4 Things I Learned From Doing A 1-Day Cleanse With Juice Austin

On Thursday I did my first one-day juice cleanse! Juice Austin reached out and asked if I’d like to try one for free, and I was so happy to accept! I promise to share my honest opinion of it.

I’ll start by sharing the hour-by-hour recap of the day, and then I’ll finish with the five things I learned. Cool? Ok, here we go!

The day before my cleanse, I pick up my juice that I had ordered at the Juice Austin food truck. It’s on South Congress, pretty close to my house, so I just swing by and grab the 12 juices (6 for me, 6 for Nate), and put them in my car. They also have a delivery service if you need that!

5:30 am: I wake up before my alarm because my stomach is growling… Ha! Not sure if that’s a great way to start a cleanse. I didn’t have a late snack the night before, even though I was a little hungry. Figured it would be best to not stuff my belly the night before a cleanse. Anyhow, I lie there for about an hour and tried to fall back asleep, but don’t succeed.

6:30 am: Alarm goes off for barre. I squeeze an entire lemon into 30 oz of water and sip on that during class.

8:30 am: Juice 1 is a Kale To The Chief: kale, romaine, spinach, apple, cucumber, lemon, ginger, celery. I love this one! It’s full of greens and a little sweet from the apple.

I’m missing my coffee….but this point I’m usually half-way through a cup!

11 am: I spend the morning working on my computer. At 11, it’s time for Juice 2, which is Tropic Thunder: orange, lemon, lime, pineapple, grapefruit. It’s so sweet and completely filled me up.

At this point I feel completely exhausted from the lack of caffeine. Ha! I had no idea how much it affected me, but I can seriously hardly keep my eyes open. I take an hour-long nap, and it’s some of the deepest sleep I’ve ever experienced.

When I wake up, I make some green tea because I feel a mild caffeine headache coming on, and I have a long day of teaching ahead of me. I make some Tazo green tea and pour it over ice and add a squeeze of lemon. After about 30 minutes, I’m amazed at how much clearer my mind feels! #kelseyisaddictedtocaffeine

1:30 pm: Juice 3 is Happy Family: apple, spinach, lemon, coconut h20, and ginger. I adore ginger (whenever I’m ordering a cocktail, I’ll usually pick one with ginger!) and the coconut water makes this one hydrating and so refreshing! I feel energized and ready for my long stretch of teaching.

6:30 pm: I’m teaching violin lessons from 2-6:30, and here’s the honest reason why I don’t take a juice during that time: I’m trying to not have to get up pee every 15 minutes, haha! But after a rumbling tummy for a few hours, I’m so ready for Juice 5, the Picture Pear-fect: pear, cucumber, mint, lime.

I’m kind of amazed when I realize that nothing bad happened when I didn’t do anything to fix my rumbling stomach for a while there. Normally, I’m always so quick to eat something when I notice the teeniest little pang of hunger; but today, I just sit through the hunger for a couple hours, and it doesn’t kill me. And it’s not even that uncomfortable.

*Here’s a thought about this: I eat out of habit, not out of hunger. I’m not usually paying much attention to “true” hunger, and I’m often eating when I’m already full.

7:30 pm: I grab Juice 5 (another Kale To The Chief) and head outside for a walk while I listen to a podcast. I didn’t want to watch any Netflix tonight because so many show have delicious food in them! Even if it’s not a food show, lots of tv has scenes with people eating/cooking food, and I didn’t want to start any cravings.

8:45 pm: I’m back home from a nice, long walk. I don’t feel super hungry, but I’m ready for bed (already! Crazy what no caffeine does to me….) so I drink Juice 6, the Vanilla Sky: almond mylk, vanilla, honey, coconut water, cherries, cinnamon, nutmeg, goji berries. This thing is freaking delicious! It’s warming from the cinnamon and nutmeg, and the almond mylk fills me up so I feel ready for bed.

9:30 pm: Bed time! It’s takes me a while to fall asleep, even though I’m so tired… I think that’s because I’m used to eating a snack right before bed, and my stomach starts to rumble around 10 pm again. But once I’m asleep, I sleep like a rock for 9 hours!

4 Things I Learned From My Juice Cleanse

1. I eat out of habit a lot more than I realized.

I noticed this all day long! Even when I wasn’t hungry (like 15 minutes after I finished a juice), I would find myself in front of the pantry looking for a snack….then I’d remember that I’m not eating solid food today!

2. I’m addicted to caffeine.

This became super obvious as early as 8 am! I usually drink 1-2 cups of coffee a day, so cutting that out made a big difference.

I drank some green tea while I was on the cleanse (coffee is acidic and around a 4.7 on the pH scale, and green tea is around a 7.2, so it’s more alkalizing) to take the edge off my caffeine headache.

I’m not necessarily going to cut out coffee cold turkey, but I am working on starting it a little later in my day so I don’t feel quite so frantic to get it right when I wake up.

3. I was reminded that my thoughts create my reality. 

This is a bit more of an emotional/spiritual reaction to the cleanse than I was anticipating. I thought I’d just notice physical stuff, but this one was actually a great lesson for me!

I spoke about this on my instagram stories the other day, but here’s what I realized: I had been dreading the cleanse. I thought that I’d be hungry and miserable all day and probably miss food a TON. But then I started thinking about why I’m doing the cleanse, and I remembered that it wasn’t because I had to do it. No one was making me do it – not even myself! I was just doing it for fun.

If it didn’t feel fun and exciting, why do it? I didn’t have to!

So once I had that thought, I just starting visualizing how much fun I’d have on this certain day. I imagined all the clarity I’d feel, and the way my body would feel clean and flushed out at the end of the day after only consuming veggies/fruit juice. And then I just couldn’t wait to try it all!

And it totally worked. The juice cleanse was wonderful! Now I’m starting to wonder what other areas of life I can apply this sort of thinking…. 🙂

4. Hunger isn’t as bad as I sometimes think it is.

When I was teaching from 2-6:30 and couldn’t have a juice for 5 hours, my stomach made some rumbling noises. I was aware of it, but I couldn’t do anything to fix it. So I just noticed it and moved on (which is TOTALLY what meditation is all about, too! Just a side note..)

I typically try to “fix” my hunger asap, even if it’s with a food that I don’t want (like fast food when I’m on the road) or something that doesn’t even sound good (like a cheap Walmart cookie when I’m in a break room).

Realizing that hunger is just a sensation (it’s not necessarily “good” or “bad”, at least in my case since I’m not deprived of food on a day-to-day basis) or a cue helps me remember that I don’t need to panic when I feel hungry.

 Tips for doing a juice cleanse:

Do it with a buddy! Nate joined me for this juice cleanse, and even though we weren’t together for most of the day (it was a work day, so we just saw each other for a bit in the morning and then a few hours in the evening) it was wonderful to be able to text each other to check on how it was going.

Stay off social media. I opened my Instagram app a couple times during the day to post something, but other than that I kept it closed. It’s too tempting to see all those pictures of neopolitan pizza and double dip ice cream cones!

Tell everyone you’re doing it. I shared on Instagram throughout the day, but you could also text some family/friends and let them know. Accountability was a tremendous help to me around 8 pm when I was soooo close to finishing but also seriously considering breaking it a couple hours early!

Use a juice company! The juices at Juice Austin are pre-made, so the recipes are delicious. I didn’t have to shop/wash/peel/juice/clean, so the process was about 100X easier than if I had made the juices myself.

They also have a nice FAQ section on their website so you can know exactly how to pre for the cleanse.

Thanks again, Juice Austin! I LOVED the cleanse and I’ll be doing another one! I think it’s the perfect way to hit “re-set” and start a new healthy eating streak. I’m trying to do a dessert-free month for May, and the cleanse was a great way to remind me that I actually do have control over what I choose to eat (ha! Even though it doesn’t always feel that way at 3 pm when I REALLY need one of those Super-Baked cookies from Soup Peddler!).

Have a wonderful Monday!!

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