Since I already mentioned a juice cleanse this week, I thought I’d share a post from my archives that will tell you all the gory details about the juice cleanse I did, down to how the green juice made me gag the first time and how I had an inch-thick coat on my tongue for three days. Don’t you want to make out with me now? By the by, it’s really long. But if you want to consider doing a juice cleanse, I’d recommend doing your research first. And by “doing your research,” I  really mean “reading my opinion.” Spoiler alert: This cleanse is why I no longer eat gluten…. much. This was originally posted on 23 May 2011.

Um… I did this juice cleanse recently. Whatever would possess an otherwise (sometimes) normal human being to do such a thing as not eat solid food for three days? I guess the answer is a little different for everyone, but, for me, it definitely involved a lot of Dynamo Donuts.

You know how you go away for a weekend on a little vacation or a trip to visit family and you sort of overindulge in cheesy things or maple-glazed bacon apple donuts, and when you get home at the end of it all, you think, “Geez, maybe I overdid it. I kind of crave, like, four salads before I can return to normal eating. Also, no more drinking, ever.” Well… I went away for three weekends in April. So there’s that.

Also, around that time, Gaby Dalkin, the professional-cooking temptress embarked on the three-day BluePrintCleanse. I’d heard of the BluePrintCleanse and am filled with an insatiable curiosity for things that probably won’t kill me, as long as they’re not annoying. If Gaby, a professional foodie, could do the cleanse, then gosh darn it… So could I! After a lot of research, a lot of debate, and an asston of money, I picked up my 18 bottles of juice from Exhale Spa on a sunny Tuesday and got to cleansing!

What is this shit?

I chose to participate in the BluePrintCleanse, but there are tons of other cleanses out there that are similar, and if you know a thing or two about nutrition and have a juicer, you could probably even do it on your own. But I don’t. And I have nowhere to house a juicer. And I’m lazy. So I chose BPC.

On this cleanse (and most pre-packaged cleanses) you drink 6 16-ounce bottles of juice a day, in a prescribed order. You wait at least an hour between juices, and you drink at least 8 ounces of water during that hour. You stop drinking 2 hours before bedtime. You do not eat. You do not drink, with the exception of water, green tea, lemon water, and, duh, the juice. Also, you do All of The Things, as usual. Them’s the rules. (I really loved that there were clear cut rules and a unwavering menu. Took all the thinking out of it. Usually I spend All Actual Day thinking about what to eat next. I had so much mental capacity for other things, like the Anthropologie sale that was happening around that time.)

BPC is based on New York, but their shipping area is rapidly expanding. You can have the juice shipped directly to you or to a designated pick-up spot locally, depending on your city. I opted to pick up an Exhale Spa in Santa Monica, because picking up saved me a little bit of money. Shipping 288 liquid ounces of juice is pretty expensive as it is. If we’re being totally honest (which I am being, AS ALWAYS, HELLO), the shipping cost will make you do a full-body cringe.

How was the juice?

The juice varied from, “Oh, good Lord, I can’t do this” to “Holy hell, I need to learn how to make this on my own.”

Okay, I admit: The “Good Lord, I can’t do this” reaction was to the first ever juice. Let me explain: My pick-up time for the juice was 12:00pm on Tuesday. I decided that Tuesday would be day one because, hey, the sooner you start, the sooner you finish, right? So, basically, that morning I subsisted on hot lemon water, water, and green tea. It’s not abnormal for me to skip breakfast, so I figured I’d get the first juice, down it, and move right along with my day.

What I forgot, though, is that 16 ounces is a LOT of liquid on an empty stomach. And that I’m not really able to drink fast. So, there would be no “downing” of any juice at any point in the next three days. It actually took me almost two hours to finish the first juice.

Juice 1 and 3 is a green juice, a blend of lovely things like kale, romaine lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, celery, and other green things. Basically it’s more vegetables than anyone will ever eat in a day and it’s the nutritional powerhouse of the cleanse. I liked to refer to this as “my breakfast” and “my lunch.” And the taste? Well, to me it tasted just like a salad. A weird, liquid salad. I literally had to hide my croutons.

Juice 2 was a pineapple apple mint blend that was sort of mojito-y and delicious.

Juice 4 was the “typical cleanse” mix of lemonade, agave, and cayenne pepper. It was amazing! Just like lemonade with a throaty cayenne afterburn. I need to learn to make this in my own.

Juice 5 (AKA: dinner) was a beet, carrot, ginger juice. Very beet-y. Not carrot-y. That means I could drink it and enjoy it! God, I hate carrots.

Juice 6 was a sweet treat of cinnamon cashew milk. This is where all the fats and most of the proteins of the day lie. And it tasted amazing. It’s another one that I want to replicate.

What did I do?

Although the cleanse is technically three days, the truth is, it’s at least a week-long affair. I started eating salads as a meal the week before, and began to wean myself off of coffee. As you might be able to tell by the name of my blog, I have what the professionals call a “Really Bad Caffeine Addiction.” I get headaches by 10:30am like clockwork without my morning coffee. On the Saturday before the cleanse, I stopped having coffee and subbed in black tea. I stepped down to green tea on Day 1 of the cleanse, fully expecting to suffer through a migraine for most of the day(s).

I kicked off a typical juicing day with warm water with some lemon squeezed into it. BPC recommends this to kickstart your digestive system in the mornings. This isn’t really new to me, but I would usually squirt some honey into the mix which is not allowed on the cleanse. Since I paid a million dollars and half my face, I didn’t cheat about that no-honey business. Actually, I didn’t cheat about any business. Monetary investment is a good motivator.

Then I drank #1 as quickly as possible while getting ready in the morning. I just didn’t want to schlep that much juice around with me all day, so I pretty much had to. (BPS provides you with cute clue cooler bags and ice packs so you and transport juice with you. You get to keep these! And they were much needed.) In order to get down that much liquid that fast, I sucked it up through a straw. “Just count to 20 and breathe through your nose” is was Lani said to do, so I did.

Usually, I had some leftover cashew milk (#6) from the night before, so I would have a few sips of that shortly after arriving at work.

The days went by pretty uneventfully, so I’d drink juices 2 through 4 at work, peeing approximately 2 to 4 times an hour. It was fucking ludicrous and really inconvenient. But what did I expect, you know?

I wasn’t hungry at all, all day. The juices kept me really full, and I never got to juice 5 with enough time to drink #5 and #6 with two hours to spare before bedtime. Oops. Was I doing something wrong? Anyway, I drank about half of both each day.

I was also able to work out twice on the cleanse at pretty much normal levels of exertion. Don’t let anyone tell you that cleansing leaves you with no energy.

And then what happened? This better be worth it. That was a lot of information.

First and foremost, remember that caffeine headache I was expecting due to my Really Bad Caffeine Addiction? Well, it never happened. That might be because of the vegetables or because I wisely weaned myself off or because of some miracle combination of the two, but this has never ever happened to me before. Day 2 of the cleanse? I didn’t even need the tea. This is a huge positive effect. Addiction is bad. Do not want.

On top of that, sans caffeine, I was up before my alarm every day. Not out of hunger or anything, but out of pure awakeness. Hopping out of bed like I was looking forward to the day or something. What the what?

Also, I lost weight. Of course, I have since gained back most of the weight because, well, I’m eating food again. During the cleanse, you’re consuming about 1,100 calories a day, which is fairly calorically restrictive. I mean, I don’t eat a ton of calories a day (usually around 1,400 or less) so it wasn’t a super huge change for me, but it was enough. (Especially considering that I couldn’t finish all the juice.) However, during the prep period I was able to suddenly get under my normal plateau weight and I’m still under it. So hooray for that.

On a completely vain front, by day 3, my stomach was the flattest it has been in approximately four to five years. I lost, um, a LOT of inches in a lot of places. Is it totally narcissistic if I say that I was a big fan of this side effect? Because I AM. WHATEVER, MAN.

Okay, but here’s the biggest take-away from my cleanse experience: For a while now, I’ve been pretty suspicious that I have some sort of food intolerance. Post-cleanse, I can say 100% without a doubt that I sure as fuck do and it sucks more than anything else in the entire universe including Hitler and people who email you pictures of their babies sleeping four times a day. I’m pretty sure it’s the gluten. The fucking fuck fuck gluten. The very same thing that they use in pasta. The thing that makes bread all chewy and delicious. The stuff that cookies are made of.

I even ran a gluten experiment a few days after the cleanse and had some pasta. Mistake. Back to Old Normal. Not good. I’ve had a little bit of gluten since the cleanse ended but I can honestly say that, without it (or at least with signicantly less of it), I feel good. It’s like I didn’t know how bad I felt until I felt better. I mentioned this to my parents and my dad dropped the bomb that his uncle had full on Celiac disease, so this gluten theory is looking pretty valid from where I’m standing.

So, to sum up: BluePrintCleanse is the actual worst thing I’ve ever done in my entire 28 years. Because I went on BluePrintCleanse for three days, I now know what NORMAL feels like. I know what it’s like to not feel bloated or uncomfortable, ever. I know what it’s like for my “skinny” jeans to just be regular jeans. I know what it feels like to be light and slim and glowy and awake. And you know what? Except for the no cookies thing, it’s pretty fucking amazing.

Day after the cleanse, all glowy and skinny and happy in the red bathroom. I hardly recognize myself.Any further questions?