So you’ve decided to do a juice cleanse or are curious about it?
Well – I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I thought I would share my own experience.
At the end of the Winter season I decided to do a juice cleanse, I had been feeling pretty heavy, tired, kinda low all winter. A bit over worked, under rested and in need of a change.
I went in search of a cleanse and found BluePrint Organics. I had seen a friend do their cleanse after the holidays and had been wanting to try it too!
I have never done a juice cleanse before although I have been curious about it for some time. As someone who is always on the go, working hard to help other people achieve health and happiness sometimes I forget I have to take care of me too!
Many of you may remember my husband and I adopted a puppy in December and since then our lives have been quite different. Raising and training a puppy is not easy work, but it is amazing and fulfilling. It has meant though that neither Wade nor I have been as good at taking care of us as we need to be. Since the beginning of the year we have been working extra hard and eating well has taken a bit of a back seat. It’s meant fast and easy meals which for us aren’t always the healthiest. So this combined with less sleep, less time for me and the cold of winter meant I had been struggling a bit emotionally and health-wise the last couple months.
When I reached out to BluePrint Organics I shared all this with them asking them if they would like to partner with me to share the experience of doing my first juice cleanse. I have to say, they were so excited and so nice! My contact there checked in with me to see what cleanse I wanted to do and how many days I felt comfortable with. I asked her so many questions and she answered them all!
For my first juice cleanse we settled on a 2-day The BluePrint OG Renovation Cleanse. As I looked through the various cleanses BluePrint offers I realized a juice cleanse wasn’t something you had to do when you felt like you hit rock bottom but as a way to maintain your health. Even before I got my juices I was excited to take this opportunity to give my body, mind, and spirit a little reset!
I started my juice cleanse in the middle of my week, I tried to pick 2 days that weren’t as packed which was a good idea. Cleansing for me left me a bit drained of energy and grateful I didn’t pack my schedule full.
A couple things to keep in mind before you start:
1. Try to choose a time of to cleanse when you can also give your body and mind some rest too so you aren’t pushing yourself so hard!
2. Start a few days before, don’t eat a lots of heavy foods and start the hydration process early drinking plenty of water.
3. Be sure you share your plans to cleanse with your friends and family so they have a heads up!
BluePrint Organics has lots of info on their site too about doing a successful juice cleanse and they encourage you to stick to the juice order they send with your package. The OG Cleanse is comprised of 5 different juices but 6 total, you get to “Kale it Up” 2x a day!
The order for my juices is as follows:
1. Kale It Up
2. Pineapple Power
3. Kale It Up
4. Lemon Reset
5. Beet Blast
6. Nut & Bolt
So let’s talk taste – I am certain that many of you reading this are thinking I don’t know that I could do this, the taste alone would turn me off. Well I was amazed at how good and fresh the juices tasted! They tasted to clean and rejuvenating and honestly I found myself wanting more. I will say my favorite juices were the Beet Blast and the Nut & Bolt. I liked ending my day with some heavier juices but was grateful for the energy kick in the Pineapple Power mid-morning. I also loved the cleansing feeling of the Lemon Reset and the healthy goodness of the Kale It Up.
I usually make myself a green smoothie in the morning so I am not unaccustomed to the taste of a healthy drink, but I just have to say again BluePrint Organics creates some amazingly delicious juices! And if you are worried about just drinking juice all day I found it helpful to drink herbal teas in-between and water. The tea ensured I drank plenty of water and gave me something to sip on during my day which when you aren’t eating is a helpful feeling I think.
Now as someone who uses her body all day long to teach classes and tends to snack on little things throughout the day I did find this whole process hard. I am used to consuming a healthy amount of calories during my day to keep my energized and going. I am often booking it from one client to the next to a room full of yogis with little time in between. I make lots of little snacky things to take with me and eat them mostly in my car to-and-from my appointments. So not eating solid food for 2 days was a challenge, I definitely got hungry, but usually when that happened it was time for my next juice. The number of calories was drastically less, about 1000 calories in total for the day. But this is why I chose to do 2 days my first time and not 10. I wanted to set myself up to be successful and to feel good about this whole juice cleanse experience!
The reduced number of calories definitely made me feel tired, but I think honestly the cleanse brought to light my current state of exhaustion. I actually took the time to nap during the juice cleanse, to do short slow practices, to just slow down all together. I took a hot bath one night and went to bed early, something I hadn’t done in several months and really took this opportunity to focus on myself!
Tips during the cleanse:
1. Go slow, literally slow down if that’s what your body is asking you. It’s what my body needed and I listened!
2. If you find yourself craving food, brew a cup of tea, try some new herbal teas and savor them! I even added some lemon to my water to keep my palette interested.
3. Don’t forget YOU made the decision to do this juice cleanse! Don’t take your hangry out on others and remember this choice was yours so really be present for it rather than hating every moment you can’t stuff crunchy snacks in your mouth!
So post juice cleanse – well I made it and that was pretty awesome, honestly I almost felt like I could have kept going a few more days just because I had found a bit of a rhythm with it. And I only chose to do my first one for 2 days. It was great to experience the benefits post cleanse though, I felt so much lighter and just happy to have completed it. I definitely was excited to start eating again though and stuck to easy foods first, soups, fruits and no dairy or meat for the first few days. Wade cooked us up a couple salmon fillets a couple days after which tasted good and definitely hit the spot! The best overall lesson this experience taught me was I need to be just as mindful of my own well-being as everyone else’s. I teach this all the time in my classes too – but sometimes we forget to listen to our own words. I know I work best when I am working hard, almost all the time but I also need to just as good at checking in with myself and taking a few moments to slow down amidst my chaos.
So if you are considering a juice cleanse I say absolutely go for it! And I highly recommend BluePrint Organics. They not only create delicious, organic and high quality juices, but they took care of me the whole time, checking in to see how it was going and responding to my IG stories and videos!
And since I am now an affiliate with them I can offer you 15% off your cleanse with my code: CLARISSAMAE
And BluePrint has lots to offer! You can check out their other cleanses here.
You can see BluePrints FAQs here which are full of lots of great info too on your first cleanse and any other questions you may have!
I also highly recommend you check out their tonics, their Turmeric Tonic is a great way to start your day!
And let me know how your cleanse goes! I can’t wait to do another in a few months and start doing them more regularly as part of my self-care promise to ME!
