I Tried a 5-Day Juice Cleanse: I Cannot Do a Juice Cleanse for 5 Days
Juice cleanses are kind of a big deal right now and, if you're anything like me, you may have seen some gorgeous woman with perfect abs on an impeccably-filtered Instagram account posting about them in a way that makes them seem like literally the best thing you could ever do.
Because I'm susceptible to pretty pictures, I've been looking around for a good juice cleanse for a while now. The impression I've come away with has been mostly that holy shit, juice cleanses are expensive, and since I have like, 400 Instagram followers, no one's offering me them fo' free (sadly). You can DIY them, obviously, but that requires having a juicer, and I only recently bought a blender, so suffice to say I don't have one. Juicers themselves are also expensive, and so are the approximately ten thousand pounds of fruits and vegetables you'll need each day (not to mention the time you'll need to juice everything). I work full-time, go to school one night a week, and have a seven year-old. I also need time each night to Netflix and chill with my fiancé, so my time is precious.
I met up with my friend and wedding photographer on a Sunday to talk about my wedding. She told me, in passing, about the cleanse she had just done, and how much she had loved it. Add to that the super exciting (for me, one who loves all foods) detail that you actually get to eat a salad — WITH GOAT CHEESE — for dinner and that five days would only cost me $120, I was sold about five seconds after she brought it up.
It's officially less than three months until my wedding, and though I'm largely feeling nothing but totally psyched, I'm also feeling the pressure to look the way I want in my dress. I'm a very unimpressive 5'3" and curvy. I'm not fat, and I almost always know that, but I have a big ass and wide hips. My fiancé loves my body without conditions, but I struggle daily to do the same.
I've been both over- and underweight in my life, always unhealthy one way or another — overeating or severely under-eating, not exercising regularly — and a smoker.
Now, I work out 4—5 times a week (hot yoga, running, strength training, HIIT) and eat clean about 80% of the time. Pizza Rolls are a thing that exist, and Grand Rapids has been named Beer City, USA two years running, so there's no getting 100% out of me.
I knew that most of the weight I lost on this cleanse would be water weight, and that I wouldn't keep it all off, but I'd had a rough few weeks, food-wise, and was really just looking to re-center my focus. My fiancé, who operates a gym and knows more than I ever will about health and fitness, was dubious (to say the least), and his knowledge of my rocky history with food was at the top of his concern list. I assured him I would be fine.
Monday morning, I placed my order and was told I could come pick up my first day's worth of juices that evening after work. That would be the schedule for the entire week — I would pick up the next day's food on my way home from work each night. They also had a morning option, but I wasn't about to actually wake up early to do this.
I was psyched. I was cocky. I was kind of a dumbass.
Day one was rough. The juices were good, but my body was battling to adjust to no solid food. Plus, I may have had some extra snacks and a beer the night before as a last hurrah, so it was a sharp drop-off. When the coworker who sits behind me spent fifteen minutes chomping chips, I swear to God, I almost slapped her. When I got home, I had to make mac-and-cheese for my seven year-old, and it took every bit of my admittedly limited self-control to not eat some.
The salad helped. It was good; it could have been great if there had been more dressing, cheese, and maybe some chicken thrown on, but honestly everything is better with more cheese.
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