The idea of the juice reboot (or "fast", or "cleanse") is to drink juice from fresh fruits and vegetables, along with lots of water, and the occasional (optional) herbal tea. The juice gives you lots of micronutrients, while allowing all of the bad stuff to work it's way out because your body isn't working to digest food.
So, we ordered a juicer and started weaning ourselves off of caffeine. The day the juicer came we went out and bought what seemed like a ton of fresh vegetables and fruits. I looked up juice recipes on jointhereboot.com, and we started our reboot first thing the next morning. The juice reboot had begun! We didn't know how many days we were going to do it. We decided we would just "see how it goes".
Day 1: The day started off great. We had a breakfast juice of mostly fruit (yum!), and I made the "Mean Green" juice for Robert to take to work with him. Then I had a rude awakening a little later when I had my second juice of the day. I found out I hate kale juice. I mean really, really hate it. I could hardly gag down that Mean Green juice. Unfortunately for me, kale has a lot of nutrients, and is the most recommended veggie to include in juices. Ugh. The Mean Green recipe has kale, celery, cucumber, green apples, a lemon and ginger root in it. Very nutritious. Very icky. But I managed to drink it. I drank another juice later, made up of mostly vegetables but no kale. It was a little better, but at this point I was wondering how I would last another day. I felt very...weird. Hard to explain. I couldn't drink my fourth juice of the day...just couldn't make myself do it.
Day 2: This was a difficult day. I woke up with a headache. I had been warned about this, but thought I would be okay because of weaning myself off of caffeine. I was wrong. The headache lasted through most of the day. The good news: I had already lost four pounds! Losing weight wasn't the entire reason for this reboot, but it was definitely a big plus, and gave me some motivation. One thing I was not prepared for was the emotional ups and downs I experienced, especially during day 2. I went from feeling fine to "why am I doing this...what am I doing...I don't want to do this....I can't do this....no, no, I'm fine....I feel great...no, I'm miserable...WHY AM I DOING THIS?????" I tried going back to bed for a while to sleep off the headache and the mood swings, but it didn't work. I fell asleep for a few minutes and then tossed and turned. So, I tried to go about my day as usual, but that was very, very difficult. Again, I didn't know how I would last another day. But I somehow made myself drink my water and juices. I found out that spinach is much more palatable than kale, and just about as nutritious. But I was very glad when the day was over and it was time to go to bed!
Day 3: I woke up with a slight headache, but it went away after my morning juice. I was down another 2 pounds! Yay! I felt okay, but still a little weird. Almost like how you feel after you've been sick with a stomach bug, but without the shakiness and weakness. I was so glad Robert was doing this juice reboot with me. We were in this together. It was Saturday, so we stayed home all day, drank our juices and went for a walk. We felt fine, but very tired. By the end of the day we were both sick of juice. We felt like if we drank another juice we would literally be sick. We talked about it, and made the decision to continue with the reboot, but in a modified way. We would start adding solid food because we just couldn't (didn't want to) continue on only juice. So we each ate a baked sweet potato, and it was heavenly.
The next morning I weighed in and I had lost another pound. We had a few juices throughout the day, but also ate some fruits and vegetables. Since then we have been eating mostly fruits and vegetables with small amounts of grains, dairy, and meat, and drinking one or two juices a day. We've been exercising regularly, and we both feel great.
It has been a week since we started the juice reboot. I am glad I did it. Glad I have a juicer to easily add servings of fresh fruits and veggies to my diet. Glad I lost a few pounds, and hopeful I will lose a few more. Glad that it worked: we gave ourselves a jump start to being more healthy. And most of all, glad I don't have to drink that awful kale juice anymore!
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