by Lauren Townsend for The Aha! Connection
I imagine that few people spend as much time thinking about food and wine as I do. When I ran into Matt Scott, owner of Press Blend Squeeze, at the Dunwoody Community Tailgate, we had a chat about the 3 day juice cleanse. I have friends who have done it and I see the Instagram posts but both the idea of not eating and the price, have kept me at bay for a year or so. I’ve done the master cleanse (lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne – basically throwing your body into ketosis) twice before; Once while I worked at Whole Foods, pre-kids and the second time a couple years ago but I passed out and my husband banned it forever. I have been feeling tired all the time. I felt like I was craving garbage food. I couldn’t wait until the evening glass (or two) or wine. I decided it was time.
The PBS 3 day, Daily 6 Juice Cleanse breaks down like this:
- Green Juice for breakfast and lunch (kale, spinach, cucumber, green apples, celery, parsley and lemon)
- This is what I usually order when I go to Press, Blend, Squeeze, so I was used to it’s lack of sweetness.
- Yellow Juice for morning snack (pineapple, green apple and mint)
- Definitely my favorite. I would drink this all the time.
- Green Juice again for lunch (see#1)
- Spicy Lemonade (water, lemon, cayenne and agave) not really spicy
- Red Juice for dinner (beets, green apples, carrots, ginger and lemon)
- I like beets and beet juice, but I think it would be the hardest for some folks.
- White for dessert (almond milk, agave, cinnamon and vanilla)
- Basically a less sweet horchata. I actually went out and bought all the stuff to make this at home.
The price is around $150 plus tax and tip (that’s a lot of juice to make). I did the math on how much it would cost me (even if I had a juicer) to buy all the fruits and vegetables to make juice for 3 days and it wasn’t that much cheaper and if I did it myself, I’d have to clean up after that mess. Then I’d be too tired to drink juice for three days.
Matt warned me that the first day would be the hardest, and he was right. It’s purely mental. I wasn’t hungry at all because the juices kept me full. I just missed chewing food and my mind kept sneaking to all the foods that I could be eating instead of juice…Gu’s dumplings, CFA fries and CFA sauce, prosciutto mozzarella sandwich, jalapeno ranch ruffles, queso, queso, queso. I did it though. I made it through the first day and to be honest, it wasn’t hard and the cost of it was part of that. I’m super cheap, so I’d be damned if I was going to let $150 of juice go to waste.
The second day was pretty easy as well. I figured that I would wake up hungry, but I didn’t. I stayed full for most of the day and if I started to feel a tummy rumble, water would work. I did feel good. I also made my kids pizza for dinner and while I really wanted to chew it, I didn’t crave it like I would have normally.
On the third day, I felt awesome. I had been sleeping well and I had so much energy. I did really want to eat, but I didn’t crave anything, maybe dumplings, but not pizza or wine, which is weird. Some joints hurt significantly less or not at all and it was noted by more than one person how much more energy I had. I usually fall asleep putting my kids to bed and instead was ready to knock out another few hours of work.
Also, I was still pooping. What was I pooping out? After all was said and done, I woke up on the fourth day and still felt great. I lost 5 pounds which is probably not long-term, but still feels good and I just feel really good. I had a green juice yesterday and some fruit. Due to a busy day of meetings and failure to meal plan, I drank green juice and ate fruit until dinner because I wasn’t craving anything. I would totally do this once a month if I felt this good all the time. Fresh juices are not cheap but the amount of nutrients and the good it is doing makes it totally worth it, in my opinion.
Obviously, I’m not saying this is for everyone and if you have medical issues, you should probably consult someone. If you are looking to jump start a health/fitness routine or you just want to feel better, I would 100% recommend it. Find out more here.
