Green Juice Cleanse

I decided to ring in 2015 with a 3 day juice cleanse. The one I chose was the green juice cleanse by The Food Babe. http://foodbabe.com/2011/10/21/why-juice-fast/ All of the juices come from Organic green veggies and fruit. It's important to use Organic whenever possible to avoid putting extra chemicals into your system that you are trying to get rid of.

My goal was to cleanse my system, and kick start weight loss to get ready for bike racing season. 

After 3 days, I can confidently say that this was one of the more challenging things I've done. Simply because I love food and love to eat! I ended up losing 8 pounds!!! The juice is an excellent way to get all the nutrients you need. Low calories, high nutrients. It's important to juice instead of smoothies because the juice removes the fiber. No fiber gives the digestive system a rest. I was taking in 5-700 calories a day, although you could easily do more. I never really felt hungry, but had some major intense cravings for specific foods. Mostly salty type foods and pasta. (Natalie and the kids had pasta delivered one night...) 

I could only drink juice, herbal tea, water, or cranberry juice in water (helps with energy, and to dispel cravings) 

Breakfast was always Ravishing Red juice.  

Lunch was usually Kickin Kale.

Dinner was Rainbow Bite or Cabbage Patch Kid

I usually didn't mind the Kale or Ravishing Red. The Cabbage Patch Kid was fairly tasty. I wasn't a fan of the Rainbow Bite, but to be fair, I did add too much garlic.

I also added one juice from this website. There are many more options on this site, however not all of them are green. One day I just needed an extra snack, so I had one of the sweeter juices. It really helped, as the greens seem extra bitter after time. 

You also have to be careful coming off the cleanse. If you pig out after, you will put weight right back on, as well as probably upset your stomach. You have to remember you have only had juice for 3 days. Your stomach has shrunk and if you put too much food into it, it could lead to major stomach ache. It's recommended that you only juice and eat fresh veggies the few days after. However, I could not really follow that. I did have juice for breakfast with a few almonds. The big salad below with fresh veggies for lunch, then Natalie and I had only Kyler with us so we went out for dinner at TGI Fridays. I had a pretty decent size salad with chicken and some pretzels for an app, with a beer, but only finished about half my salad because I felt so full. 

Lessons learned? 
- It's incredibly tough being around good real food and not eating it. 
- ORGANIC veggies used at the quantity I was using them is very expensive! 
- I would like to juice every day because the amount of nutrients you get from low calories is  amazing!
- It's a good way to kick start weight loss.  
- I learned I can get by on much fewer calories than I would have ever thought I could.
- It proved to me that as a society we eat way too much crap food!!!
- I'm happy I did it for the experience, but would have a tough time doing it again in the future, unless Natalie or someone else would do it with me. Having someone to juice fast with would make it much easier.