Don't Try This At Home

After reading Jamie's lighthearted experience with this Juice Cleanse, with recipes and more "it's not so bad" comments from this site, I thought surely I could manage 3 days of juice as well. After all, how hard could it be?

~Amelia's Juice Cleanse Experience~

On Wednesday I went out and purchased all the groceries. Forgetting, of course, that I'm in Australia where everything is twice as expensive, and although Kathleen (from recipe site) says the ingredients cost her around $40(US), my total was about $75(AUD), and that was AFTER my rewards card got me $15 off. BUT I was able to get all the ingredients in one place, so I was grateful for at least that.

I took the groceries home, plopped them all on the table (at which point Edward came out of his room, looked at me like I was crazy, and left to go do whatever he does in the afternoons), and got to work separating and prepping. I spent the next SIX HOURS washing, peeling, measuring, and bagging the ingredients for each separate juice and storing them in the fridge before heading off to my orientation session.

Ready to make the magic happen

Sigh..I'm so OCD.

When I got home from orientation around 8pm, I spent another hour or two blending and straining the juices.

Juice 1

Straining

All was going fine, until THIS happened:

Accidentally bumped the "pulse" button on the blender when the top was off. And yes, there was mushy veggies all over ME as well. It's a wonder I didn't give up right then.

How Edward managed to not hear my dismay, or come out of his room until AFTER I'd managed to remove all evidence of the catastrophe, is beyond me. But thank God. I never would have heard the end of it.

Day 1
Despite my utter disgust with the ingredients while blending them, I had somehow convinced myself that they would taste good when I got hungry the next day. Wrong.

Juice 1 - Lettuce, celery, lemon juice, apple, kale, spinach, cucumber.
First sip? Horrible. Gag reflex, eyes watering, the works. Apparently Jamie and I have a very different idea of what "tolerable" means. I thought, "It's only half a water bottle, I can do this," and took another drink. Nope, I was wrong. So I watered it down a bit, added some agave nectar, and paired it with my bottle of water to choke it down.
Juice 2 - Apple, pineapple, mint.
Not so horrible, yet not as flavorful as I thought it'd be. Much easier to drink, though. Maybe it does need rum and a little umbrella.
Juice 3 - A repeat of juice #1.
Adding agave and vanilla to this one made no difference. I thought maybe my straw had made it taste worse, so I tried straight chugging this one. Worked much better. Also started Juice 4 at the same time as a chaser.
Juice 4 - Water, lemon juice, agave nectar.
Lemonade. Unsweetened. No problems here. Got a little sour near the end, but otherwise fine.
Juice 5 - Beet, carrot, apple, lemon juice, ginger. 
Dreading it. I know I'm going to have to chug/choke it down. It just smells like dirt. Bloody dirt.
UGH. Also tastes like dirt. Don't know if I'm gonna finish this one. 
Nope. Executive decision to eliminate this one made. Down the drain it goes. My vegetarian friends will be getting a nice donation of veggies this Sunday.

How much I *tried* to drink before dumping it.

Juice 6 - Cashews, cinnamon, water, agave nectar, and vanilla extract.
Easily the most pleasant, and a welcomed finish to the day. Entire time I was drinking it though, the TV commercials continued to show me burgers, pizza and pasta. I've never heard my stomach rumble so much. :(

Day 2
Woke up late (11am), so got a late start, but having eliminated #5 from the lineup I figured I'd be okay.

Juice 1 - Was able to chug it down in 3 swigs. Only gagged once. Progress.
Juice 2 - A little sweeter than Day 1, as I added a bit of agave to it when blending last night. Also used it as a chaser for Juice 1.
Juice 3 - Forgot the kale in this one today. Not intentional, just forgot to add it to the blender. not like it made a difference in the taste - still like chugging liquid celery. Blech.
Juice 4 - Seems a bit more sour than yesterday; otherwise, just lemonade.
Juice 5 - Nixed yesterday. Moving on.
Juice 6 - Yummy again. I might actually make this one again after the cleanse. It's sweet and makes a nice nightcap.

Day 3
Juice 1 - Beasted it. Down in 2 long chugs. Next.
Juice 2 - For some reason, the blend for this one seemed to make less juice each day, so I added some water to it. Easy peasy.
Juice 3 - Took 3 chugs, but knowing it was the last yucky drink helped get it down.
Juice 4 - Not sure why, but it always takes me hours to get the lemonade down. Maybe because I rush through the first three so quickly that I try to make this one last because there's only one left.
Juice 5
Juice 6 - Enjoyed it while watching Happy Feet on TV.

The Cons:
-As Jamie mentioned in her post, this was extremely time-consuming prep work. I spent 6 hours prepping and sorting the ingredients, then an hour each evening on days 1 and 2 blending and straining for the next day.
-I missed food. I really just missed chewing things like bread and meat.
-On days 1 and 3, Edward was thoughtful enough to eat out for dinner. On day 2, however, he just sat there at the table eating fried chicken right in front of me while I blended my cucumber spinach celery mush. It was pure torture.
-I had to stay home/inside. Any venturing out, like I did to pick up my paintings from the framers on day 1, simply slammed me with food temptation from every side.
-I think it was driving my flatmate crazy. He would sigh loudly every time he opened the fridge and saw all my vegetables, and I was constantly in his way when he wanted to "put on the kettle for some tea" in the kitchen.
-Sh*t's expensive. Just saying. 
-It really dried out my lips. Not sure why, because I was definitely hydrated.
-Speaking of hydrated, I had to pee. all. the. time.
-Despite what others described, I did not find the beet juice "tolerable" by any stretch of the imagination. Down the drain it went after one taste. Why can't someone make a delicious cleanse?
- I had vivid dreams about food every night: pizza, chocolate cake, and then honey walnut shrimp. 
-It seemed pretty wasteful. Not because of the unused veggies (I donated those to vegetarian friends), but because of the bowls and bowls of pulp that were strained out of the juice after blending. I had to empty the trash every evening, it was so full.

Seriously - had this much pulp for each bottle that I strained(minus the lemonade). So..this times...12? Yeah. 

The Pros:
-I got a ton of use out of my blender.
-I started something healthy, and I finished it.
-I'm super hydrated. Hooray.
-I know better than to ever do one of these again.


I did this cleanse for a few reasons:
-It's a healthy thing, and those are supposed to be good for you.
-I thought it'd be a quick way to shed a few pounds. I don't have a scale though, so we'll just assume I lost 10 pounds. Scoff at that number all you want, ladies (and gents), but even though I skipped a juice, I didn't cheat. Not once. No yogurt, no granola bars, no pretzels, not even a cup of coffee. Nothing but juice and water. So accurate or not, I feel I've earned that 10.
-I had nothing better to do these 3 days. So why not?

Would I recommend this cleanse?
Yes. I would recommend this cleanse to people who despise food and are gluttons for veggie puré and misery VEGANS.

:)