Hallelujah! I survived my juice cleanse! Yesterday was the final day and I am so happy I didn’t quit or give up. There were a few times that I seriously questioned if this cleanse was worth all the money that was spent on the produce.

The first 4 days of this cleanse I strictly juiced and only juiced low sugar veggies. The next 3 days I reintroduced protein, moderate carbs, and healthy fats into my diet. Then I repeated the whole thing again. I have to say I am super proud of my husband, my friend Kiley and her husband Kasey for also doing this cleanse. Josh and Kasey had to modify it slightly for their work schedules but all of us did so great and it was encouraging to know that we were doing this together.

Last week I was so excited to juice again for 4 days. Let me tell you by Friday afternoon I was so over it. I pressed on for 3 more days and was again ready to eat on Tuesday morning. If you want to read more about this cleanse and how it works click HERE. To read about how I did last week click HERE.

DAY 14 MEASUREMENTS

WEIGHT 124 lb. | WAIST 28.5″

After the first week I was super happy with how I was feeling. Eating food for 3 whole days was simply amazing!

Before I can continue, I totally have a confession to make. In the interest of being completely honest and real with you, on my final day of eating last week, Josh thought it would be a great idea to buy a new jar of peanut butter. If you know me you would know I love peanut butter. Like I can eat it straight out of the jar with a spoon. So good! Well this wasn’t just any peanut butter it was Cookie Nookie Peanut Butter by PB Crave. Ummm…we may have eaten half the jar, and by we, I really mean I.

Even in light of the peanut butter incident I feel so successful and proud of myself with what I was able to accomplish. This cleanse was very challenging but worth every drop of green juice I drank and all the yummy veggies I consumed.

For those of you who are interested in how much money was spent to buy all the groceries for this cleanse let me break down the numbers.

TOTAL COST OF CLEANSE

• Organic Produce for Juicing: $200
• Branched Chained Amino Acids: $45
• Apple Cider Vinegar: $3
• Chia Seeds: $10
• Psyllium Husk: $10
• Wild Caught Salmon: $14
• Grass Fed Chicken Breasts: $20
• Cage Free Eggs: $8
• Organic Produce for Eating: $120

That comes to a whopping grand total of $430. I know that is a ton of money. Josh and I had set aside money each week specifically for this cleanse. I will say that I did not need to spend anywhere near the amount I did on produce that we actually ate. I think I had gotten used to buying a large quantity to juice that it was habit to load my cart up. I also was starving.

Now for the fun part! My results!

WEIGHT CHANGE -3 lb. | WAIST CHANGE -0.5″

Hello abs! So I never went into this cleanse with the expectation to lose weight. I would have loved to taken my % body fat because I am pretty positive that is where the biggest change occurred. Regardless of the numbers I feel better and I am totally not craving sugar. My sugar cravings were starting to get super bad and would have continued to get worse if I had not done this cleanse.

What do you think? Can you tell a difference? Have you done a cleanse?

If you are interested in doing this cleanse you can find more information HERE.

Have and wonderful weekend and thanks for reading!

xoxo, Tamara

PS…I am linking up with Mandi and Face It Catalog today. If you like my blog you can follow The Workout Mama on Bloglovin.

I am still and alive and survived the first half of my cleanse. I am so thankful to have had the support of my husband and friend Kiley over the last 7 days because there were a few moments when I thought I wouldn’t make it and run to pantry for the peanut butter. The 3 of us have been texting and talking daily to encourage each other as we cleanse together.

DAY 7 MEASUREMENTS

WEIGHT 124 lb. | WAIST 28.5″

I feel really great about my progress so far. For starters, I did not do this cleanse to lose weight, but for a total body detox and a system reset. My goals were to help combat any areas of inflammation in my body and to reduce my cravings for sweets.

My husband has already lost 8 pounds. He also had to start eating again before going back on shift at the fire station. We did not want him passing out on a call. According to Josh this juice cleanse is much more challenging than the program he and my mom followed previously from Reboot with Joe.

If you are new here or missed last weeks post, you can read more detailed information about our cleanse, HERE. Basically, we are following a 14 day juicing and clean eating protocol called the Beta Breakthrough. All of our juices are made in our home from produce we purchased from our local grocery store and juiced using our Breville Juicer.

The first 4 days of this cleanse we strictly juiced and only juiced low sugar veggies. The next 3 days we reintroduced protein, moderate carbs, and healthy fats into our diet. Now for the fun part. Let’s compare my Day 1 photo with Day 7.

WEIGHT CHANGE -3 lb. | WAIST CHANGE -0.5″

In 7 days I have lost 3 pounds and 0.5″ around my waist. Like I said before I am not doing this cleanse to lose weight. I feel that my weight was very healthy before I began this cleanse. I would much rather feel amazing than have obtained a certain number on the scale.

DAYS 1-4

The first day was for sure the hardest. My husband and I juice often in our home so I wasn’t worried about juicing itself but was more concerned about how my body would feel and function on green juice only for 4 solid days. Josh said he has never heard me talk about food so much in my life. I kept saying how good french fries, pizza, and lemonade sounded. Poor guy, I know I was torturing him too with all my talk about food.

If you are ever going to do a cleanse make sure you read and understand the recipes and terminology. For example it would be great to know the difference between a stick of celery and and a stalk of celery. Learned this one the hard way. The first day of our cleanse Josh and I couldn’t figure out why our juices seemed so small. As I was prepping our produce the following evening I was struck by the word stalk.

Wasn’t a stalk a stick? No wonder our juices had seemed so tiny. I had not been putting the correct amounts in the recipes. Lesson learned.

Days 2-3 got fairly easier because we were actually juicing the correct amount and by Day 4 I was ready to be done with juicing and start chewing my food again. Because we were juicing for several days I got into a nice routine of cleaning, prepping, and storing our produce for the next several days of juices. Look at how pretty all those veggies look.

 

So many veggies! Josh and I were each consuming around 5 stalks of celery, 4 cucumbers, 1 bunch of parsley, 3 bundles of kale, 1 bundle of rainbow chard, 1/2 red cabbage, 1 lime, and 3 lemons during these 4 days.

There is no way I could ever eat this amount in a 24 hour period. Once I had all the veggies sorted, I made a “grab bag” for each juice we would drink. When we were ready to eat drink it was super easy to pull a bag out of the refrigerator with everything ready to go.

My energy levels took a nose dive on day 3. I was very, very tired. It didn’t help that I was up peeing every night at least 3 times because of all the liquids I was pushing through my body. In addition to the juice I also had at least 5 large glasses of lemon water a day.

Josh and myself took our recommended walks and I even did a very light swim during this phase. On day 4 Josh started eating again so he was well nourished before returning to work. I cooked him 3 separate meals, which I wanted to devour but didn’t, I think I should win an award or something, at least a foot rub (hint, hint Josh).

DAYS 5-7

I was so excited to eat! I didn’t even care that I couldn’t eat bread because whole vegetables and meat sounded so good! I am not sure why I have never had a sunny side up egg on my salad before now, but it may be my new favorite way to have salad. So yummy!

As good as all this food was I realized two very important things. Before this cleanse, I had been eating way too many “filler” foods during the day and after cleansing for 4 days with just juice the amount of food that I needed to be satiated was greatly reduced. My first meal I made I only ate about half of my plate before I was done.

What has been on my plate during this phase? So many things! Mushrooms, chicken, cucumbers, spinach, turkey, eggs, asparagus, brussels sprouts, broccoli, almonds, and sweet potatoes. I am sure I am forgetting something but those have been the staples.

I was introduced to adding a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to my water each night before bed during this cleanse and I will probably continue doing this after we have finished. It doesn’t taste bad at all and has so many health benefits. Who knew? Post coming soon on apple cider vinegar.

By the evening of Day 6, call me crazy, but I was looking forward to juicing again for another 4 days. And so my friends, today starts the halfway point of my cleanse. Yippee! Check back next Friday for a final recap.

I am off to enjoy my yummy green juice! I am sure in 4 days I will be sick of them again and ready for food but I am so excited for more juice.