Juice Cleanse: Days 1-3

This is the second post on my Juice Cleanse "experience" covering Days 1-3. I will cover the last 2 days on Saturday and give a round-up of my final thoughts.

Day 1- My juices were supposed to arrive this morning. You can see the issues with delivery I mentioned in my previous post. I managed to get hold of them in the evening, but decided to give myself a lighter day than usual food-wise as well. I had 2 Innocent smoothies, a chicken salad sandwich and some melon.

Then after I got home from work I cracked into a No. 5 juice. This is a green one, and is quite nice and refreshing although I found the inclusion of mint a little overpowering. The juice was finished way too quickly and for the rest of the evening I was sooo hungry! I ended up drinking several cups of tea and delving into a book to distract me.

Day 2- Not hungry when I got up, and I had the first juice when I got to work just after 8am. Then the 2nd at 10:30am, by which time I was getting a bit peckish, but it passed. I tucked into the 3rd, post lunchtime run (just 10mins plus 10mins walk- testing out my hip slowly...) This was the tastiest, and I felt pretty satisfied, but it didn't last long however, and by 2pm I had a headache and felt nauseous. I was also having trouble concentrating, which is kind of normal for afternoons for me, but it definitely felt worse. I googled stages of a juice cleanse and was reassured that the first 2 days are always the hardest!

I managed to hold out until 3pm for the 4th juice, and felt better afterwards, although cold! I'm told this is normal as your body doesn't have the energy to keep warm.

However, I also found some articles that said a vegetable broth or miso soup was ok to add if you're really struggling, so I popped into to Waitrose on the way home for some Miso soup. I feel like I should have tried to stick things out for longer, but I was really craving something savoury instead of lots of sweet juices! I also feel, as Lucy commented on my last juice blog post, that the calorie content of the Soulmatefood cleanse looks a bit low really, and supplementing with vegetable broths or nut milks is a good idea.

The 5th juice went down around 6pm, and I blended it with a banana to bulk it out a bit. I then had a bowl of miso soup at 8pm. Watched some STNG (Star Trek The Next Generation!) and went to bed early πŸ™‚

Day 3- Woke up a bit hungry, but waited till 8am to have Juice 1 on the train. Generally feeling good this morning. Had some water and a fruit tea and felt ready to go- see how long that lasts! As expected by the afternoon I was feeling very "brain-foggy" with things taking a lot longer to do than normal. I spent a lot of today thinking about what I'm going to cook when this is over!

I chatted to a friend at work about cooking meals from scratch, bulk cooking and freezing and generally being more interested in healthy food. I'm already thinking ooh, I should go to Surrey Street Market in Croydon for some fresh veggies, oooh I'll pin that recipe to make next week! I'm looking forward to getting back in the kitchen, and rekindling my love for creating tasty dishes, rather than resenting the fact that I'm "only cooking for one, it's too much effort, lets just buy a pie to stick in the oven"... (I'm not saying I won't eat Pieminister pies anymore because they are amazing by the way, just maybe not every time I can't be bothered to cook - which has been quite a lot recently)

I also exchanged some emails with Soulmatefood who finally apologised for the mess-up with my delivery, and have offered me a free replacement cleanse whenever I want, as well as telling me they will post out the missing Evening Detox Teas (although by the time they arrive I will probably have finished!) But I do appreciate the effort to sort things out.

What I didn't appreciate however, was the nutritional information they sent me - I was quite frankly, shocked! I knew the juice cleanse was low calorie but to have confirmation of exactly how low it was, honestly I felt like an idiot.

The Perfect Cleanse is designed around a low calorie intake.
A full days Cleanse is a total of 338 calories.
Even though it is low in calories you are eliminating the energy required for digestion. 

This seems ludicrously low to me. If this information had been clearly stated I'm not sure I would have done it, as it just sounds harmful. Even on the 5:2 diet, the "fast days" are 500 calories (and you're eating normally most of the time), and if you go by the calculation of your BMR (basal metabolic rate) that gives me a figure of around 1400 calories per day, assuming a totally sedentary lifestyle. Even "eliminating the energy required for digestion" it still seems a bit silly. I'm sure people can survive on a caloric intake that low, but really, how good is it for your body and why would you want to?!

After posting this information on Facebook and talking to friends everyone's responses were the same:

I asked Soulmatefood how they could justify such a low daily caloric intake and this was their response:

"The cleanse is has been designed by our Nutritionist, and the aim is to maximise the cleansing process by keeping the ingredients simple.


Our Perfect cleanse is packed full of vegetables and fruit which are high in antioxidants and health boosting vitamins. Although small bottles they are quite filling, customers often comment on this fact and that they didn't feel the need to snack alongside the cleanse.  


They are relatively low calorie so are only suitable to do short term, and no more than once a month. Just to give your digestive system a rest, and kick start the metabolism and get you back into a healthy way of thinking. Customers do comment that the cleanse was enough to give them the boost to eat healthier, some even going on to order or food plans too.  


We don't advertise if as a diet, just as a boost to make you feel better and hopefully give you the boost you need to lead a healthier lifestyle. 


We do use coconut milk on our other Juice cleanse, and feature other milks like soya and almond in our food menus, its just not been included in the Perfect cleanse."

I still didn't feel happy about voluntarily choosing to restrict my calories so much, so that evening I made some vegetable soup. Rather a lot in fact! But I found after tucking into my usual sized bowl, that I felt full after only a small amount, so I divided the leftovers into smaller portions.

I felt much better that evening after my comforting bowl of soup and will repeat this for the remaining Juice Cleanse days.

This is the recipe if you're interested:

2 small sweet potatoes
2 carrots
1 onion
Can of coconut milk (400ml)
600ml vegetable stock
Paprika, cumin and black pepper

Add everything to one pot and simmier for 30-40mins, then blend.

Do you think such a low calorie intake can be beneficial? What's your favourite soup? πŸ™‚

Beki x

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