Juice Juice Baby

If you have ever worked or lived with me, you know that I am a juice cleanser. I have gotten so many questions about this in the past 2 years, so I will share my thoughts. I know it helped me to read other people’s posts about what they went through and if it was worth it. I did my first cleanse in 2015 and have done about 5 or 6 since then, all through Jus by Julie. I saw an FB friend post about her cleanse and then a girl from work was telling me that her doctor recommended that she cleanse to pinpoint her allergies, particularly to gluten.

For me, it has always been enjoyable and easy to do the cleanse. The only hard part is avoiding social eating and also getting back the mojo for solid foods afterward. We make eating a social experience and the juicing can make you somewhat of a pariah for the 3 days. You have to learn to say NO a lot. No, I don’t want a donut, thank you. No, I don’t want to grab a drink after work.

So here’s the deal, you go to jusbyjulie.com and order a 3-day cleanse. It starts at around $100, which is mighty expensive, but you figure that for all your meals for 3 days, it is possible in some worlds that you might spend that much on food if you eat out. Also, would you pay that much to lose 3-5 lbs and feel fantastic? I would. Especially during wedding season.

So this big box comes to your house and there are 18 frozen juices inside. 6 a day for 3 days. The bottles are numbered and you are meant to have the heartiest one for dinner (#5). You thaw out the first 6 and keep the rest frozen, and then repeat the next 2 days. I have ordered a 1-day cleanse in the past and they sent me this handy lunch-sized cooler but I don’t think they are giving out cooler bags anymore. I also have 2 large ones that I always take to Aldi and the beach.

Anyway, get yourself a small cooler and cart around all the juices all day if you are going to the office or whatnot. You have to have a bathroom nearby. This is the hard part for people who have jobs where they are say, teaching in a classroom or operating a forklift and have a harder time with hourly bathroom breaks. Since you are thinking it, I’ll tell you that nothing unpleasant happens in there, but you are flushing out toxins and drinking a lot of liquid so you will have to go on the regular. I recommend drinking a gallon of water a day for maximum results. A trick I used to do is when I finished a 16oz bottle of juice, I rinsed it out and filled it back up with water. But you have to drink water first thing in the morning, at least 20oz and preferably hot water with lemon if you can.

The best thing about juice cleansing for me is the disappearance of cravings. It’s actually creepy how the nutrients alter your brain. Cravings go away in the first day. You are consuming about 900 calories/day, most of which come from fruit and vegetables. I felt amazing, light, healthy. And I lost 5 lbs on my most recent cleanse. I started eating terrible food a few days later, like a cheesesteak and soda, and I put back on a few of the lbs, so it is sadly not a perfect system. I fell back into bad habits as soon as I was finished juicing. There has got to be a middle ground though. I will certainly juice again and hopefully I will stay far far away from the cheesesteak next time.