started the 60 day juice cleanse documented in the video he was 100 lbs overweight and on all sorts of medication. the film follows him as he shares the benefits of juicing with others and adapts permanent lifestyle changes in diet and exercise that allowed him to stop his prescription drugs. joe's site "reboot with joe" has tons of helpful information on the benefits and logistics of doing a "reboot" (his term for a juice cleanse) and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. it's really a great resource - bookmark it now!
we're all so excited about juicing at the salon that we decided to do a "JUICE CLEANSE CHALLENGE". over the next month we will each be embarking on our own juice cleanse adventure using different brands/methods and will be writing a follow-up post on our experiences.
what about you? tell us about your juice cleanse experience in the comments below!
HAPPY JUICING :)
// Vanessa