April
19
Tags
HEALTH – Juice your way to health
I have 2 young children and felt that it was about time I did something to kick start shifting my baby weight. I don’t really have time to exercise apart from running around after my kids so figured that a juice cleanse might be the way to go.
I decided to go straight for a 7 day cleanse. I know I could have done a 3 day or a 5 day one, but I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could do it and see what the benefits would be. I was a bit worried as I had a few concerns before starting it. My fears were that I would be left hungry for 7 days, that I would get bored, I would cheat, I would feel no different, that I would have no energy or that I wouldn’t enjoy it. I was totally surprised at how I felt in the end.
For the first couple of days, I was really surprised at how full I actually felt at the end of each day. I often didn’t even want my 4th juice but I knew it was important to have all 4 juices every day so I made sure i did. I was tempted by ‘real’ food for the first couple of days but that was because I was in a lot of social situations over the weekend where food was everywhere. I found that on day 3 when I wasn’t around lots of food, I didn’t fancy it. I realised that I don’t need to be strong willed and resist food, I just need to remove it from my vision. If I don’t see it, I don’t want it. If I were to do this again I wouldn’t do it over a week where I was going to be around lots of tempting food.The funny thing is, I felt doubly proud of myself for not eating and then even more proud that I was just putting fruit and veg into my body.
I started to get a headache on day 3 but was told this is normal as I have cut out caffeine so it could be that. I unfortunately caught a bug from my youngest child which didn’t help with my headache but I then thought that all the extra vitamins I was taking in would surely heal me faster? What I was really surprised by was the fact that every single juice I have had has tasted delicious. I am not a fan of spinach or broccoli but I couldn’t even taste them in my juices. I honestly thought I would hold my nose and have to force myself to drink them but I genuinely thought that they were really tasty. There’s enough variety in there so I don’t get bored yet I did start to get familiar with some of them as they repeated in the schedule which was quite nice as I knew what flavours to expect.
My energy levels weren’t the best and I often found that I was feeling tired in the evenings much earlier than normal but again, I was told this might happen so was quite happy to get into bed a little earlier each night. I lost 4lbs in total which I was very happy about. I’ll be honest, I was happy to be able to eat food again but funnily enough it wasn’t my usual junk food I was craving… I was actually excited about having a piece of protein and some veg.Overall I had a great experience. I definitely plan in doing this every few months. I feel like I pressed a reset button on my body. It’s not just a cleanse for the body but also for the mind and I have walked away from this feeling invincible!
Pooja
Heart London Magazine 