My First Juice Cleanse

4 things you need to know before starting your next juice cleanse:

Have you ever had a weekend bender where all you put into your body was way too much alcohol and fast food? Or wondered when the last time you detoxed your body and filled it with the ton of nutrients your body actually needs?

I did my three day juice cleanse with Bella Juice and even though there were a lot of struggling moments, at the end of my cleanse I felt accomplished, less bloated, had high energy, and put thought into eating to help avoid mindless eating.

Bella Juice is a Toronto based company but also delivers to Niagara (yay!).

The owner, Sarah, was a great support system for me, and talked me through the many discouraging moments I had. She has her own incredible story and journey that got her started in the juice cleanse world and how juicing transformed her life. Considering I did this cleanse completely alone, it was great to have her as a person I could talk too and rely on.

With Bella Juice there are three different packages you can chose from for each cleanse.

Bronze Package(the one I did): $220.
For a 3-day cleanse includes 18L of juice with the same 6 different flavours for the three days.

Silver Package: $270.
18L of juice with 12 different flavours for a 3 day cleanse.

Gold Package: $315.
18L of juice with 18 different flavours for a 3 day cleanse.

During my cleanse I learned a lot in those three days. Most of the things I learned I realized would have benefited me immensely if I knew about these things before starting my cleanse.

Unfortunately I can’t turn back time and use what I learned for my last cleanse, but there is still hope for you.

I want to share with you what I learned that can help you prepare and help make your next cleanse the best it can be.

Enjoy!

4 Things I wish I knew Before Starting my Juice Cleanse.

1. Start off with a one day cleanse before committing to more than that.

   My first cleanse was a 3 day cleanse, and the first day was definitely the hardest for me.
   All day I thought about food (even when I wasn’t hungry) and then after a perfect day of cleansing, I mentally crashed and ended up making dinner at 9pm. I was super discouraged after this, and even though it was just one day ruined, I wanted to completely restart my cleanse to complete a perfect three day cleanse.
   
   For anyone who hasn’t done a juice cleanse before and is interested in doing one, I feel like it would be very beneficial for you to have a “trial day” before you start your cleanse. This way you can see some of the mental and physical challenges that you will have during your cleanse.

   
   2. You still need to do some grocery shopping for your cleanse.

   I thought that when I was going to be starting a three day juice cleanse, this meant I didn’t have to do groceries.
   
   I was WRONG.
   
   Coconut water and herbal teas helped me immensely succeed the last two days of my cleanse.
   
   Coconut water helped me through when I was experiencing really bad headaches, and herbal tea was my go to drink other than my juice and water.
   
   Headaches and Coconut water: When your body is going through food withdrawal, headaches are a common side effect. Since this was my first time doing this I had no idea what to expect, but by day two the headaches were the worst for me. My headaches were so bad it made it super hard for me to focus and get work that I needed to get done. Personally, I don’t enjoy coconut water, but because of it’s electrolytes I made sure I had a few glasses a day.
   
   Herbal Teas: Tea was one of the things that helped me get through this cleanse. As long as it’s herbal tea you can drink as much as you want. My favourite teas that I drank during my cleanse were Peppermint Tea and the Arbonne Herbal Detox tea which I got from Katie Travers (contact her directly to hook yourself up with some!)
   Having this tea was a perfect coffee substitute for me because since I couldn’t have my morning coffee, I was still able to enjoy a hot beverage to start the day.

   
   3. It's much more of a mental challenge than physical.

   Many people do juice cleanses because of the health benefits it includes, or because their personal health is in danger. For me, my health is not in danger, but I wanted to do it because of all the health benefits and to really detox my body.
   
   Mentally, knowing nothing life threatening would happen to me if I consumed food, and if I didn’t do this juice cleanse properly, was challenging.
   
   Knowing that I could physically eat whatever I wanted, but having the willpower not to was a challenge I haven’t experienced in a long time.
   
   Like I said earlier, the first day of the cleanse I made it to 9pm then caved. After feeling so disappointed in myself and mentally beating myself up after, I knew that no matter how hard it was for the next two days, I was going to accomplish them 100%.
   
   Physically most of the cleanse I felt fine (minus a few headaches).
   Mentally, almost every second I felt like I was going insane. I craved food all the time even when I wasn’t hungry.
   I craved coffee.
   I craved everything I knew I couldn’t have.
   I craved food.
   Something that I thought was interesting was that for most of the 3 day cleanse I rarely craved junk food like I usually do. The food I was craving was healthy, solid, delicious foods.

   
   4. Do it with a friend or a group of friends.

   Similar too many things, doing something with a friend is way easier to accomplish.
   Spending those three days with my boyfriend and watching him eat anything he wanted made it SO much harder to not do the same.
   Even if he wasn’t the one doing the cleanse with me, and if I were to be doing it with another friend we could have texted each other when we needed some extra motivation to get through the challenging moments.

I hope this article helped prepare you for your next cleanse.

Feel free to let me know in the comments if you have any questions, as I’d love to help you succeed as much as possible!