How to survive a juice cleanse: The inside scoop on everything that happens during a 3-day juice detox

Juice Cleanse
Photography by breville/Flickr

Last week, FASHION’s online editors, Randi Bergman and Paige Dzenis, kick-started a summer of healthy habits by doing a 3-day juice cleanse with Raw Juice Guru. Each day, 8 customized juices were delivered, drank and digested. But what fun is a juice cleanse if you can’t share the process and results with your friends? Here’s their take on what 72 hours of juice-only consumption is really like.

DAY ONE

Paige: I show the list of today’s juices to my boyfriend and even though he makes his own green juice every morning, he’s wary of this cleanse. I eagerly shake the bottle of Juice 2—parsley, carrot, celery, lemon, cucumber—in his face to show my excitement. “This is going to do weird things to your body,” he states.

At 10:00 am I already feel tired and weak, but have to remind myself that I don’t usually eat breakfast or have a coffee until 10:30 am on weekdays, so this is normal and has nothing to do with the juice. Despite not drinking coffee all weekend in preparation, all I want now is coffee. I am literally counting down the minutes until I can drink the next juice.

By the afternoon I have this feeling that if I can just find food, I can eat it. Like, it’s not that I’m not allowed to have food, it’s that I’m being kept from it. I wonder if I’m being dramatic and this is all placebo effects or is this real?

I start tweeting about my obsessions with food and thankfully @rawfoodguru is there to coax me along. “Have another juice and drink some water with lemon,” she advises. “Cravings are in high gear first day, by second day it will be smooth sailing. Think of all the good u are doing. Ur skin will glow.” I bike home from work, expecting to feel exhausted and drained but I actually feel fine.

Randi: Admittedly, I had a crutch to get me through Day One. I had been out at the beach over the weekend and suffered an extreme burn on my thighs and back (always just pushing myself to be healthy, you know) so luckily I got to stay home and work from bed. I may have been working the same hours as Paige, but being able to do it from bed definitely eases a caffeine withdrawal side effect, which had been my biggest fear. I felt totally fine all day and even walked both ways to see The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, which took place on the other side of town. A-ok.

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