I’m a relatively healthy eater, to begin with. I generally reserve pizza for weekends/drunk walks home at 2 am (and I only really drink alcohol on the weekends, for that matter), drink a lot of water, eat my fruits and veggies, keep to lean proteins and whole grains, and I don’t force myself to avoid any cravings if I really feel like I can’t get over them. And, honestly, my appetite just isn’t that big anymore ever since I started exercising more and eating less. So I’m not really sure why I thought it would be a good idea to do a juice cleanse. Am I a masochist? Please advise.
I live in New York City, which means, on any given day, I will walk past at least ten different women carrying a Liquiteria cup or, at the very least, one of their cloth bags.
On top of smoothies, fresh pressed juices, and acai bowls (which are AMAZING, btw), Liquiteria also has a variety of juice cleanses in stock, and since I’m inherently lazy and didn’t want to do too much research on something, I was already kind of dreading, I just went with what I knew.
After careful consideration of their cleanse menu, I chose their Level 1, one-day baby cleanse. For babies. Like me! It comes with six juices, all of which are to be drunk about two-and-a-half to three hours apart with lots of water and a “good attitude.”
Some things to know before you start a juice cleanse: First, there is no caffeine allowed. As someone who has to drink at least one cup of coffee every morning in order to be a normal human being and not a foul, snarling beast, that was a scary idea.
Secondly, if you get desperate, you can have a handful of almonds or some green apple slices. Basically, the idea is to keep what you’re putting into your body “clean.”
But, you know, if you can get through the day without any solid food, more power to you. And finally, NEVER smell the juices before you drink them. Just don’t.
And now, without further ado, please enjoy my juice cleanse diary:
11:00 am: So, I should probably start this nonsense, right? The first juice is the All Greens, which is kale, spinach, romaine, parsley, celery, and cucumber.
Basically, everything you’ve never wanted in liquid form, all blended together.
I was momentarily pleasantly surprised that it tasted more like cucumber than anything else, but it left that really weird, filmy feeling you get on your teeth after eating a salad.
I finished half of it after realizing that I hated it, and while I didn’t particularly enjoy the sensation of drinking my veggies, it did fill me up.
12:45 pm: I haven’t even had my second juice of the day, and I already have a dull, nagging headache. Surprisingly, I’m still not starving or in desperate need of caffeine yet.
1:30 pm: Next up, the All Greens with Apple, which is the exact same thing as the All Greens juice, but with apple. Someone on Liquiteria’s creative team clearly wasn’t interested in coming to work on the day they named that one.
It’s slightly sweeter, which does make it easier to drink, but only just. I find myself wanting to complain about anything and everything. But that could just be a personality trait rather than a direct result of juicing. I’ve also noticed that my attention span is decreasing by the hour.
2:15 pm: Honestly, I just want a snack.
2:20 pm: Someone sent chocolate-covered strawberries to the office. I had one. I swear it was an accident. I swallowed the first bite and immediately said, “Crap, I’m not supposed to be eating this.” But you know what? I’m not even sorry, because my headache went away.
2:45 pm: I had my first legit brain fart of the day, which definitely had everything to do with the juices and not the lack of caffeine because I’m not tired at all. Seriously, I was in the middle of composing a very important tweet, and straight-up forgot what I was doing. I don’t like this.
3:30 pm: Look, I don’t want to upset you or anything, but the Skin Trip juice (a fascinating combination of carrot, spinach, cucumber, and pineapple) looks like poop. Or maybe liquefied vomit.
Basically, it looks like something that you would never want to voluntarily ingest.
4:45 pm: I’ve had three juices so far, and I really don’t see how I’m going to fit the other three in before I go to bed, because I’m so full of liquid it almost hurts.
I’m still not very tired, exactly, and definitely not hungry, but I literally cannot focus on anything for more than five minutes.
I keep forgetting what I’m doing halfway through doing it, which makes completing a job that pretty much relies on having a functioning train of thought very difficult to do.
5:45 pm: I sack up and crack open the fourth juice of the day, another All Greens with Apple. I start to wonder if I’ll remember what it’s like to chew when all of this is over.
6:00 pm: I decide the best way to finish number four is just to chug it, making it the first juice of the day that I’ve actually been able to finish. It tastes like green. I feel like green. Life is green. Everything is green. I know how Kermit the Frog feels.
7:30 pm: I get home and tentatively take a sip of Mr. B because a combo of carrot, beet, ginger, orange, and pineapple sounds like the least fun. I quickly learn that “B” obviously stands for bullshit because it was NASTY. There was an overpowering taste of ginger, and it felt like my entire mouth was on fire. My exact reaction:
9:30 pm: Okay, I definitely didn’t schedule this properly because drinking pineapple, apple, and ginger juice (aka the Royal Flush) at 9:30 when all I wanted to do was sit on my couch with no pants on and watch Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives is not my idea of a pleasant evening.
You know what else isn’t my idea of a pleasant evening? I’m burning my esophagus with ginger for the second time in as many hours. I go to sleep and dream about chewing.
The Next Day
I feel like an ass. Literal ass. There’s nothing noticeably different about my body. I don’t feel flushed with any toxins, and honestly, I’m nauseous, I almost overslept, and my morning commute took an extra 15 minutes because I physically couldn’t move as fast as I normally could due to pure exhaustion.
Two Days Later
Look, I just don’t think juices are for me. I’ve had better results eating soup, veggie burgers, and eggs for a week than I have just drinking weirdly spiced juices for one day.
My stomach isn’t flatter, I don’t feel any “cleaner,” and the only noticeable lightness I feel is in my wallet, where the $49 I spent, on the whole, cleanse used to be.
I’m starting to believe that the supermodels that swear by juice cleanses are full of shite, literally and figuratively, because, oh, did I mention how my stomach feels terrible because of gross TMI reasons that I don’t feel like going into on the Internet?
Final verdict
I will never understand why people go on juice cleanses. I imagine that the three- or five-day ones have much more drastic results, but that tends to happen when you deprive yourself of real food for that long.
From where I stand, I have no interest in torturing myself and drinking drinks that, honestly, do nothing for me, physically or emotionally, when I can just as easily achieve the same weight loss goal simply by eating dressing-less salads and other healthy, low-calorie foods.