Fad Diet #256: Juice Cleansing

After spending the past five days gorging my way through a San Francisco Must-Eat-or-Don't-Bother-Coming-Home bucket list (food porn post coming soon) there are no words to describe the level of bloat, sloth, and intestinal sadness occurring inside of my body. Stepping on the scale upon arriving in Boston was horrific to say the least. I gained six pounds. SIX POUNDS. I know this doesn't sound like much and probably just illustrates how warped my body/eating views are, but real talk- on a person like me who has a generally small frame, that's a lot. Don't get me wrong. I don't regret for one second my daily Bi-Rite salted caramel or the million course meal at Mission Chinese. I'd eat it all again in a heartbeat, and probably even more at that. But goddamn, the consequences have been rough. 

So it's time to take some serious measures and bring in the big gun (read: JUICER).

For anyone who knows me, it's no surprise that I went out and bought a juicer straight after watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, a documentary (available on Netflix, go watch it) about this formerly obese dude on the brink of death who decides to change everything around by drinking strictly juice for like 697 days or something. I love dieting (again, blame it on my totally unhealthy body dysmorphia) and will totally try anything. And this "fad" so far has absolutely been the one of the best things I've done for my health.

I knew before SF I wanted to do some type of detox to prepare for the imminent ice cream apocalypse that would invade my body, and really wanted to try the BluePrint Cleanse that all the hipsters are doing. At $97 a bottle or whatever outrageous fuckery they charge down at Whole Foods, this wasn't an option. Luckily the internet exists, and I found a great DIY hack for a fraction of the cost. I drank 6 juices a day, for 5 days, cheating and eating some cashews when I was really craving solids. 

Y'all. The results were great. Most of the juices taste awesome (except anything with beets, those things are truly nasty and no amount of washing will eradicate that straight dirt taste.) I never felt deprived or too hungry, but let's be real, 95% of the time I'm on some kind of restricted eating, so this may have helped. Weight disappeared, and the abs I had been working so hard for for the past month, seemingly without results, suddenly emerged. My skin cleared up completely, began to glow even, and not in the disgusting grease slick way. And interestingly enough, in the middle of my trip, after days of not having juice, I got big ol' zit. That's how real this shit is.

So now that I'm back in the real world, it's back to healthy and clean eating. Some have said that it's totally weird and unhealthy to be basically living off of just juice, and I've read some stuff that says it's pointless and serves no nutritional purpose. But if it makes me feel good, keeps my skin clear, and gets me into my high school skinnies, you can believe I'll keep on juicin'.