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Dalia El Ali

I Went On A Juice Cleanse And This Is What Happened

I’ve never been a fan of crash dieting because I feel like if someone wants to really lose weight, they need to change their entire lifestyle and commit to healthy habits regularly, and not just for a short period of time. But recently, I’ve been indulging quite a bit (read: gorging myself on) chocolate. It had gotten to the point where I was eating chocolate until I felt sick, which is why I decided to go on a juice cleanse wherein you consume nothing but fresh juices for two days. My goal was to de-bloat and curb my sugar cravings and help me kickstart a healthier eating plan; here is an overview of my horrible experience:

To start with, a morning without coffee is…hell. Although the juice tasted better than I expected, I found myself craving the bitter taste of coffee. Somehow I convinced myself that I should be proud of what I was doing in the moment and found the will to carry on, after all, it takes guts to give up eating actual food. *pats self on the back*

Here are some of the juices I tried:

Spinach + orange: Drank my way straight to the bathroom. Gross.
Lettuce + apple + celery: Completely tasteless.
Cucumber + sweet pepper: This was my favorite, refreshing and yummy.
Kale + cucumber + sweet pepper: This was the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.

As the day progressed, I started feeling some hunger pangs, so I just kept sipping juice in tiny increments. This helped because I’m someone who likes to snack, but eventually I ended up regretting my constant need to have something in my mouth when I felt the need to be near a bathroom every few minutes. Now, the good part about this juicing diet was that even though I felt hungry, I didn’t crave any particular foods. I just wanted to eat something, anything! I missed the ritual of putting something in my mouth, chewing it, and swallowing it. It made me realize one thing: I am obsessed with food.

I woke up the next day feeling surprisingly great; I felt healthy and refreshed. I actually had energy and felt less bloated than I usually do. But in terms of the juicing, it was just as bad. I couldn’t stand drinking another juice or even looking at it. The juices had not grown on me at all, I kept putting off drinking any until I was extremely hungry and when I did, I just drank it immediately just so I wouldn’t have to endure the taste. I felt so light headed from it all and even a little dizzy.

The verdict: This is definitely not something I would recommend. I only did it to help flush out that icky and bloated feeling I had after consuming so much sugar two days prior, but juicing is not a sustainable diet for anybody to follow. It did however help me feel better after my chocolate binge.