I am a fan of fads, especially ones associated with health. In this day and age, people try anything and everything in order to lose a couple pounds or feel healthier. The biggest up-and-coming health fad is called a juice cleanse and, no, it's not as relaxing as it sounds. Basically, a juice cleanse is a process lasting anywhere from one to eight days, in which a person doesn't consume anything except bottles of juiced fruit and vegetables. Although it may sound the complete opposite of healthy, as you are essentially starving yourself of solid food, there are claimed health benefits to a juice cleanse, such as detoxifying your body, improving energy, and improving your immune system. After hearing all the benefits to a cleanse, I decided to research the different programs and give it a try. I stumbled on a company called BluePrint and they claimed to have some of the best cleansing programs for beginner and advanced "juicers." After reading about the cleanse, the juices involved, and watching YouTube videos of people reviewing the cleanse, I decided to try a one-day cleanse. Even though BluePrint has a service in which you can order the cleanse you want and they send you all the products needed, I didn't want to wait and instead went to three different Whole Foods Markets and bought my six bottles of BluePrint juices that would act as my food for the day. Although I was skeptical and scared of what this would actually do for my body, I was excited to try something new and say that I had successfully completed a juice cleanse.
In the morning, I woke up and was excited to start detoxifying my body with juices. The first juice I had was a green juice with kale, apple, ginger, parsley, romaine, spinach and lemon. This juice wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was still the worst out of the bunch. This was at 10:00 a.m. when I was still feeling optimistic.
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At noon, it was time for my second juice of the day which was a mix of lime, ginger, lemon and agave. This juice was very refreshing and had the consistency of water, so it wasn't very filling, but I still wasn't very hungry at that time, so I continued my enthusiasm; until 1:00 came and I started to get hungry. This was the time of day that my misery began and all I wanted to do was eat real food. But I also didn't want to give up, so I decided to keep myself away from the kitchen until it was time for juice Number Three.
2:00 p.m. was time for my "afternoon snack" of another green juice. By this time I felt weak and I was starting to get a headache and all I could think about was food. This was when my optimism for the process turned into uncertainty. Since this was the last green juice of the day and, from what I read, the last three juices were tasty, I still dragged on with this day-long cleanse, which seemed to have been lasting for three days.
4:00 p.m. slowly rolled around and it was time for "spicy lemonade," which is juice from lemon, cayenne and agave. All I could think about when I was drinking this was how good it would be with a lunch or dinner, not as a meal. I was more than halfway through my cleanse and I was starting to regret my choice of how fun I thought the process would be.
6:00 p.m. meant time for my second to last juice of the day, which consisted of beet, apple, carrot, lemon and ginger. This juice was utterly disgusting. Not only did I feel like I was drinking a bunch of dirt due to the taste of the beets, but as dinner was being prepared for the rest of my family, the aromas of delicious food were haunting me. This was the hardest time for me throughout the whole day. I decided to lock myself in my room away from food and watch "Grey's Anatomy" until it was time for my final juice of the day.
My "dessert" juice at 8:00 p.m. was a cashew milk with cashew, vanilla, agave and cinnamon. This juice was very tasty and probably the only one I would drink on a regular basis. By this point in the day, my hunger wasn't as bad as it had been and I felt relief that my cleanse was complete. Although I still had a headache, it was rewarding to know that I finished the cleanse and didn't quit.
In the end, going on this one-day juice cleanse was valuable, but one day is enough for me. The next morning I felt refreshed and "cleansed," but I was ready to go back to eating food. If you are thinking about going on a juice cleanse, will you be hungry? Yes. Will some of the juices make you re-consider your decision? Yes. Will you want to hide in your room all day to avoid the invigorating aromas of food? Yes. But in the end, will you feel proud of yourself for giving your body a chance to cleanse itself and maybe lose a couple pounds on the way? Yes.
