Juice it to Lose it.
Every time I go to Barnes & Noble I always stroll the Clearance section (I'm cheap ya'll don't judge me). This week in particular Barnes & Noble had certain area set aside full of cook and juice recipe books. I saw the Joe Cross Juice it to Lose it and I couldn't pass it up for two reasons. Reason 1, I loved his documentaries and wanted to support his movement. Reason 2, I've been wanting to complete a juice cleanse successfully for quite some time now. I figured, why not start with an $8.00 book created by a man that I already trusted in the juicing community.
Despite what some of you may think this is my first cleanse so I look forward to the experience. I'm gonna be open and honest about my opinions on this experience as well as the feelings I have toward these juices.
Preparation Station
Here's a few tips on what I did before the cleanse that I felt were pretty helpful!!
1. Break up your grocery shopping. I went shopping twice because some of the produce needed to be doubled or even tripled (Seriously.. I was not about to hold 13 cucumbers in my fridge for a week.. not about that wasted produce life AT ALL!!)
2. Sticky notes are your friend. I used them to sort out my shopping list as well as keep me on track with my ingredients for the different juices. Like I "said/typed" above some of the produce is doubled for 2 different recipes I sorted the produce by day using sticky notes and then sorted the daily produce into their juices (hope that made sense). Sticky notes helped me keep my sanity, without them I would have been all over the place.
3. Rid yourself of guilty pleasures. Because I wanted this cleanse to be successful I did indeed get all of my cravings out of the way. I recommend you purchase a few of your favorite cravings and eat the SERVING SIZE!! Take the time to read the labels and really get to know the calories of your cravings and you may feel they are not worth it anyway. One reeses cup is 110 calories, not the pack, just one cup. Crazy right!?
My Cravings: Dill pickle chips, swedish fish, reeses cups, popcorn.. yep I bought ALL-LA-DAT!!
*Give snacks to someone to hide the night before your reboot*
4. Eat veggies. Eat as many vegetables as you can the week leading up to your cleanse. It'll start to slowly adjust your taste buds. Make a dinner option in the book, there's a bunch.
5. Juice the night before. Juicing the night before I drank my juice helped me to stick with the cleanse more realistically. I woke up every morning knowing that I my meals were ready which made it easier for me to choose the juice over cereal. Plus you get excited to taste them in the morning.
6. Drink Lemon water & Tea. Drinking warm lemon water (before/during cleanse) in the morning helps to awaken your body for the juice. Tea at night or during the day helps bring about regular bowel movements. OK, I know nobody's reading this blog to here me talk about poop but tea and lemon water helps shove all that stuff out and getting "**it" out is the main reason for this cleanse after all.