Monday, January 28, 2013

My one-day juice cleanse with Juice Press

{ Juice Press juices for my 1-day "cleanse" | January 2013 }

So here's the thing: I don't like the idea of juice cleanses (too restrictive! no chewing?! so boring!).

But here's the other thing: I'm always up for trying something new.

Which is how I ended up stopping by an outpost of Juice Press before heading into work two weeks ago to purchase the 5 juices + 2 nut milks above. One of the reasons I never did this before (besides being somewhat anti-juice cleanse) is because juice places in NYC are super expensive and a lot of them, like BluePrint and Cooler Cleanse are chock full of sugar (which made me shy away even when there was a great Gilt City deal available).

I had been to Juice Press before to buy one-off juices or one of their raw/gluten-free dishes and was pretty familiar with them and their products. So when I thought about trying drinking juice for a day just to see what would happen, I checked out their suggested one-day cleanse. While it was significantly better (both price and sugar-wise) than others, it was still too sugary for me. The good thing is they had enough variety of mostly-vegetable juices for me to put together my own one-day plan and cut the sugar down from more than a cup to about 10 teaspoons (still much more than I'd like, but manageable). I also wanted to put together my own little plan because their suggested one had ZERO nut milk (I don't know how any one could get through a day of just swilling vegetables). Craziness.

Here's my haul and the order I had them in:
  • Cardamom Coconut Milk: coconut water, coconut meat, ginger juice, spices, sea salt
  • Mother Earth: celery, cucumber, parsley, kale, dandelion, swiss chard, lemon, ginger
  • Spanish Fly: cucumber, olive oil, lime, red peppers, parsley, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, amino acids, onion, chipotle, black pepper
  • H2 Gravity: cucumber, celery, kale, lemon, aloe e3 live
  • Drink Your Salad: carrot, celery, tomato, beet, lemon, spinach, kale, parsley, sea salt, garlic, onion, cayenne 
  • Almond Milk: almonds, filtered water, coconut oil, vanilla, sea salt
My favorite blends were the Cardamom Coconut Milk (insanely good) and Spanish Fly (a feisty, slurpable gazpacho!).

How did it go?
Well, turns out there's a reason I don't like the idea of juice cleanses. They aren't fun.

The juices were tasty and the first few were fine, but around 3PM I was dying to chew on something, anything! I couldn't even stomach the last vegetable juice because I'd had enough, so I saved it for the next day. And...I'm not going to lie. When I got home I had a piece of dark chocolate and a few spoons of cashew butter.

I also didn't notice any difference in my energy or sleep or...bodily functions (sorry—just trying to give the whole picture!). I suppose one day isn't enough time to see any difference...or that my intake wasn't that different from how I normally eat, so maybe no major results? Even though I didn't really get anything out of it, I'm still glad I tried it.

But, I was more than ready to tuck in to my plate of sauteed kale, poached pastured egg and feta cheese the morning after.

Verdict?
I'll stick to my usual routine of only-one-a-day green smoothies (not juice) made at home, but will definitely still stop by Juice Press for a fix of raw and gluten-free treats or when I want some variety in the green juice/smoothie department (I have a 1,000 watt blender, but even that's not good enough to pulverize tough greens completely).

Have you done a juice cleanse before? How'd it go?

4 comments :

  1. There is an interesting detox i read about in "french women for all seasons" - which is a weekend of nothing but leaks. What i like about it is that you basically boil a bunch of leaks and drink the liquid and eat the leaks so there is something to chew. :) and no sugar no salt. I did it a few times but just for one day. very nice actually. totally doable. leaks are very tasteful. and you can variate drinking the liquid cold or warming it up like a soup. I think the trick is to find something that you like and works well for you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like leeks, too, but I'd die if I had to just have that for one day! The thing is, my usual way of eating works great for me, I was just curious if I was missing out on something since everyone I know regularly "cleanses". It's just not for me, it seems——one thing or type of thing is no good for my always-needs-variety personality (I'm a consultant, after all!). :)

      Delete
  2. I'm not one to follow a prescribed plan and prefer to just also try to maintain healthy eating -- so I've never dieted or followed an eating plan, until last year where I did a juice fast for 2 week. I felt so fantastic after 2 weeks (energy and my skin) that I kept going for a third, just because. I did not go ultra extreme with the juice fast I followed. I've eaten very attentively the month of January and am actually thinking about starting a 2 week juice fast again. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, two weeks! That's quite a feat! Everyone keeps saying that I didn't feel any differently because I didn't do it for long enough, and I know they're probably right, but I can't imagine doing more days!

      It also probably didn't help that I did it during a very cold snap, and cold juice isn't appetizing when it's freezing out!

      J.

      Delete

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a note—you're about to make my day!

XOXO,
J.