this is one monday morning i was happy to wake up, because
it means we MADE IT through our 3-day juice cleanse! phew!
first let's talk about why we did this juice cleanse.
// not to lose weight in 3 days.
//not to be annoying and make other people feel bad about what they eat.
//not to become extreme health nuts.
...i used to not understand why people did cleanses, and
it always made me feel stressed that i wasn't being
healthy enough when i saw others doing it.
don't let it do that to you. like i talked about here,
we are all about being healthy and balanced. i am not a
fan of anything extreme because if you have to think
about food too much, it causes stress and defeats the
purpose of being healthy in the first place...at least
for me. so i never thought i would do a cleanse.
it all started because lately we've been trying out
pressed juices here and there, and we've fallen in love.
none of the local places we were trying offered cleanses,
so we didn't even consider it..but i really noticed how great
i felt after drinking them and i started to learn more.
i love all of the goodness that goes into pressed juice
and i think of it as "liquid gold" going into your body.
but, i was happy just drinking it on the side & eating food too!
i think i loved their cute branding and name first, but once i
talked to teresa i knew this was my kind of cleanse. teresa has
set up shop in san francisco and LA, and they have a great
reputation in both places. she is the sweetest, and makes you
feel like you can do anything! my favorite part was her saying..
"emi you CAN do the can can!" there are 8 juices per day, and
it's so nice because she does 2 cold fruit juices, 2 cold
vegetable juices, 2 warm herbal teas, and a hot soup for lunch.
this makes it so much better instead of drinking cold juice all day.
so wait..why did we do the cleanse? a few reasons.
1) look at the benefits of all of the ingredients here... reading that was what really first convinced us to do the cleanse. the health benefits are too amazing to ignore!
2) i think we are so lucky to live in a time where there's such an emphasis on health, and so much knowledge about it. we love food and love treating ourselves, but it's smart to have balance and do things like this once in a while to reset.
3) after the holidays + our sonoma trip + eating anything in sight, this was a good time to really focus on what we put into our bodies...especially with our big trip coming up this month where we are sure to treat ourselves! doing this cleanse made me think about food so differently and really appreciate the fact that we can have any food, anytime we want.
4) trying new things is our favorite, especially together. we knew this would be an adventure of it's own, and we wanted to experience it first-hand.
benefits of the juice ingredients include:
anti-cancer, liver cleansing, full of vitamins and nutrients, etc.
so we thought-- why not. this will only help our bodies,
and it's a good mental challenge to not be controlled by food.
it's a time-out from routine eating, and it gives you
more willpower and self-control! teresa said the cleanse
makes you: feel less tired, less stressed, eliminates
aches & pains, and helps your digestive process. it's a
"spa retreat for your insides!"
love that. we focus on the outside too often, it was time
to focus on the inside. so we decided to do it...here is a recap:
..can can cleanse recap..
day one
we started on friday, so i had work + an interview and my
mind was not even on food anyway.. i was doing great!
the lemon ginger juice was hard to get down the first day
because of the cayenne pepper, (eeek!) but i felt good after
drinking it and i LOVED the green drink. the warm
cardamom dandelion drink was a little harder to drink,
but then i made it to lunch and heated up the winter
soup...umm, delicious. i would eat that for lunch every
day! after i had that i felt great, full enough, and focused
on work. i made it to the spiced apple juice, (again-delicious)
& was feeling so good! i drove home and suddenly crashed.
i felt light-headed and so weak and my body was confused
because normally i would get home and eat, so i was just off.
i got home and crawled straight into bed and just stayed
there until chase got home. i said that i could't get out
of bed or i'd go get food! i drank the green juice and felt
okay, and finally made it to the nut milk at 7:00 which
saved us. that stuff is delicious and i could also have that
every day! we fell asleep and then did our last lemongrass
drink really late because we had slept so long.
day two
this day was hard because a) you're not even halfway
when you wake up, b) it's saturday so you're not as
busy or distracted c) i went to yoga and felt amazing but
when i came home i felt so much more hungry. it was
really hard to but back activity and not exercise,
because i enjoy exercise so much and rely on
it for de-stressing and routine. so i think i was
just off from not feeling strong enough to! our
bffs came over for moral support, but we ate our
soup lunches early and just felt starving! we
munching on some celery/almonds. i love that
these are included on the website, because
we just needed to chew something instead
of drink it. chase fell asleep in the afternoon
and i walked down the street to anthropologie
(haha) for some retail distraction. i walked
past all the sidewalk cafés with huge bowls
of pasta and burgers and smelled it all..
but i stayed strong! saturday night we
watched documentaries and finished out,
but we were both a little hangry
(hungry/angry) by then haha.
day three
i don't know how i accidentally scheduled
this cleanse over SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!
what kind of wife am i? haha chase was such
a good sport. we woke up and spent all morning
apartment hunting in rainy SF...which was fun
but after i thought i would pass out from hunger!
i was needing food! it's so strange because you
will feel desperate for food and 10 minutes
later you're completely content. there are
definitely highs and lows. we went to church
and i was fine all through that because
we were with friends and not thinking about
food, but then we made a big mistake...headed
to watch the super bowl at our friends' house..
with hot pizza in the oven, chips + salsa,
brownies, popcorn...and we had our 2 juices
on the table! it was definitely hard and
i had to focus all my energy and not
eating a huge piece of pizza. luckily our
friends had done a cleanse before and
they gave us pep talks and said that even
if we ate pizza coming off the cleanse we
wouldn't feel good...i guess the pep
talk worked for me, but not for chase :)
right after he finished his last juice,
he considered himself done and ate
chips and salsa, and maybe a few
treats..haha but i can't blame him, i'm
impressed he did the cleanse with me
and made it through (most) of the
superbowl. last night when we got
home i made some of my very favorite
sweet potato/kale/quinoa to eat today,
and i did sneak a few bites...so we
didn't end perfectly, but we did make it
and we feel great. i definitely have more
energy, and little things are gone like
my sore throat when we started.
i love knowing how many good
nutrients are in our bodies from that,
and i hope it will help us stay a little
more balanced going forward. i won't
lie, i am looking forward to a huge
burrito and lots of brownies this week,
but maybe i'll balance them out better now.
all in all, we're so glad we did this.
let's be real, it was hard. we love
food and you realize what a big
part of your life it is when you're
doing a juice cleanse. it's hard to
go to social things, or even go out
without thinking about food because
it's everywhere! it was nice to have a
reset and we definitely picked the
best company possible for it.
thank you to can can for such a nice break and challenge!
we recommend them highly and even though it was
hard for us, it was so worth it. i truly feel full of
energy today and haven't craved sugar at all...
which is not normal for me! teresa checks in on
you and makes it so personal. all of our SF and LA
readers---be brave and try this, and let us know
how you do! we'll be cheering for you!
xo
ps..for a little health craze humor, watch here!
