To Juice or Not To Juice?

juiceHave you tried juicing? I have. And ya know what? It ain’t that bad. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine ever eating that many vegetables and fruits at one sitting, but guzzling them down in one sludgy baby-poop green slurpee? No problem. I tried juicing for the first time last week, (for the usual reasons; summer is coming, I have been eating french fries all winter, and I am NOT putting on a bikini looking like this!) So, I decided it was time to make some serious changes, and NOW. I went onto my pinterest, found a 4-day detox juice cleanse and headed to the store. $140 later…(I bought a lot of organic.) I had all the ingredients I would need to get thru 3 meals per day for the next 4 days. Thankfully, my kitchen gadget collection included a really cool juicer. Although, I know one can be purchased very cheaply on Amazon.com, because after I began this cleanse? So did three friends, my boyfriend, and my mother!

I began with a juice made of apples, cucumber, blueberries, grapes, kale, and ginger. Didn’t look too nasty, and actually tasted pretty yummy. Lunch was very similar, (I had decided to make them in the morning, and bottle them in wide-mouthed Ball jars to keep them fresh). BUT, by dinner, I was getting pretty hungry and my water supplement wasn’t cutting it. I made my last juice for day 1, as my boyfriend, who was not yet doing this cleanse, was eating the delicious salmon dinner I had prepared. (At least he had the courtesy to eat in the other room!) As I took my first sip of dinner, I was immediaitely aware that this was not like the other juices! Bleeeekgh! Lemon, parsley, celery, kale carrots? Where were the apples, berries, oranges, and other yumminess? Well, this is a cleanse, honey. And it ain’t for the meek or weak. So I carried on one slurp of gunk, one slurp of water until I killed that tumbler full of disgustingness. No pain, no gain (or in my case,  hopefully a loss). The rest of the next three days were fairly easy and uneventful. That one juice was the worst of them, by far. I ended up dropping some lbs (I won’t say how much, in order to protect the innocent) but I was also running and doing other exercise throughout the week. I continue to juice now, for breakfast and sometimes lunch, then have a light ( I only ate half of my french fries last night) dinner. I feel great and definitely have more energy. The moral of my story? There really isn’t one, I just wanted to share my experience with juicing. I hope you decide to try it, and I haven’t deterred anyone from drinking vegetables, because as much as I actually like to chew them, this is definitely the way to get a full day’s supply in each day very easily. Cheers!

Andrew Vertson