juice cleanse, part 2

Day 4, Thursday, 4/12: Today is definitely the start of the "cleansing" if you catch my drift. I needed to stay near the bathroom. Luckily this phase didn't happen during work. Today I felt good non-eating wise and the food craving is not so bad. If Mark didn't want to eat dinner and just drink juice I would've been OK, I think. 

Day 5, Friday, 4/13: Today, I am definitely down one belt hole. Woo hoo! Mark had the day off today and he said he had a lot more energy than he though he would. He even worked out today and cleaned the apartment. Wow! The frequency of the "cleansing" is not as bad today but luckily once again all of this happened after work for me. The food cravings are back again and with a vengeance. It certainly didn't help that my boss bought pizza for us today. And I LOVE pizza in any form, cheap or chic. But I stayed strong and didn't eat a slice because Mark sacrificed eating Korean BBQ with his friends today as well. I had the weirdest craving to eat a bowl of spaghetti right before bed.  Solution: hurry up and go to sleep!

I thought I'd share some tips and equipment with you. The juicer we're using is a Breville Juice Fountain Plus, model JE98XL. We bought it from Bed, Bath & Beyond for $149 with a 20% coupon. We went with this brand just because of the price point and because it was the brand used in the movie. I'm sure that was part of their plan ... product placement = boost juicer sales.  We drink 2-3 servings of mostly fruit juice before the evening and 1-2 servings of veggie juice in the late afternoon and evening. Check out the Reboot Your Life website for more details and what they recommend. 

Mark and I quickly found out that while juicing is rather fun, prepping and cleaning is not. So rather than juice several times a day we decided to juice one day's worth of juice at one time to prep and clean only once a day. We store our 2-3 servings of fruit heavy (there's still veggies in there though) juice in a Takeya pitcher, one for me and one for Mark. We bought a Takeya pitcher 2-pack from Costco for $19.99 +tax. One is pictured below. I think Costco doesn't sell it online. What is great is that it's a leak-proof, air-tight pitcher that can be stored on its side. This is great because if you buy all the fruits and veggies for this cleanse your fridge will quickly fill up and there will be little space for a large pitcher sitting upright. Now you can put this pitcher on its side and store it on a small shelf in your fridge. Being air-tight is crucial because if you're juicing for the next day you really don't want your juice to oxidize and become brown and yucky. Last key feature is that the pitcher opening is wide enough for me to fit my hand in to clean, very important. Mark stores his all-veggie single serving of juice in a Blender Bottle and I store mine in a Lock and Lock container since I'm not as cool as him and don't have a Blender Bottle. ;P

Here's the mostly fruit juice that I made to fill my Takeya today:

3 BIG handfulls of spinach (not pictured)

6 leaves of kale (not pictured)

8+ small carrots, peeled

2 granny smith apples, quartered

3 anjou pears, quartered

1 lemon, rind removed but keeping the white pith, halved

2 navel oranges, rind removed but keeping the white pith, quartered

1/4 small cantaloupe, rind removed

1 cucumber 

I put the ingredients through the juicer in the order listed.