This juice detox isn't your standard drink-more-juice-than-you-can-stomach + starvation diet. It's not even a "diet" so much as it is a dietary reboot. It got me interested because 1.) it's free and 2.) it require us to use our Blendtec a lot. I guess there's a number three, which is that I've never "cleaned out" my system and I really felt, after that vacation, I had never needed it more.
Blender Babes suggest using a Blendtec or Vitamix, but they say all of the recipes are also standard blender-friendly. In addition to the Blendtec we needed to stock up on about $50 of produce and some liquid stevia. You could probably spend less on produce, but I prefer organic. Side note on the liquid stevia: we had been led to believe that agave nectar is the way to go to sweeten drinks, but Blender Babes don't like it, I think due to the processing through which agave nectar goes before it gets into a bottle and to the grocery store.
Blender Babes offer an options pre-detox five-day place to gradually eliminate common problem foods from our diet; they suggest this to avoid shocking the digestive system. By the fifth day we were eating no meat, gluten, wheat, artificial anything, processed anything, dairy, soy, and caffeine. After the fact, we feel that we could manage the juice detox again without needing five full days to clean out our diet. If we do it again, we'll probably take three days instead.
On Friday we started the juices. In the morning we had "morning water," which is just a warm cup of filtered water with lemon and fresh ginger. Throughout the day we had six juices, all but one with a coconut water base and featuring a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, notably beets, jalapeno, and kale among a lot of your standard juicing fruits. Admittedly I cheated between the mid-afternoon and dinner juices. I was craving to chew on something so I had some almonds, a prune, and a carrot.
I thought I was done after one day, which is the standard amount of time to do the detox, but decided to give it a second go on Saturday since Joe was feeling it. Also, I hadn't pooped yet so I thought that maybe I needed more to get everything out of me. I enjoyed the juices a LOT on day two but by the evening I was struggling. Never was I hungry, but again I just really wanted to chew some real food. I gave in and instead of the dinner and dessert juices (numbers five and six respectively), I had a chicken salad. I felt terribly guilty, but I had also gotten very irritable, which made me feel more terrible for how unfriendly I was being.
On Sunday morning Joe and I had a 12-mile run on our marathon training schedule. We woke up, and weighed ourselves, both happy to have been down to our pre-vacation weights! This didn't all happen over the two days of juicing, but started instead during the five days prior. Also, I finally pooped on Sunday morning and I lost ANOTHER pound just from that. Yeah, it was quite a poop. Apparently there was a lot of nastiness just chillin' in my digestive system for way too long.
After juicing we are to follow the same regiment as leading up to the cleanse, only backwards. That made it a challenge to run 12 miles because we couldn't have any of our regular long run fuel--no Clif bars or shot blocks, no gels, no gatorade. We bagged up some almonds and managed to pull out 12 miles, even if they were a little slower than usual.
As we gradually shift back into our "regular" diet, I'm glad that I did this juice detox. It was really easy and I think I could definitely do it again and better--that is, without getting all whiney again. Today I feel good, especially knowing that the juices pushed out so much gunk. Also, beets do funny things to your poop.
Hi Krista, thanks for sharing your knowledge, you can check out our Residential Juice Fasting Detox at The Beach House- Goa, India
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Team Beach House