Day Twenty: The Mid-way Point

I’m at the halfway point of this Lenten blog challenge.  Whoo-hooo!!!  Only 20 more posts to go!!! Honestly, this is harder than that time I gave up potato chips.  Anyway, I have been feeling a little run down lately.  I’ll admit that I do not eat the way a 40-year-old should eat.  I know I should eat better, but I’d much rather eat a burger than kale.  It’s hard to change 40 years of bad habits.  After reading a few articles, I decided to give up caffeine (the headaches are miserable, fyi), and try this juice cleanse that I have heard several celebrities talking about on Twitter and Facebook.  Everyone talked about how they felt better and energized after the three day detox.  So, why not?

 

The first thing I did was look up juice cleanse products on Amazon.  I wanted them already prepared because yeah, lazy.  I’m not rich either.  The first one I found was Juice from the Raw 3-day organic cleanse (18 bottles) for $89.  The second was Jus by Julie 3-day cleanse for $129, and another was  the Suja Juice 1 day (6 bottles) for $51. I didn’t see pre-made as a possibility for me.

 

I decided to find alternative to these out of my budget cleanses.  I found the “I’ll try anything once: Cheap D.I.Y. at Home Juice Cleanse Edition” by a blogger named Hannah.  She seemed to enjoy the cleanse she tried, and her juice recipes actually didn’t cost a small fortune.  She spent about $45 on her supplies, and after my trip to Wal-Mart, I spent about the same, plus I will have fresh fruit and veggies when the cleanse is over.

 

Hannah’s Juice cleanse requires the drinking of six drinks a day for three days.  The cleanse follows this schedule:

1. A green juice for breakfast
2. A fruity juice for a mid-morning snack
3. A green juice for lunch
4. A cayenne pepper lemonade for the mid-afternoon snack
5. A green juice for dinner
6. A banana/cashew drink for dessert

First up is the green juice drink for breakfast.  I used kale, a spinach combo (spinach, bok choy, red and green chard), a granny smith apple, a kiwi, and a banana.  I was expecting something along the lines of absolutely gross, but it really was not bad.  I did not taste the kale and spinach much at all, but the apple and banana was noticeable, which is fine because I prefer fruity to greeny.

 
Drink #2-is a fruity juice.  I used a half a pineapple, one red apple, and a cucumber.  This drink is palatable as well.  I will say this. I do not like the foamy texture of the drinks; I might try to cut them with some bottle water.  It took two hours just to drink it all.  It’s the foam.  Texture is a big thing with me. 
 
Drink #3-a green again. Okay, I’m not feeling so well after this.  By the time I finished, I was feeling nauseated.  I don’t know if it’s the banana or just the foamy texture, but I didn’t do as well as I supposed.


So, I ended the day with solid food because the nausea would not pass.  I've decided that I may enjoy doing two or three, but six may be pushing it.  I'm going to try the alternate fruit juice and the lemonade tomorrow.

So, I tried something new. I'm still burping banana, which FYI is totally gross. Like I said earlier, the drinks are not bad.  They taste fine, but something would not agree with me.  Maybe tomorrow...

Until next time, "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."-Walt Disney