Juice Cleanse – The Recap.

As many of our insta-followers know, I did a juice cleanse from Nashville’s The Urban Juicer on Monday through Wednesday of this week. I was excited and nervous about doing one and had thought about doing one for at least a year. 

Here are my pics and tips along the way.. This is The Urban Juicer’s cool logo and sign.. And what the entire week in Nashville has looked like so luckily I was not tempted by any fun patio happy hours. (No booze while cleansing)

  

Hattie the ever-curious helper was excited about this bag of goodness until she realized there would be no cooking or any bits of food for her during the week. #dognose

These are your daily juices! Drink them in this order. I liked them all but the Lemon Aid is quite tart.. Think Chick-Fil-A lemonade but more sour and a bit spicy. And the Liver Lover (#3) was always a bit scary for me to drink bc I just kept thinking about all of the things it could stain, if you like/can tolerate beets it tastes fine! The Well Being and the Wake Up Call were my very favorites of the bunch.

  

Here is the growler of alkaline water and the three “elixirs” that you will receive. They were always exciting to me.. Like a daily magic potion.

  

I added straws to these often and they are unnecessary except maybe for the beet juice one.. I was convinced it would turn my teeth purplish-red so I used a straw for this one each time.

  

Here are the items that helped get me through this juice cleanse. All of which were technically allowed.. Well they were listed as “allowable cheats” except the La Croix (new flavor!! Yum!), but I figure a sodium free, sugar free, calorie free sparkling water had to be fine! I had a glass of water and cup of black coffee each morning. Since I wasn’t adding any milk to my coffee I went with the Veranda blonde roast from Starbucks that I love. At nights I would have 1/2 – 1 cup of piping hot vegetable broth because I would get so sick of drinking cold things. This was a treat. Warm and savory. Then if I needed an actually crunch I would have a few slices of cucumber.

 

Once you’ve made it to this drink, “your dessert,” for the day pat your self on the back and go to sleep so you’re not hungry! This was a yummy cashew milk type of drink.

Now that the three days are over, I am glad I did. It was hard and I was tempted (confession – I had one bite of my husband’s chicken on night two, eeek! but it was literally one bite of grilled chicken.. so whatever) 

By day three I lost 6 pounds so now I can say that leading up to a big weekend it was totally worth it. Now will this weight magically stay off? I doubt it but it feels good going into my long weekend and it certainly can’t hurt.

What do you think about juice cleanses? Have you tried juice cleanses before? 

** 10 days after completing (half of those being on vacation!!) I am down three pounds from the first day of the juice cleanse. Therefore I have decided I will for sure do a cleanse of this sort again. Losing 5-6 lbs leading up to event then naturally keeping off half of that. Worth it.

Advertisement

Afternoon Pick Me Up Green Smoothie

One of my very favorite green fruit and veggie combos is full of flavor and vitamins. Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Iron, Potassium and Antioxidants will leave you feeling great. I whipped this up for myself Sunday afternoon after a wedding weekend with college friends in Mobile, Alabama, and it was a huge help. The flavor profile is opposite of our morning almond milk, berry and banana smoothie. This combination is bright and refreshing; the closer we get to spring and summer the more I will be drinking this green blend.  All of the ingredients can be adjusted according to taste, but here are measurements to get you started. Give it a shot!

Afternoon Pick Me Up Green Smoothie:

1/2 c. Frozen Pineapple

1 Tbsp. Fresh Cilantro

2 c. Raw Spinach

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

1 c. Coconut Water

1 Tbsp. Chia Seeds

Optional but recommended – 3 Slices of Jarred Jalapeno

(you could use a tiny bit of a fresh jalapeno instead)

Enjoy!!

IMG_1506

IMG_1490

Simple Green Smoothie

It’s is snowing! Again. But I will not allow myself to continue to eat junk – thank you Fat Tuesday + Snow Day. So I am starting the morning off with my go-to green smoothie. When I was first starting the green smoothie kick, I would experiment every day, but now I have it down to two or three that I make. I use a NutriBullet, but this could be made in any blender easily. This is an under 200 calorie breakfast that will provide you with vitamins and nutrients as well as keep you full – My Fitness App says the ingredients listed below ring in at 193 calories and are full of Calcium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Iron and Antioxidants. Enjoy!

Simple Green Smoothie:

1/2  Frozen Banana

1/3 c. Organic Mixed Berries

2 c. Raw Spinach

1 c. Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

1 Tbs. either Chia Seeds or Almond Butter

Enjoy!!