Challenge: Three days. No solid food. No caffeine. How’s that for a challenge?
Juicing — the practice of consuming only fresh juices — can help cleanse the body and leave you feeling leaner, cleaner and lighter. Proponents recommend juicing for anywhere between one and 30 days, with three days as a good starting point for a beginner/intermediate like myself.
Philly-based Catalyst (www.catalystcleanse.com), which opened the raw-food JAR Bar, 113 S. 12th St., earlier this year, offers its signature cleanse with six freshly made juices per day ($60).
The juices are a combination of fruits, vegetables, nut milks and spices to be consumed in order for a total of 1,200 calories daily.
In order, the juices are green, spicy lemonade, carrot-apple, watermelon, green again and cashew.
The green juice is a combination of cucumber, celery, apple, parsley, spinach, lemon, lime and ginger. Spicy lemonade is lemon, agave and cayenne. Carrot-apple is carrot, apple, celery, lemon and lime. Watermelon is watermelon and lime. Cashew is cashew, agave, cinnamon and vanilla.
For the novice juicer, the green juice is likely the hardest to adjust to, as it isn’t sweet like traditional juices. Instead, it tastes like fresh greens — think leafy green salad. The spicy lemonade is not too sweet, with a kick. The carrot-apple is sweeter, with a hint of fresh citrus. The watermelon is sweet and refreshing, like summer in a bottle. The cashew is milky and a little sweet, like dessert.
A three-day juice cleanse is supposed to help reset one’s relationship with food, and can be a jumping off point for kicking a bad habit or starting a good one. For myself, I was more aware of when I wanted to eat and why — it was often out of boredom. Juicing will also help you to recognize the difference between the rumbling in your belly that is often called hunger (but is really just your body producing enzymes in anticipation of food to digest) vs. actual hunger, when you feel faint or woozy. And although I often felt the rumbling in my tummy over the three days, I only felt faint once — after a 90-minute trail run. (While Catalyst says you can exercise while you juice, they may not have meant 16-mile bike rides and 90-minute trail runs. Restorative yoga might have been a better option.)
In addition to giving your digestive system a break, allowing it to clear out impurities, juicing often results in weight loss: For three days, one can expect to lose 3-6 pounds; I lost 4.
One of the challenges of juicing is actually reminding yourself that you can’t eat because you are juicing. More than once I caught myself thinking, I could have x for lunch or I could stop here for a snack. (I did neither.)
To successfully juice, you need to prepare yourself, mentally and physically. Don’t plan to do too much, and make sure you tell your partner, friends and colleagues, so they understand when you get cranky and ask them to refrain from eating goldfish next to you.
Though it’s tough, juicing is rewarding: Beyond my sense of accomplishment (I haven’t eaten for three days!), I felt leaner and cleaner, no doubt from having a clean digestive track, ready for more food.