What Gets Me Through a Juice Cleanse
Also read “Ramping: How I Prepare for My Extended Juice Cleanses“
It’s Day 8 of my juice cleanse, and here are some of the things that I use or consume on a daily basis.
Although there are a lot of fruits represented here, some vegetables I’ve juiced constantly include carrots (of course), cucumber, celery, beets and kale. Fresh and frozen fruits include strawberries, blueberries, pineapple (my absolute favorite), gala apples, mangoes, fresh limes and lemons. Store bought juices include Pom pomegranate and 100% Acai juice. I’ve also relied on ginger root and fresh mint to give the vegetable juices some warmth and kick. Supplements such as protein powder and vitamins are also necessary. Finally, because of the level of detoxing that comes as a result of juice cleansing, lots of filtered water is vital. Here are a few of my must haves:
Strawberry smoothies! The homemade ones are my favorite but as you can see I like Stonyfield’s, too!
I adore making smoothies! This one was made with organic blueberry and yogurt. I might have thrown some fresh cucumber juice into it for a fresh edge.
The Breville juicer comes with this handy brush which helps make clean-up a breeze.
Olive, coconut and avocado oils. These come in handy for salads as I ramp up and ramp down. Coconut oil is also a super moisturizer for skin and hair!
These little smoothies are my addiction. They’re great while on the go, and when I don’t have enough time to throw some fresh juice together. The empties fill my recycling bin!
This is the best juicer I’ve ever had. Easy to clean and I love how one can just place a plastic bag in the pulp dump container and toss when done. Easy peasy. LOVE my Breville!
Some of the numerous health benefits of aloe vera juice includes serious detoxing, increasing metabolism, and strengthening the immune system. I mix several ounces of this with pure pomegranate juice and drink once a day. Not crazy about the taste, but mixed with the juice it’s not so bad. Can’t deny the benefits!
This is an old, old blender from the 90s. I use it for making smoothies. I love dumping fresh juice into this baby and blending it up with frozen fruits, milks such as coconut, soy and almond, and more. My little ancient blender still does the trick!
I still continue to workout every week day, and the act of sweating totally helps my body with its ongoing detoxing efforts. Because I get majorly hungry after a half hour of cardio, I follow up with a rich thick smoothy featuring bananas, coconut milk, organic yogurt and blended fruits of choice.
There are other ways of helping my body detox and right about now I’m feeling pretty good. I no longer have cravings and have reached that place where I feel that I can go on indefinitely.
Ironically, because I do want to continue to lose weight, I’ll probably break my fast sooner than later. I’d like to push the calorie burning envelope and it’s too hard to do while fasting–I can’t keep up with my body’s need for calories and focus on my work. As I mentioned last week, this is the first cleanse where weight loss is a goal, so I had no idea the level of hunger I experience in the middle of the day after a medium cardio burn (roughly 250-300 calories) would feel so uncomfortable. If I wasn’t keen on burning more fat and toning muscle I would probably continue to 100% juice for a few more days. But for now my body’s telling me to start ramping down (re-introducing raw foods) over the next couple of days while continuing to enjoy juice and smoothies. All in all, this cleanse was definitely one of the easiest ones I’ve done. I can’t wait to juice cleanse again over the Summer!
