Juice Cleanse

I've really been into juice lately, so I decided to try a 2-day juice cleanse. The benefits seemed reasonable: giving the digestive system a break, zapping your body with extra vitamins and minerals, detoxing the liver, and being a little more mindful about consumption for a couple of days.

So I got my juice from my favorite juicery here in in Oregon: 

 12 juices, 6 per day...no big deal, right?

Wrong.

Things started out fine:

I was enjoying the juices that I had chosen, taking selfies, and feeling like a real champ. Then, around 4:00 things changed. My head began to hurt and my vision was blurring. All I could think about was all the amazing foods that I wanted to eat: cheeseburgers, Chinese food, egg sandwiches, burritos, and coffee. 

Then, my mind began to play tricks on me. I saw turkey sandwiches dangling from trees and kettle chips scattered all over the ground. I even thought about trying the dog food. Was this shoddy willpower on my part or the symptoms of malnutrition setting in?

I decided to drown my doubts with another juice and a little internet googling sesh. This resulted in me falling down a rabbit hole of articles about juice cleanses. What I found was that juice cleanses may or may not be good for you. Juice may or may not detox your system. Juice may or may not flood your system with an overload of sugar without enough fiber to digest it, causing your body to produce too much insulin and send it into diabetic shock.

I felt like shit. And these articles weren't helping. By 9:00 that night I was forcing down my last juice and ready to call it a day, literally and figuratively. Why do this to myself? Maybe I would feel better after the day 1 one toxin hangover (this is what pro-juice cleanse people call the shitty feeling that you feel, but I think it's just hunger), maybe I have no will power, maybe I need a lesson in self-determination. Or maybe I'm just really smart and know that my body needs balance. Juice cleanse, I quit.

So, here's what I learned from my 2-day 1-day juice cleanse:

1) Juice is good, but food is better
2) Trying to restrict something from your diet (like food) is stupid and psychologically unhealthy
3) You're not exactly cleansing, if you feel like total shit while you're doing it
4) Too much juice is just as bad as too much of anything else
5) Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (thanks to Michael Pollan for this one)