Four years ago I completed my first juice fast. As I’ve thought back to that time I would have sworn that it was a seven-day juice cleanse, but reading back through my blog has shown me I was wrong. It was only a five-day juice cleanse. This last year I’ve found my diet slipping in a lot of ways. Mainly, I’ve been eating less and less fruits and veggies as my stomach has complained more and more about them. I’ve also not been juicing regularly the last six months or so. I wanted to change that. I wanted to get my energy back up and reset my taste buds. So, I set out to do a seven-day juice cleanse to start this year off right.
Day 1 – Dec. 29. I didn’t intend to start juicing today, but when our NYE plans got cancelled and I was already halfway through the day on nothing but juice, I decided to just go for it. I didn’t drink enough juice, though so it probably wasn’t a good start. I only had 2 juices and a smoothie.
Day 2 – Dec. 30 – I went to the produce store and stocked up on everything I would need to get through most of the next week. When I was checking out the girl eyed all my local produce and asked “are you juicing?” “Yes, I am.” This lead to a great conversation about juicing and what we each liked in our juice. Despite picking up all that produce I still didn’t juice enough and finished the day off with only 3 juices and a smoothie.
Day 3 – Dec. 31 – This was the day of cravings. I almost broke down several times and gave in to the cravings. The fact that it was NYE didn’t help because part of me wanted to go out and eat and have fun like a normal person. But, normal is overrated. Right? I kept having to remind myself how mad I’d be if I gave in. I decided to do this for a reason and giving in wouldn’t help me at all. Sure I would have made it 2.5 days but that wasn’t the point, the point was a week. So, I pushed through. On the upside I did make enough juice on this day and finished the day off with 4 juices and a smoothie.
Day 4 – Jan 1 – Day 4 felt great. I woke up with energy and jumped on the treadmill for a half hour, even doing some burst runs. Then I made my juice for the day. I was still energetic after making my juice jumped into cleaning mode, attacking the kitchen in a way my husband only sees happen when I’m mad about something. Yes, he commented on that. I didn’t want to overdo it though so I stopped at the kitchen. That night we went to a poker game and I somehow managed to not cave into trying what looked like some awesome meat candy. I finished the day with 4.5 juices and a smoothie.
1 sweet potato
1 pear
1 apple
chunk of ginger
small piece of turmeric
Day 5 – Jan 2 – I found a new favorite juice! We were out till almost midnight the night before so I slept pretty late on Saturday. When I woke up I did Tai Chi. I wasn’t into it, but I did it anyway. Then I made my juice for the day. We had some errands to run so we stopped at our local juice bar and picked up smoothies while we were out. We had two social engagements that night. First, a friend was having a party so we stopped by. I knew there would be tons of awesome food there so I poured a juice into a cup and took it with me to sip on through the night. It worked well and I avoided temptation. Then we were off to another poker game, so I grabbed another juice from the fridge before we headed out. This was when I discovered my new favorite.
The thing with trying new juice recipes is that you never know what you are going to get until you try it. For this recipe I took 1 Sweet Potato, 1 Pear, and 1 apple, and then added a little ginger and some turmeric. I’d tried this recipe previously without the Tumeric and it was good. I even added a dash of cinnamon on top. However, this was the first time I’d tried juicing Tumeric, and I found that it adds a nice little spice to the juice. Even my husband really liked it and said it was one he’d drink. I think we will call this juice Pear Pie.
By this time the last time I did a 7 day juice cleanse I was dying for something to eat. I was craving anything, a celery stick. Just something to actually eat. I think that including a single smoothie each day this time has given my diet a little more substance and cut back on those cravings.
Day 6 – Jan 3 – Because of how good that Pear Pie juice was I was a little sad that I was out of sweet potatoes. Once again we were out late (too late) and I slept in because of it. When I woke up I did Tai Chi again, this time feeling much more focused and not noticing the time as it passed. Then I made my juice for the day. I also made up what I hoped would be a good carrot ginger soup. The soup turned out great! I juiced about 10 carrots with ¼ of an onion, a large chunk of ginger, and a small piece of Tumeric. Then I added back in some of the carrot pulp and warmed it up with some curry and cumin. It was delicious!
Day 7 – I started the day with a green juice I’d made the previous day. Then while I was out grabbing more produce I stopped at the local Juice Bar and picked up a smoothie. Later I had a beet/pineapple/ginger juice.
I’m still feeling great. My energy has been up, my sleep has been good. I feel like I could keep going with the juicing for a while longer. However, for the sake of home-life I’m going to switch to a juice till dinner plan. I’ll juice all day then eat dinner. I’ll still stick with eating and drinking only fruits and veggies for at least another week before I try adding anything else into my diet.
Anna says
I am going to try your pear pie recipe. I drink the green juice detox recipes from SickFat&Nearly dead movie but I prefer the diversity of smoothies. Hard to stay on a juice fast vs. drinking health smoothies.
Zoey says
Hi Julie,
Thanks for sharing your 7-day-juice-cleanse journey. I’m still half hearted on going on a juice fast but reading your post gave me some motivation 🙂
Helen says
Hi Julie, thanks for sharing this.
I am reading your blog from the first post onwards at the moment. I think it is a shame for me that I only found your blog yesterday. It is a great blog!