Confessions of a Cleanser

Happy New Year from Juice Girl! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday with friends and family, and that you enjoyed lots of holiday cheer and yummy food. You may be asking yourself:  “Wait. Is she serious? She’s  a Juice Girl, isn’t she supposed to be telling me it is time to cleanse, rejuvenate, reboot my system and all of that?”  In a word, yes. But not because I only want you to buy our juice.   Not because it is the New Year and it’s what all your friends might be doing.  And not because you should punish yourself for eating that tin of homemade toffee your aunt gave you. (It was good, though, wasn’t it?).   I simply want you to feel better every single day...and juicing is a relatively easy way of doing just this.

First, a bit about me.  I’m Caroline, one of the Juice Girls and, I am probably like a lot of you.  Busy mom, organizing the lives of  my kids, running my own business, trying to keep all the balls in the air, and trying my best to feed my family healthy food. If you are a man, keep reading, my friend, John, is probably like you but more on him later.  

About 5 years ago, a friend of mine from yoga, invited me to do an elimination cleanse with her.  It was a 3 week cleanse that involved doing what felt like the impossible: eliminating caffeine, alcohol, sugar, dairy, wheat, soy, and citrus from my diet. I know what you are saying: “Say whaaaaa?  What else is there? No way I am giving up my coffee.  You’ll have to pry this mug from my cold, dead hands.”  Trust me, folks, I was the same way!  But I was also not feeling great.  Among other things, I had regular 3:00 p.m. energy crashes. I had low level anxiety, and I found it hard to focus. Oh, and I was about 10 pounds overweight. So I did it.  And here’s the thing...after feeling spacey and crabby and hungry for the first 3 days, I woke up on the 4th day and I felt AMAZING.  Like you read about. My vision was clearer, I was sleeping better, I had way more energy, no more sweaty pits (thanks for that one, Mr. Caffeine), lost the weight, and I felt calm. I was literally transformed.  I was so motivated, that I went back to school to learn more about nutrition so I could share with other people how they can dramatically effect their health through the food that they do or don’t eat. 

Through my experience, I realized the overwhelming power of food and it’s ability to heal your body. I learned how so much of what I was eating was nutrient deficient and full of empty calories. Which is why I am so passionate about juicing.  We all need more vegetables and fruit in our diet, right? What better way of getting 3-4 pounds of fruit and vegetables than by chugging a delicious 16 ounce cold pressed, organic juice? And don’t get me started on the benefits to your digestive and detoxifying systems it is. By juicing, you are flushing your liver and intestines with a high concentration of vitamins and minerals that will be rapidly absorbed and used to flush your system and eliminate toxins and bad bacteria.  Which is key this time of year as we are in the throws of cold and flu season.  It also helps reduce inflammation in your body by restoring the acid-alkaline balance in our bodies which is related to all kinds of things including joint pain, gastrointestinal issues, chronic pain, skin irritations and auto immune disorders.  

Take my friend, John.  He was in pretty rough shape when he first asked me about juicing.  He had lots of stress from work and was suffering from IBS and insomnia.  He drank, on average, 6 cups of coffee a day.  I had been talking to him for a long time about the benefits of changing his diet could have on his health.  He came up with a million and one reasons why he couldn’t possibly make any changes.  Personally, I think it was because he wouldn’t have anything to complain about but don’t tell him I said that.  

Last year I finally got him to do a 5 day cleanse which included 2 days of elimination and 3 days of juicing.  It wasn’t pretty.  He was grumpy, exhausted, and spent one whole day in bed thinking that he had the flu. But you know what?  He stuck with it.  And by the end of the 5 days, he was sleeping better then he ever has, and as he tells me, he no longer had “tightness in his chest”  What?!? Good thing we got rid of that!  Fast forward to a year later.  John hasn’t become vegan or stopped drinking his much loved bourbon on the weekends.  But he has given up coffee, which he realized, was causing A LOT of his problems and if he is feeling a little sluggish, he will have some extra juice for good measure. 

So my thoughts on that New Year’s cleanse? Do it.  But do it because you want to make some lasting changes to your life. Learn from it. Most importantly, don’t do it to get rid of the bad, do it to bring in the good. Like we say here, one good thing leads to another. And no, it doesn’t have to be a 5 day juice cleanse (although this is good). Do an elimination cleanse that includes juices. Give up a bad habit for 2 weeks. Commit to stop buying processed food.  Whatever that looks like for you, know that if you commit to making some permanent, positive changes to the food you eat and the way you live your life, you will feel better everyday for it. 

Do you have a cleansing success story? We want to hear it. Scared or skeptical about juicing or cleansing? We’ll talk you off the ledge.  Come and see us at Juice Girl, 505 Miller Ave, Mill Valley.