The Juice Experiment

Today was the official start of my new adventure in juicing.

The closest I've ever come to fresh, all-natural fruit and vegetable juice has been Simply Orange OJ and V8. Growing up, my family never had a juicer and in my mind, juice came in the form of a juice box or Capri Sun pouch. OJ didn't come from squeezing oranges, it came in from a "from concentrate" can in the frozen foods section. And don't even get me started with juicing vegetables ("Do people really drink carrot juice?!")

I decided I wanted to give juicing, and more specifically juice-fasting, a try after seeing "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead", a documentary following the 60-day juice fast of Aussie, Joe Cross. The results were remarkable-- he lost tons of weight, lowered his blood pressure and cholesterol levels, had loads of energy, and had no more need for his medications for a skin condition. Yes please, I'll have some of that.

He made it look so easy! The juice tasted delicious and he always had some handy. Hell, he even blended up some healthy drinks right in the back of his car! He was loving life and spreading the word. How hard could it be?

We borrowed a juicer from a family friend and decided to get started! According to the Reboot Your Life website you're supposed to start changing your eating habits a week prior to your fast. Umm, no. For us it was more of a "Last Hurrah!" mentality so the past week has been filled with whole milk coffee drinks, chili-topped cheeseburgers, and McDonald's breakfast sandwiches (poor decision). Last night was met with zero energy and a pounding headache.

Needless to say, I was SO ready to begin my detox.

I woke up this morning bright eyed and busy tailed and ready to go:

(ha.)

We already had enough fruits and veggies to prepare our morning drink so we went with the "Mean Green" recipe from the movie. 

It consists of the following (we doubled it for the two of us):

• 1 Bulk of kale
• 4 Stalks of celery
• 1 Cucumber
• 2 granny smith apples
• ½ lemon
• Ginger root

So... how did it go?

Well, let's just say I'm surprised Kyle didn't throw up.

After downing our beverages and waiting a while to make sure we didn't have an adverse reaction that needed emergency bathroom time (if you catch my drift), we took a trip to Sam's Club to stock up on produce. We bought all kinds of goodies including apples, pears, spinach, romaine hearts, oranges, watermelon, carrots, and zucchini.We're ready to go!

What did we learn so far?

• The Mean Green is pretty disgusting, in our opinion. I think we added too much ginger or perhaps too much kale, but whatever the problem it didn't go over well with us.
• The fewer ingredients the better. I think my favorite so far has been a simple apple and carrot juice.
• Whoever said they're not hungry during their fast is a big, fat, liar. We. Are. Starving. For me the toughest times are when I would normally just be mindlessly munching on snacks in front of the TV. So I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not doing that.
• The recipes we found make WAY more juice than we ever imagined. Our cups aren't big enough to hold them.
• Juice fasting is not for everyone. It's much harder than the movie portrays. I'm not going to say it won't be worth it, but I'm also not going to make any promises on lasting 10-days. We'll take it day by day...

So that's the start of my juicing experiment. Have you ever done any fasting? What did you think? What was the hardest part for you? I'd love to hear about your experience so leave me a little love in the comments below!