my quick 5 day raw/juice cleanse

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I did not mention on any social media site that I was doing a quick 5-day juice/raw diet, but after speaking with several friends who are doing cleanses of various types, I decided to test my ability. My ability to say no, to walk away from junk food, to overcome cravings. Overall, I’m happy with my results. I got through it with no problems (although there were many temptations) and I believe I could have gone longer.

I did not follow a particular cleanse, or a particular prescription of what I should and shouldn’t eat. I simply lived off the juice of fresh fruit and veggies, and I ate one small raw meal daily. I did not spend a lot of money doing this cleanse, I really didn’t eat much over the 5 days. I did drink a LOT of water.

Noted: I did choose a week to do this when I was mostly working from home.

Here are a few notes I took throughout the 5 days:

Day 1:

• My juice of the day consisted of: beets, carrots, ginger, lemon, apple, spinach, kale
• My one meal: homemade hummus, an avocado, and an apricot, and a raw kale salad
• I did one hour of Crossfit this day
• I’m hungry. I’m craving. I’d die for a piece of bread. or a cupcake. or cake. or a brownie. or pasta.
• I keep reading blogs and emails about good food which is only feeding my cravings.
• I stumbled upon two websites for motivation to push through Day 1&2 which seemed to be the hardest days to get through: 10 Life Lessons From My 14 Day Detox & My 5 Day Juice Cleanse Story
• I actually received a surprise e-mail from Josh from The Happy Family Movement that provided words of encouragement (how nice of him!!)

Day 2:

• My juice of the day: kale, beet, apple, pear, cucumber, lemon
• I didn’t get hungry until 4:30-5PM but then I was very hungry the remainder of the evening.
• I drank 2 glasses of juice: one before my workout and one after.
• I did one hour of Crossfit and had a really good workout
• I drank a LOT of water this day.
• I went to the grocery store in the evening which was a bad idea – the trip caused me to crave carbs & sugar (and EVERYTHING else sitting on the shelves) …it was such a bad idea to walk down the pasta aisle.
• My one small meal of the day consisted of a Larabar, a handful of nuts, a handful of olives, and 1/2 piece of a raw lemon tart

Day 3:

• Surprisingly, I felt good this day despite the lack of food in my system.
• I drank a lot of water
• I did not document my juice this day – I know it was beet & carrot based, so it was bright red
• My small meal of the day consisted of pomegranate seeds, a handful of nuts, & homemade guacamole with a bell pepper. Oh, and I had another half of raw dessert, this time chocolate.
• I learned to avoid reading blogs this day, all of the recipes made me hungry so I just stopped looking at them!
• I took the day off of working out, my body was sore and needed a rest.

Day 4:

• My juice of the day: apple, pear, celery, cucumber, cilantro, kale, beet, lemon, ginger, orange
• I started the day off early with juice and drank plenty of it this day.
• I wasn’t having as many cravings this day as I was the first 3 days, and I was feeling much more “satisfied”
• I started to feel drowsy and fatigued in the afternoon (around the 3:00 hour) and I almost skipped my workout. I ended up going to Crossfit and I kicked ASS. I had energy the rest of the day after that workout.
• I noticed that I was sleeping REALLY GOOD at night and not having any dreams.
• My small meal of the day was homemade raw applesauce

Day 5:

• My juices of the day: I drank 2 heaping glasses full of green juice and 1 small glass of sweet fruit juice
• I worked in the salon all day which kept my mind off of food
• My small meal of the day was a raw kale salad for dinner and it was DELICIOUS

Overall, here are a few things I learned about myself:

• I CAN stay committed to a raw food diet despite temptation
• I did cheat and eat a tiny piece of bread and a few M&M’s while on this “cleanse” – taking miniscule bites of foods that I was craving allowed me to get the taste and then move on. For the most part, the small taste would satisfy the majority of my craving.
• The 6th day I woke up and my body was ready to eat more raw food. I never really craved a big meal but I treated myself to a big meal that evening.
• I have lost bloating that I didn’t even realize I had.
• I never realized how many temptations are in my pathway on a daily basis, and I never realized how often I give in to those temptations. It is so hard not to just take a bite or two of whatever everyone else is having for dinner (even if I knew it’s completely unhealthy and just wrong)
• For the most part, I had a lot of energy and my workouts kicked butt during thee 5 days even though I wasn’t eating big meals. Big meals tend to drag you down… I was only feeding my body small amounts of food, but my body was very happy with what it was getting.
• Had I gone longer, I would have eventually kicked the craving for carbs & sugars completely.
• I never weighed myself during this entire process so I don’t know if I lost any weight. I do know that my body looks better but I have no measurement of that.
• I learned patience.
• I learned to eat much slower than I ever have. I knew that my food was limited for the day, so I had to make it last!

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