Wednesday, December 26, 2012

To Cleanse or Not To Cleanse?

3 Day Juice Cleanse

I've never done a "cleanse" before.  I'm not sure how much I believe in them.  But I found myself needing a real reset button dietetically and thought it might not be a bad thing to try out. 

I ate what I wanted through the last few days leading up to Christmas. And I've never felt worse!  Lots of restaurant food, lots of carbs, lots of sugars, and just things I don't regularly eat in general.  I felt sickly, my stomach felt on the verge of upset, I was moody and I felt FAT.  Bluh.

I'm embarking on a four and a half month contest prep (the initial phase is just a general lean down prior to the real leaning phase). 

I researched cleanses online.  There are all kinds of them.  I don't really feel like drinking a peppered lemonade wonder juice as that doesn't seem quite right.  I settled on a juice cleanse.  One laden with fruit/vegetable juices.  This is the guideline I am using, which explains a lot about cleansing. 

http://naturalhc.com/docs/juicecleanseoutline.pdf


To find juices, I'm using the book "Total Juicing" by Elaine LaLanne.  I selected five juices to get me through each of my five meals for three days.  My selections:

The Green Drink
2 green apples, 4 stalks celery, 8 stalks bok choy, 1/4 pound spinach, 1 bunch parsley



Sunrise
2 sweet apples, 4 large carrots, 1 red bell pepper, 4 jicama spears



Broccoli Bush
4 medium carrots, 1/2 medium green pepper, 2 stalks broccoli

The Pepper-Upper
1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 sweet apple, 2 large carrots

Carrot-Fruit Juice
4 large carrots, 2 sweet apples


Notes from Day 1 -

I decided to juice in my Ninja blender and consume the pulp too.  It's been said that you lose nutrients by not
ingesting the pulp.  But what that does is make a very large, very filling juice.  So my Sunrise I ended up
splitting over 3 cups.  The Green Drink ended up fitting perfectly into a tall glass.  I had to add water to all
of them to create a juicy consistency.  I was surprised how much I liked the Green Drink. 

I didn't have enough energy to get through my 3rd weight training circuit without feeling very low energy. 
But I made it.  I stayed pretty satisfied until about 3:00.  Then hunger started to creep in.  About 5:00, a dull
headache set in and it's been there ever since.  Rounding out day 1 feeling de-bloated, happy to feel hungry
and interested to see how I feel at the end of day 3.