From page 3
in finding comparable juices in stores is
minimizing sugar, which I imagine can
leave you on unpleasant sugar highs
and lows during your cleanse ordeal.
But a little must be OK—even Life Juice
appears to use apple juice as a base for
all of its drinks.
(Disclaimer: I’m not a nutritionist
or a trained health professional. But
I wield the power of the internet and
reading labels.)
Of course, there’s always the option
of buying a juicer, a ton of great local
produce, and juicing the ingredients
yourself. But my whole reason for doing
a juice cleanse was that the glut of holiday food had got me feeling sluggish
and lethargic. I wanted a cheap, lazy
option that would allow me to stock my
fridge, camp out in my apartment, and
expend as few calories as possible moving from the couch to the kitchen and
back. Here’s what I came up with:
3x lemon/salt water (I scored a
ton of lemons from my grandma’s tree so this was pretty
much free.)
3x $4.49 Kokua Market’s Green
Smoothie (kale, cucumber, banana, pineapple, vanilla, salt)
3x $6.29 Kokua Market’s Red
Drink (beet, apple, carrot)
3x $4.99 Whole Foods’ Iron Clad
(spinach, celery, apple)
3x $4.99 Whole Foods’ Melon
Mint (watermelon, mint, lemon,
ginger)
+ Califa Farms vanilla almond
milk @ Whole Foods (add cinnamon at home) $5.29 for 48 oz
(enough for three days)
=$67.57 for three days plus tax
+ snack on some parsley
= approximately $23/day
So how did it go? Day one was terrible,
mostly because my sister and I started
with no buffer between Christmas dinner rib roast and our liquid diets. I was
also fighting a caffeine headache all afternoon. We took a lot of naps.
By day two, I felt a lot better, and even
a little energetic, but that only lasted until
about noon, when more napping happened.
Then we watched Netflix and daydreamed
about cheeseburgers. I noticed that I was
having a really hard time calculating (more
like counting, really) how many more juices
my sister and I needed to buy for the next
day. This is my brain on juice.
Day three was tough because it was a
Saturday and my social life suffered. Juice
cleanses do not, sadly, include booze.
On the bright side, I fit into my skinniest skinny jeans, so I looked damn good
while sipping on my Green Smoothie.
(I enjoyed the moment; the weight you
lose an a juice cleanse comes back pretty
quick.) I also only had the energy to hang
out with friends for a few hours, after
which I went home and, you guessed it,
took a nap.
By 9 p.m. on the third day, I was ready
to join the world of the eating again. I
wouldn’t say I was hungry—the juices actually keep you quite full in a watery sort
of way. But I’d learned over the course of
three days how much I look forward to
and enjoy meals—how their preparation
takes up time, how they can be shared with
others, how they give structure to a day.
I held out until midnight and carefully
made myself toast and a happy little fried
egg—my first feast of the new season. ■