I own a juicer and have done juice cleanses before, but this time I chose to do a delivered cleanse. There are tons of options out there! After some research, I decided on the Urban Remedy cleanse for the main reason that their juices are very low in sugar. An added bonus that all the blends looked absolutely delicious.
Urban Remedy offers three different levels of cleanses: Signature, Purify, and Super Green. I will be doing one day of the Signature cleanse and two days of the Purify cleanse. The Urban Remedy site offers guidance on choosing a cleanse length and level, but in the end you can pick any combination and duration you like.
Prepping for the cleanse: The Urban Remedy website provides a detailed list of foods you should limit in preparing for your cleanse. I normally eat a pretty clean diet (no meat, dairy, eggs, or other animal products, and limited processed foods), but in the days before the cleanse I made an effort to drink less coffee and more green juices and smoothies. The one item I did eat from the "limit" list was bananas. As this was the only fruit on the list, I would be interested to know why it was included.
I should also note that in deciding when to start the cleanse, I considered when I would be able to make the time to really relax and reflect, and enjoy the full benefits of the cleanse. As I mentioned, the next few months of my schedule are jam-packed so this weekend seemed like the perfect time to take a break.
Day one: The down side of selecting the Urban Remedy cleanse is that it is based in California, and therefore the juices had a long way to travel before arriving on my doorstep in DC. I wake up very early naturally, so I had some blueberries and tea to tide me over until my juices arrived at around 10:45AM. I also did some gentle yoga. My energy was very low until I got the first two juices in me, and then I felt fine. I went for a walk outside and did notice that my senses seemed a bit more heightened than normal. I also will admit that I went for an easy jog - most cleanses do not recommend vigorous exercise while cleansing, but I the runner in me could not let such a beautiful day pass without at least a short jog. I definitely felt heavier in my legs and slower than usual, which is probably due to the complete lack of coffee and caffeine in my system. Later in the afternoon and evening I had a bit of headache, which is to be expected and some say is a sign of detox. I enjoyed the last two juices of the day while relaxing at home.
Overall, the juices were very tasty. The first juice was the greenest (the "Brainiac") as it contained no fruit)and I preferred this over the other green juice ("Flush") which contained apple. For some reason, my taste buds dislike the combination of apple and ginger in green juices, although Urban Remedy's blend also contained mint which made this juice more palatable to me. The "Time Machine" with acai, lemon, and cayenne was very refreshing, although it was not very substantial. Since I received my juices late and was behind the suggested schedule, I decided to skip the fourth juice (the "After Party"). Okay, reality check, I skipped the fourth juice because my body was craving something sweet and the next juice ("Warrior" with raspberries and chia seeds) sounded amazing. This juice was fantastic and was more like a smoothie due to the chia seeds. My only criticism is that it contained stevia, which I did not think was completely necessary. The final juice of the day ("Relax") was a cashew nut milk with cinnamon. Again, this juice was more like a smoothie and was a great end to the day. I was surprised to see that this juice did not contain any sugar or stevia (the "nut milk" juice of most juice cleanses is usually sweetened).
After my final juice I had some hot tea and was ready for bed. Sleep was glorious. I woke up a bunch of times to go to the bathroom (all that juice and tea!) but I slept for almost 12 hours which is crazy abnormal for me! Guess my body needed it. Well this was a longer post than I intended, but I hope it will be helpful for anyone interested in doing a cleanse. I will post more thoughts and feedback after days 2 and 3.
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