It's a 3 day juice cleanse created by Anna in the Raw. You drink six bottles of organic juice throughout the day which she has numbered for you to make it easy to keep track. You are allowed to supplement the juice with raw foods, water and herbal teas. You are supposed to space out the juice with approximately two hours between each bottle. Our plan was to schedule the juices for when we would normally be hungry or eating.
Here's the schedule we came up with:
Bottle 1 - 9 am
Bottle 2 - 11 am
Bottle 3 - 1 pm
Bottle 4 - 3 pm
Bottle 5 - 6 pm
Bottle 6 - 8 pm
I ended up starting slow and not keeping to the schedule - partially because of my work schedule and partially because I wasn't feeling hungry and didn't want to force it.
So how did Day One go? Great! I actually wasn't hungry. Yes, you read that correctly - the girl who is ALWAYS hungry simply wasn't for the majority of the day. I had sliced up cucumbers and red peppers and packed them with baby carrots just in case I was starving throughout the day and didn't even eat one thing.
I did crash at about 3:30 or 4:00 and got REALLY tired but I think that was because I was behind on my juice. I drank #4 and ate 7 raw almonds and felt better.
We decided that we wanted to have a salad for dinner so at about 6:30 pm we each had a huge bowl of mixed baby greens, sweet onion, yellow heirloom tomato, red pepper, carrots, cucumber, avacado, flax seed and chia seeds with a splash of balsamic vinegar and some black pepper. It helped mentally to be chewing something and by then we needed it. We drank juice #5 after that around 7:30 and then had our final juice around 8:30.
So how does it taste? I really enjoyed all the juices but some are obviously better than others.
#1 and #3 are the same and they contain organic romaine lettuce, organic apple, organic celery, organic cucumber, organic spinach, organic kale, organic parsley, and organic lemon. It is delicious! Very fresh tasty and not at all like the funky green drinks out there.
#2 is organic pineapple, organic apple, organic mint, and filtered water. This is amazing! I'm not a huge apple juice fan but the pineapple and mint make this a taste sensation. I am actually craving this juice as I type this.
#4 is like the lemonade cleanse that was all the rage in recent years and contains filtered water, organic lemon, organic agave nectar, and cayenne extract (Mexican habanero, jalapeño, African, Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Japanese peppers in distilled water). It tastes like really tart fresh lemonade - kind of refreshing at first but it got harder to drink as we went on. I think that part of the problem with this one is that it's my hungriest time of day and the juice contains the least amount of "stuff." I kept thinking it needed a shot of vodka...
#5 is the bright red beet juice. Looks scary but it tastes pretty good. I love beets so I kept focusing on that flavor. It contains organic apple, organic carrot, organic beet, filtered water, organic lemon, and organic ginger. This one was the hardest one to drink for me because it was just weird to be drinking beets and the ginger kept throwing me off. I think when I drink it today I'll like it better because it won't be so strange.
#6 is cashew milk and contains organic cashews, filtered water, organic agave nectar, organic cinnamon, organic vanilla extract, and organic vanilla specks. This one SOUNDS awesome but isn't as good as the almond milk I normally buy at the store. Maybe I just like almonds better? Anyways, but the time it was time for us to drink this one, I was really needing it. This juice is where you get the bulk of your protein for the day. I wish this cashew milk was drink #1 because it seems more breakfast like to me, maybe because it reminds me of milk and cereal.
So how did it go? It went REALLY well - better than we expected for sure. I was most surprised about my lack of hunger throughout most of the day. I think I only felt hungry twice. We didn't have headaches or any other ailments or digestive issues. My fiance took at nap after work because he felt super tired. We don't know if it was just leftover tiredness from a busy weekend or from the cleanse. We both had increased frequency of urination. For someone who doesn't go that much, it was shocking actually how intense the urges were. I found myself craving popcorn last night but that was my only food craving.
So now we're starting Day Two - can't wait to see if the lack of hunger continues or if that was just a fluke. Today I'm bringing raw almonds with me to work as my emergency stash and I'm also bringing a cup of hot tea too. I'm kind of craving the whole hot beverage in the morning thing but hope it doesn't slow my juice drinking down.
You can read about our overall experience and Day Three here. And order your own juice cleanse here.