Its been on the bucket list for years - to try a juicing cleanse. Nothing too extreme, just a couple of days to see the results. After chatting to Hannah from A Nourishing Notion about it, I felt inspired. She is one of those incredibly knowledgable wellness goddesses who you cant help adoring - check out her website here for more.

I’ve seen others do it and thought ‘how could you not eat?!’. I love eating. Spending hours in the kitchen preparing and serving wholesome meals is one of my favourite pastimes.
But I also love to experiment and explore so…

2024: lets juice.

On the menu - Raw beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon, ginger, orange, zucchini (because of our abundant garden!), cucumber and an armload of greens including kale and spinach. I think 70% vegetables / 30% fruit makes a great juice ratio.
I am one of those ‘chuck everything in and hope it tastes good’ people but my favourite combination was orange, ginger, apple, spinach.
I consumed around 1-2 litres of juice per day, depending on how hungry I was, plus a LOT of water throughout each day.

Day 1 - The first day I craved food, especially salt. As I was preparing food for my family, I had to stop the impulse to taste test everything along the way.
Towards the end of the day I had a filthy headache which would have been the result of no caffeine (I do enjoy a coffee a couple of times per week) and felt really tired, enough to have a nap.

Day 2 - Woke up with a headache which carried on throughout half of the day. Plus feeling very lethargic and foggy.
These first few days were the hardest. If I wanted to be a drama queen, this would be the day (give me all the caaaake and carbs, baby!!). It’d be preferable to not be near other humans in these first few days as you may experience moodiness and more visits to the bathroom than usual.

Day 3 - Headaches gone, energy levels slightly improved, not craving chips or cake. My tastebuds felt like they were on steroids at this point - every sip a flavour explosion - maybe they had a reset too?

Day 4 - Woke up at 5am like I was ready to run a marathon!! Energy was through the roof and clarity of mind felt amazing. I also noticed that the skin on my face felt more vibrant, skin tighter and nourished.
I started eating raw fruit and vegetables halfway through the 4th day - trust your body and intuition on this.

Day 5 & beyond - Continuing on with 1 litre of juice per day but adding wholefood, plant based meals to the mix. Homemade muesli, lentil/tomato nacho mix, smoothies, stir fry etc. No gluten, sugar, processed foods. We mainly eat plant based but over Christmas theres always a sneaky croissant or three.

The results are well worth the effort of pushing through those first few days - and cleaning a juicer!!
I would never be able to consume as many greens as this (in each 1 litre juice I had 10 kale + 10 silverbeet leaves) so if you only do one juice per day for that reason, it’s well worth it. Would highly recommend.
It is something I will most definitely do again - possibly seasonally.

Have you tried juicing? Tell me your experience in the comments below!

I started the year with a 4 day juice cleanse and this is how it went…

Clouds of Colour