48 Hours and 192 Ounces of Cold-Pressed Organic Juices: How It Feels, What to Expect, and How to Succeed
This post is written in partnership with Clean Juice Naperville. All opinions are my own.
The word “cleanse” conjures some serious negative associations and a collage of miscellania in my head: random tubes connected to random bodily orifi; lots of hot water with lemon; endless cups of tea; unidentified pills and suspect herbal supplements; brainwashing cult-like wellness gurus. I’ve never done any sort of cleanse before, and frankly I was skeptical. If something seems too good to be true, my experience is that it usually is.
After to getting to know my friends at Clean Juice Naperville, though, my interest in cleansing for the first time was piqued. A juice cleanse is a moderate approach on the grand scale of cleanses: there are no pills or potions or devices; just freshly cold-pressed fruit and vegetable juice concoctions as your sole source of nutrition during the cleanse. It’s a reset from the inside out.
Sometimes a reset is just what you need, and a little shock to your system is the way to accomplish it. I’ll drink (green juice) to that!
Contemplating trying a cleanse yourself? Let me walk you through the phases of my experience so you have an idea of what to expect. Who knew that 48 hours without solid food could be such an emotional roller coaster?
First up:
The Anxious Phase
The internal monologue: Really, 48 hours with NO food? Am I going to be able to do this? Will I be starving? Will I be light-headed? Will I even have the energy to work out?
After a sugary Easter, I was feeling sluggish, bloated, and in dire need of a reset — not just in my body but in my mindset too. What better way to detox after overindulgence than by literally flooding my system with nutrients, vitamins and minerals from organic fruits and vegetables?
I decided on two days of the Clean Juice cleanse as the best trial. It was long enough for me to get a sense of how it made me feel and short enough that I could stick with it. To get the most intensive experience, I opted to go for the full cleanse instead of the Juice Before Dinner option (where you juice all day but eat a light healthy dinner) because I was truly curious to see what it would be like to not eat anything, only drink, for 48 hours. That was completely outside my comfort zone, which is exactly how you have to try new things in my opinion: Go all in and see if it works for you. Commit 100% and see where you end up.
Then…
The Curious Phase
The internal monologue: All right, we’re doing this. I’m ready to start. Let’s read all the instructions and look at all the ingredients and jump in. I can’t wait to see how I feel at the end.
The first two juices of the cleanse, Sweet Green and Orange, are the perfect starters. They taste healthy but also delicious, with more of a fruit flavor than a vegetable flavor. As I started on the cleanse, I was very curious about the taste of all of the juices. I’ve never juiced before and so I didn’t have a baseline for what it might taste like. I was pleasantly surprised to find that all six of the juices were pretty tasty! The novelty of drinking your meals will take you far in the beginning stage of the cleanse.
And then…
The Excited Phase
The internal monologue: I’ve totally got this. These juices taste pretty good – even that lunchtime Green one is drinkable. And I don’t feel hungry at all. I don’t know how that’s possible but 16 ounces of juice does fill me up. I can do this.
Around lunchtime on Day 1, I was feeling really great. I was drinking my juice every 3 hours as instructed. I was drinking a ton of water. Even the Green juice (the most vegetable-riffic of the bunch) went down pretty easy. I was thrilled that there was no planning and no thinking involved with juicing. I just moved on to the next bottle according to plan and recycled my bottle when I was done. No dishes. No mess. No effort. And best yet, I really wasn’t hungry. I had expected to be headachy or hear my stomach growling, but 16 ounces of cold-pressed juice is surprisingly filling, especially when I was drinking 24 ounces of water in between each bottle.
But wait …
The Unsure Phase
The internal monologue: Blehhhh. Maybe overloading my system with so many fruits and veggies isn’t so great. Why haven’t I gone poop yet? Isn’t that weird? I don’t know if I can do this again tomorrow.
I rushed through the dinnertime juice, Red with its beet flavor, because it was a manic dinner hour with the kids and the dog as it always is. If I didn’t have that juice on Day 1, I surely would have eaten a handful of Goldfish for dinner and then regretted it. But afterward, my tummy felt a little off. I didn’t feel nauseous; I just felt kind of overfull and vaguely bleh. I think that was my body reaching critical mass on the veggies in my system because a trip to the bathroom had me feeling better an hour later.
Next up:
The Euphoric Phase
The internal monologue: I made it through the first day! I’m not hungry! I’m not sick! I’m not dragging or listless! I even made it through the dinner-bedtime-bathtime routine with the boys solo without losing it, so that’s saying something! I can definitely do this for a second day – maybe even a third day!!
The bedtime White juice was the one that clinched it for me. Any residual ickiness I had been feeling after the Red juice was eliminated by the sweet, comforting juice (really more of a cashew milk) that finished Day 1 of the cleanse. The White tastes like a snickerdoodle cookie and was exactly the right way to end the evening. Suddenly I felt great again. I started contemplating the logistics of having a third day cold-pressed for me so I could continue on Thursday and extend the cleanse to 72 hours.
Starting Day 2 with…
The Bored Phase
The internal monologue: This again? But I drank all of these yesterday. Sure, I definitely can do another day of this — but I kind of don’t want to. Drinking nothing but juice is boring! I need variety. I like actual food.
The next morning rolled around and it was time to start over with the same juices as yesterday. I still felt good but the novelty had worn off and I was missing solid food. It’s not that the juices were bad in any way – I just realized that I found drinking nothing but juice a little bit boring. Another blogger had warned me that she missed chewing food, and I think there’s something to that. Somehow drinking your meal is just a little less satisfying than chewing your meal, even if it’s infinitely easier and more portable. I slugged down my Sweet Green and Orange and figured I was more than half way; if I had come this far, I could surely push through to the end. Momentum will carry you through, right?
Moving into…
The Hitting-the-Wall-on-Juice Phase
The internal monologue: Will this day ever end? I’m over it. I just want to eat peanut butter and carbs. I don’t think I can take one more sip of any juice today. Do you think I have to finish every single sip? Maybe I should have that handful of nuts like they said I could.
Then it was lunchtime and time for the dreaded Green again. I think it took me almost 90 minutes to consume the 16-ounce bottle for my lunch. The Yellow for afternoon snack was my favorite – a light, spicy-sweet combination of lemon with cayenne pepper. But even the Yellow of Day 2 didn’t taste as delicious and invigorating as it did on Day 1. I daydreamed about adding tequila to it. I was hitting the wall on juice.
But finally…
The Accomplishment Phase
The internal monologue: Aha! This is why people juice. My mind feels clear. My body feels lighter. I’ve literally peed out all the toxins. I did exactly what I set out to do, and I feel good doing it. I would definitely do this again.
I made it through the second Red for dinner, worrying a little about drinking so much liquid before going to my one-hour HIIT workout. (The fear that there might be a bathroom incident was real, you guys.)
My workout was what I was really interested to test. It was coming at the end of a two-day juice cleanse, when my body had been detoxifying for very nearly 48 hours and the only protein I had consumed came from spinach and kale. I went the class with mild trepidation and started off a little slow.
About 20 minutes into class, I hit my stride and realized that I felt pretty darn good: about as strong as I usually do. My muscle fatigued a little more quickly than they did on a usual workout, and I got the tiniest head rush when jumping in circles, but this was a hard workout. I made it through the full 60-minute class outside after two days of nothing but juice and I burned 450 calories in the process. Juice cleanse for the win!
The Bottom Line
This cleanse did exactly what I hoped it would do: It reset my mind and my body, helped me shed some sugar bloat, and break the cycle of cravings. Overall, I felt good while cleansing. I was never hungry, never cranky or out of sorts, and never dizzy, light-headed or faint. I was able to complete my workout at my usual level.
Is a cleanse something I’m going to be doing every month? No. I do love my solid food, and I need variety in my diet. I think I also need the moderation rather than the more intense restriction for a cleanse (though the Juice Till Dinner cleanse appeals).
Will I cleanse again? Absolutely. Now that I’ve seen the results and know how it feels, I can definitely envision times ahead that a cleanse will be exactly what I want. Maybe the beginning of summer, to give me the confidence to rock that swimsuit. Maybe at the end of summer, to detox from some of the excess that inevitably starts to mount during the warm weather celebration months. Maybe before a big event that I want to look and feel my best for.
Would I cleanse for longer than two days? Maybe. I think three would be my hard limit unless it was the Juice Till Dinner approach. And three might be a stretch. But you know me: I love to try new things and I like to push the limits, so I would definitely give three days a shot and see how it goes.
The Cleanse By the Numbers
Length: 2 days or 48 hours. Clean Juice cleanses can be as short as one day or as long as five days. Two days was the right choice for me. I might have been able to finish a third day, but I don’t think I could get through five straight days of nothing but juice.
Number of juices drank: 12 — 6 per day, in this order:
- Sweet Green (apple, cucumber, kale, mint, spinach) for breakfast
- Orange (carrot, orange, pineapple, turmeric) for morning snack
- Green (celery, cucumber, ginger, kale, lemon, spinach) for lunch
- Yellow (filtered water, cayenne, lemon, maple syrup) for afternoon snack
- Red (apple, beet, carrot, lemon) for dinner
- White (filtered water, cashews, cinnamon, maple syrup, vanilla,
Himalayan pink sea salt) for bedtime snack
Total ounces of juice drank: 192 ounces
Total fruits and veggies consumed: More than 15 pounds of produce per day!!
Total ounces of water drank: 316 ounces — I took the instructions to drink a lot of water very seriously and drank 158 ounces per day (approximately a 24-ounce bottle between each juice, and then some). I usually drink around 120 to 130 ounces daily, so this was an increase for me.
Total ounces of organic black coffee drank: 30 ounces (15 ounces per day) — some cleanses don’t allow any coffee or tea during a cleanse, but Clean Juice believe that if you already drink coffee or tea daily, cutting it out during a cleanse would actually be more harmful than beneficial. This was a major selling point for me. Mom life without caffeine is a hard NO.
Total trips to the bathroom: Countless. When you’re drinking that much liquid, it’s constant.
Total 💩: Only 2 – but I think I’m unusual. Yes, I had to go there because it was the top question that I was asked in the DMs on Instagram. It makes sense. With that amount of fluid and fiber in your system, sh*t happens, right? I honestly expected more … but then I also have a notoriously stubborn system (sorry for that total TMI but I know you guys want transparency). I was just glad that I got through my workout without any incidents. I’ll tell you one thing: I don’t think I’d go for a long run during a juice cleanse.
Total weight lost: Honest answer – I don’t know. I made the conscious decision not to get on the scale before and after because this cleanse wasn’t about weight loss for me. It was about a restart of healthier eating habits and an experiment with a different way of nourishing my body. Getting on the scale makes me feel bad about myself over and over and over again, so I’m done with it.
That being said, I did notice less bloat in my stomach specifically, and after the two days of the cleanse, I was able to wear a pencil skirt to a work event that had previously been too tight on Monday. So it’s safe to say I shed some water weight during the 48-hour cleanse. My rings also were looser and my ballet flats less constricting — all signs of less inflammation in my body.
So that’s the ins and outs of my 48-hour Clean Juice organic cold-pressed juice cleanse. What else are you curious about? What haven’t I answered for you? If you have any other questions, drop a comment below, email me, or connect with me on social media. I’d love to hear about your own experience cleansing as well. And if you want to be inspired by beautiful, healthy food, check out Clean Juice Naperville on Instagram or look for a Clean Juice by you.
