Juice Cleanse: Day One

Hello friends!

I recently decided to hop on the bandwagon and do a juice cleanse. But I am not made of money or influence and cannot afford the $100 a day for the much talked about R.C. However, I really like the idea of resetting my body and brain a little bit, and I definitely struggle with appropriate portion size and impulse control, and that seems to be a touted benefit of doing a cleanse.  So after re-reading Hannah's post on XOJane I decided to give it a go myself. I purchased a juicer thanks to my tax refund, and I got to work.

Last night I made 2 juices, and forgive the indulgence but I have given them slighty silly names:

Green Goodness
2 handfuls of chopped kale and baby spinach
1 fuji apple, peeled/chopped
1 kiwi, peeled/chopped
4 romaine leaves, washed
1 tablespoon lemon juice (I juiced 2 lemons and am keeping that in the fridge to add as needed, I probably needed 1.5 for this juice)
2 mini english cukes, chopped
tiny piece of peeled ginger
a few parsley & mint leaves

Ravishing Red
(the inspiration for this was a frequent side dish favorite of mine which is orange ginger roasted beets)
1 beet, washed, peeled, chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled, chopped 1 fuji apple, peeled, chopped
1 orange peeled, broken up into reasonable segments
larger piece of peeled ginger
4 romaine leaves

I sent all ingredients through the juicer, though I found that I needed to send the expelled pulp back through a couple of times. Both juices came out fine. The recipes here maybe made 14 oz of juice, maybe 16 oz.? I am using 20 oz. water bottles so I just made up the difference with water. Both juices were good but it certainly was not enough to get me through the day and I came home cold, hungry and a little crabby. So I made this:
(Does that amazing looking manicure intrigue you? Check back tomorrow for the details!)
3 small tomatoes
2 handfuls kale, one of spinach
1/2 small clove of garlic
A few parsley leaves
Sprinkle of cayenne

I then added a little water to this, plus a couple of pinches of salt (!!!! I think the salt is definitely cheating!!!!) and heated up the whole mixture in the microwave. It was fine, it was obviously not a perfect substitute for the delicious, delicious pizza I am craving right now. The pizza that is in my fridge not 10 feet from where I sit. But I will ignore it and stick with the juice as long as I can, and I'll be back on Wednesday with a cleanse update!

-Ms. Meghan

p.s. Big disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and I don't necessarily recommend doing anything like this without doing research and/or consulting with your doctor.  Do what's right and healthy for you.