What the juice?

A couple of weeks ago I was watching Castle (10/9c on abc) and Ryan and his fiancée were doing a juice "cleanse" for their wedding. For some God unknown reason, I was intrigued by this idea and took to the world-wide-web to see how I could get in on a piece of this action. I found multiple companies that were generously willing to send me juice for a 3-day "cleanse" for the low-low price of $65 a day. Then my obnoxious DIY self said, "just buy a cheap juicer and make the juices yourself!" (she's like the annoying girl in school who knows all the answers and has all these great accessories that she whipped up in 5 minutes from some paperclips and twine; that girl is a a real MacGyver  of useless things). So I found some recipes online and bought a bottom-of-the-line juicer on Amazon for about $30. 

As you can imagine, within the time it took for my juicer to get to me, I had lost all motivation to "cleanse" my system and it took another couple of weeks to get back on that horse. Like many of my other projects, this was at least a month in the making. I finally went to the grocery store and bought all the fresh fruits I needed and thought I'd mix all my juices in one day and then freeze them so for the three day cleanse I would have pre-made juice. 

I don't know if any of you have juiced before, but it was a straight-up disaster. My cheap machine overfilled it's pulp bowl (probably a user-error) so when I'd take it out to dump, piles of pulp would fall out onto my kitchen counter and floor. I was constantly cleaning up spinach from everywhere imaginable, and washing the machine after every fruit/vegetable to keep it from clogging. There were pieces of apple and blueberry shooting out at my face and spinach took up permanent residence in places I didn't even know existed. And to add to the absurdity of the experience, I had put a water dish in the kitchen for puppy because he wouldn't drink from his normal dish (finicky, that one) so every time I would step back in exasperation, I would step into his water dish and spill water/dog spit all over the floor and my socks. 

So my "day of juicing" turned into about three days of madness, and then I had to leave my juices in the freezer for a few days because I was too annoyed with any juice to stomach them (turns out, I was also unable to stomach a spinach/kale/apple/lemon juice). 

And no, I didn't actually make every juice that was presented in the recipe/program. So I had like 3 of 6 juices for each of the three days. Don't worry though, I did buy the $11 coconut oil and agave nectar that is now sitting, unopened in my pantry and mocking me every time I reach for the mac-n-cheese box. 

At 9am on a Friday, I decided to put my best foot forward (the dry one, of course) and semi-committed to cleansing my system with a weekend of spinach and pear remnants. By 11am, I had caved and eaten a kashi breakfast bar (but, it's Kashi, which means it is healthy and doesn't count as actual cheating). By noon I had convinced my self that it would be in my best interest to only drink juices for part of the day, and have an actual dinner. I mean, I didn't want to screw up my metabolism by fasting, and I had some killer chicken-parm leftovers that would go bad if I didn't eat them. Thus, my original half-assed commitment halved again, and now I was at quarter-assed commitment, chocking down these bizarre concoctions until about 5pm Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 

This wasn't a total waste, however, because I got some killer smoothie recipes, and now I just keep frozen fruit on hand and mix up a healthy snack whenever I feel like it. 

(And if you caught on the my use of "cleanse" with quotations, it's because I believe the word cleanse is just a way of saying fast without sending like an attention starved starlet). 

So my metabolism is intact, I mix smoothies like a master, and I own a juicer so when my fruits and veggies start to go bad because I dont' eat them, I can throw them in the juicer and take them down like a shot, a shot of health. Bingo!