Juicing 3-Day Challenge: Day 3 (End Day)

With Day 3 now over I wanted to reflect on the experience. I can understand why juicing isn't for everyone. It's expensive, time consuming, and certainly not easy to stick too. What I will say is that even having only done the 3-day challenge I felt much more energy in the mornings then I usually feel and I lost 5 pounds in three days. That's not bad. Juicing is a great way to Reboot your system and I can definitely say my cravings for the sweets while not gone has definitely been curbed.

What I will say is that it has to be something you really want to do. The hunger feelings were sometimes hard to manage but the reward I feel was worth it. You also need to make sure if you have a family that they support your choice and assist you. Its very hard to have people around you eating delicious but bad food while you are sustaining yourself on produce and fruit juices.

While I will admit this I enjoyed the process I see it as something I will occasionally do to kickstart better eating habits but I don't have the will power to sustain an all juice diet for much longer then the 3-days I did it. I will admit that there were a few juices that I would and could see myself making because they tasted delicious. The Morning Sunrise and the Peach Pie Delight are worth it.

Juicing 3-Day Challenge: Day 2 (Hump Day)

Day two was a repeat of Day 1’s recipes. It was today that the craving for something sweet really hit me. It took all my will power to resist the urge to run a dollar through the vending machine for a snickers bar.

I forced myself to drink more water then I had the day before and I felt much more energy than I had the first day. The increase in water definitely helped with the hunger and kept me on track.

At lunch time I went to the gym with a co-worker and took a circuit training class. It was a great workout but the burpee’s really took a lot out of me and the lack of anything of real substance in my stomach definitely lead to pretty serious dizzies. I didn’t lose my juice but it was close. I took a quick ice cold shower after to bring my body down to temp and kept my afternoon pretty low key.

My afternoon juice definitely gave me some energy back and when I got home I was glad that I didn’t have any bad food left over or hanging around. With nothing but my produce in the fridge I made my dinner and dessert juices before taking it easy and calling it an early night.

One thing I have noticed is that I woke up more energetic today then I had felt in a long time. That is something I hope continues. Tomorrow I'm going to start my day juicing but every Friday the guys and I go out for lunch and as much as I'd like to say i could go and drink my juice it isn't going to happen. I'll just focus on picking something healthy like a salad.
 

Juicing 3-Day Challenge: Day 1 (The Beginning)

Standing 5’10 and after a morning weigh in of 185lbs typical BMI calculators clock me in at 26.1. I just miss being considered normal weight and instead fall into the overweight category but I am hopeful that this reboot will not just help me shed a few pounds but will help break me of my sweet cravings. As I wrap up day 1 I was surprised at a few things. Of the 5 different juice options I picked I didn’t really find any that were unpalatable.

Knowing that I needed to bring my lunch and afternoon juices with me it took me only about 20 minutes to juice everything and clean up before leaving the house in the morning. I did end up with a full waste container and clean up was a breeze with the Breville composting bags I picked up by recommendation.

My morning “Orange” juice was called Sunrise and consisted of 4 carrots, 2 oranges and 1 beet. It was sweet and refreshing and actually pretty good. I packed up my lunch and afternoon juices in a cooler and took my coconut water with me.

I already knew I liked coconut water so that was an easy one. I was pleased that I hadn’t really had any hunger cravings yet and by lunch time I was still feeling pretty good. My lunch juice was a “Green” Garden Variety and had 2 apples, 2 cucumbers, 8 kale leaves and a handful of parsley. The apples and cucumbers really were the dominant flavors in this one and it again tasted pretty good.

As the afternoon went on I started to feel cravings about 1:30 for something sweet. I tried to combat that by drinking more water and while it didn’t satisfy the cravings I wasn’t hungry. My Mid-Afternoon juice was a “Red” Un-Beet-able. It’s made from 1 apple, 1 beet 3 carrots, 1 small piece of ginger root and 3 cups of spinach. I think I might have put a tad too much ginger since it definitely had a zing to it but it wasn’t bad and it satisfied me

For dinner I decided to go with the “Green” Green Lemonade. More kale which I was a tad disappointed with the amount of juice it yielded, 3 handfuls of spinach, 1 green apple, 1 cucumber, 2 celery stocks and 1 lemon. It was a little bitter but not too bad and went down with out much trouble.

For dessert I picked a “Purple” Peach Pie Delight. The only real strange ingredient in this one was the sweet potato. The 2 peaches, 1 red apple, 1 handful of blueberries and a dash of cinnamon all made sense to me. It was delicious. I might have to pick up some more peaches to make this again tomorrow.