UPDATE for SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY! Reach out to Matt Scott through the Press Blend Squeeze Facebook page for a great post-Turkey Day deal.
Justin here. So I ran into Matt Scott (owner of Press Blend Squeeze in Dunwoody Village) at the recent Community Tailgate and somewhere between piling blue-cheese covered potato chips and beer into my temple-shaped body, he suggested I try doing a 3 day juice cleanse and actually treat my body like a temple instead.
For an extra challenge I wanted to see if I could do this over Halloween. I recognize I have a pretty serious Kit-Kat problem in late October, so what better way to completely avoid that temptation. My hip wife Rachel wanted in on the challenge as well, so if you’re curious about trying this, here’s how it went for us…
Day 1…
My Day 1 Notes (Oct 30): Although this was probably the hardest day, it really wasn’t that bad. We’ve all had days where we were so busy we didn’t find time to eat until 5pm, so if you’re productive, and drinking the juices on schedule, you might not even notice any cravings. My stomach growled a bit mid-day, but that was the worst of it over the entire 3 day cleanse.
For you caffeine addicts out there, yes it’s okay to drink coffee! Just don’t add sugar or milk. A little almond milk is okay to add.
Rachel’s Day 1 Notes: Wednesday morning I started the cleanse. I was excited and ready to take on the challenge. I thought oh this is going to be no biggie…drink juice all day. I can do that! For the most part it was really that easy. It roughly breaks down to about drinking 1 juice every 2.5 hours. I set alarms on my phone for every 2.5 hours. By mid day on day 1 i was hungry I’m not gonna lie. It was very hard to not sneak a bite, lick or taste of any of the food i made for my kids (which felt like thats all they wanted to do that day was eat!) and it was especially hard not sneak a taste of the delicious chocolate cake I was making for a client. It seemed like my whole day consisted of being around food and I couldn’t have any of it. By evening I started to miss the idea of chewing. I never would’ve thought that I would miss that because i had never thought about chewing before this but I did! I was very excited when the alarm on my phone would go off because it meant I could drink a juice which would help me ignore my grumbling stomach.
Day 2…
My Day 2 Notes (Oct 31): Mentally day 2 was tougher. Only because we went to a Halloween party with a huge spread of food and adult drinks. And sorry folks, vodka in juice, isn’t a proper cleanse.
I drank a lot of water this day (uncommon for me). By the grace of God, I didn’t have to pee in someone’s backyard while trick or treating. Or someone’s candy bucket.
Rachel’s Day 2 Notes: I woke up and I felt normal. I wasn’t as hungry as I had thought I would be. I set my alarms again and felt pretty confident going into day 2. Day 2 was Halloween and we went to a party with all this delicious food but I was content with my juice. It all smelled great but I wasn’t really craving any of it. My stomach had stopped grumbling and I was down 3lbs that morning so the motivation only grew for me to continue on. After I took my kids trick or treating we came home and I was sitting in the kitchen when all of the sudden I started to not feel that well. My head started to pound something awful and I felt nauseous. I looked at Justin and said “Uh-Oh!! I’m feeling very weird.” I described how I was feeling and he asked me if I had drank water which I had. He then asked me if I had any coffee to which I said no. He immediately said that is what was probably the issue. I decided to test his theory and sure enough after I got through half a cup (used almond milk instead of creamer) I started feeling better. Yikes!! Who knew I was that addicted to coffee?!!?
Day 3…
My Day 3 Notes (Nov 1): I felt really great on day 3. On auto-pilot now. Knowing today was the last day, there were plenty of thoughts of “hmmm, what’s my first meal back going to be”, but I wasn’t counting down the minutes. And oddly enough, I kept thinking about eating a salad on day 4. Possibly my body telling me, “hey moron, you’ve purged yourself of sugar and other shit, let’s keep this going“.
Rachel’s Day 3 Notes: I woke up on day 3 FULL of energy and feeling really good! I had a small cup of coffee with almond milk so I wouldn’t feel the withdrawal of caffeine and embraced the act day of my juice cleanse. I was really amazed at how great I felt. I had energy and didn’t feel sluggish. I also had lost a total of 6lbs when I weighed myself in the morning. I didn’t have any stomach growls that day or feel hungry. The juices were satisfying (all though I definitely had ones I looked forward to drinking and others not so much!) and I made sure to drink plenty water. I went to bed that night proud of myself for doing this and was enjoying the benefits! I was very happy to know I could eat the next day but at the same time I wasn’t craving anything.
Day 4: Juicing over and 12 pounds collectively lost!
My Day 4 Notes: I definitely felt great on day 4, but I was already feeling terrific by day 3. Here’s my big takeaways.
- 4 pounds lost!
- If you do this, you’ll definitely break some of your food-conditioning. I’m more of a snacker throughout the day than I previously realized. I found myself being drawn to the food closet even though I wasn’t really hungry.
- If you have the fortitude to replace breakfast, lunch and dinner for 3 days in a row with juice, going forward you can easily replace one of those big meals.
- If you need to lose some weight quick, this is probably one of the healthiest ways to do it without starving yourself.
Rachel’s Day 4 Notes: I was so impressed by this cleanse. I had never done one before and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I really was shocked at how great I felt on day 3. I know the claims said you would feel great but I guess I didn’t expect how great i really would feel! In the end I lost a total of 8lbs which was a great boost that I needed! When I did have food cravings (which wasn’t that often to be honest) I wanted a salad or roasted vegetables which was odd because anyone that knows me knows I’m not the vegetable craving type so to me that was really amazing! I really enjoyed this and I plan to do it again! I’ve heard people that do cleanses use the phrase “hit the reset button on your body” and I was always curious if this was just a saying cleansers say or what. After doing this I can now officially say I get it! By day 3 I felt great and I experienced that “reset” feeling! That feeling is what will make me want to do this again and again!!
