Category: Food

Fun fact: If you type into Google “Does a Juice Cleanse…” and let it fill in the blank for the most popular questions, you get: Does a Juice Cleanse Make You Poop? Does a Juice Cleanse Help You Lose Weight? Does a Juice Cleanse Give You Diarrhea? Does a Juice Cleanse Make You Tired? I will answer all these questions AND MORE in this post…

Warning: This is a long and very honest blog post review. It is literally over 2,200 words long. So, you’ve been warned. If you’re not interested the nitty-gritty, here’s the moral of the story: don’t do it. If you’re here for the train wreck, buckle up…

My stomach has NOT been happy with me. I’ve been having indigestion and acid reflux and just all around BLEGH-ness going on. I actually have an appointment scheduled with a GI doctor in a few weeks, so hopefully that will be helpful. However, when we took our trip to Ocean City my stomach got really angry with me. Long story short, I ate a bunch of food and felt like absolute crap. My portion sizes had grown too large for me and I just all around felt bloated and yucky.

Which is why on our way home from the beach I ordered a 3-day Juice Cleanse from Squeezed. I don’t know if the commercials wormed their way into my head or what, but I decided I could do with a bit of cleansing and hit the ‘buy now’ button.

Now, before you read on… I have to warn you, I’m going to be really, really honest with you. There is NOTHING in it for me to lie about anything here. So brutal honesty is what you’re going to get.

Why did I choose Squeezed? Well, my friend Lindsey did one of their cleanses and liked it. She also said that I would probably like it because it is sweeter than other cleanses she’s done and I like sweet things. Yup, that’s me!

What did I order? They offer their juice cleanses for anywhere from 1 – 7 days, and recommend 3 days for a beginner. I chose the 3-day cleanse and it cost $89.99 + $10 shipping.

What did it include? The 3-day cleanse includes 18 bottles of juice and comes in a cooler tote bag with one large ice pack to keep it cool. An actual person brings it to your house, drops it at your door and rings your doorbell so you can grab it up and put it right in the fridge.

Each day, you drink 6 bottles of juice:

• Squeezed 1: Breakfast – beet, apple, pineapple, carrot, orange, ginger, lemon
• Squeezed 2: Morning Snack – watermelon, pineapple, apple, beet, lime, lemon
• Squeezed 3: Lunch – coconut, pineapple, spinach, apple
• Squeezed 4: Afternoon Snack – jicama, apple, carrot, lime, ginger, turmeric
• Squeezed 5: Dinner – dandelion greens, watermelon, apple, spinach, lemon
• Squeezed 6: Activity Snack (or Dessert) – cashew, cinnamon, Himalayan salt, date, safflower, filtered water

Note: They recommend you drink the juice slowly (taking about 30 minutes per bottle) to allow your body to avoid energy spikes and crashes. They also encourage you to drink 128 oz of water a day ON TOP of the juices.

Day 1 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse: Saturday

I was hoping to start on Friday, but my original delivery was delayed due to the driver getting a flat tire. So, I had a Saturday start. I woke up, grabbed my typical cup of coffee (no sugar, about 1 tbsp of creamer) and sipped out in my sunroom until I felt I could make human sentences. After a second cup of coffee, my sister texted to do a workout so I hopped on the Peloton with her and did a 20 minute pop ride and a 10 minute cool down ride. After my workout, I tried the first juice.

And it was surprisingly good. And awfully sweet, but good. I’ve found that if you pour it over ice, it’s much more bearable. On Saturday, I stuck with the prescriptive plan and drank 1 for Breakfast, but since I got such a late start, I started drinking 2 and it was already lunch time. So, after a few sips, I just skipped straight to 3 and stuck 2 back in the fridge. I think I also had about 1 bottle of water in there as well, sipping between juices. I drank about half the cashew milk bottle in the afternoon because I felt a bit hungry and it seemed like it might stick the ribs a little better.

Around 3ish, I drank 4, my afternoon snack. This is when Jack and I snuggled up on the couch to watch a movie… and suddenly all the juice hit me and I had to pee every 15 minutes. I swear, as soon as I was done peeing… I’d need to go again! It was super annoying, but thankfully I was at home and near a bathroom.

I had 5, my dinner, around 6pm or so and then finished the cashew milk as a ‘dessert’.

Thoughts on Day 1 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse: It wasn’t bad at all! All of the juices are pretty tasty and nothing tastes like grass. My energy was fine all day. I wasn’t hungry. I did pee a bunch in the afternoon, but once I went to bed, I was fine. Best of all, my stomach felt good and I wasn’t bloated and didn’t need any tums.

Day 2 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse: Sunday

After a successful day 1, I was feeling really good about day 2. Once again, I woke up with my coffee until my sister nudged me to exercise with her. So, I hopped on the bike and we did a 30 minute pop ride. I popped open juice 1 after the ride and sipped it slowly before jumping in the shower and getting on with my day.

Again, because of timing I ended up skipping juice 2. I think I’ll probably use them after I’m done the 3-day cleanse as a morning snack at work. Instead, I drank my lunch juice (3) right around noon, since we had plans to go to a play date for Jack at 1pm. I also drank a bottle of water sometime between morning and leaving the house.

I packed my afternoon snack juice (4) with an ice pack and brought it with me to his friend’s house, so I’d have something to sip on while we watched the kids scream at the top of their lungs in the pool. I think I used their restroom 3x over 2 hours to pee. So, a bit less than the first day?

From the play date, we went straight to visit my sister about 35 minutes away. So, I didn’t get back home until 6:30pm or so. At that point, I was sooo hungry. So, I basically chugged down my dinner juice (5). I then chased it with the entire cashew milk because I was still hungry.

This may have been a mistake.

First, I just felt stuffed. TOO MUCH liquid at once was a bad idea.

But then.

Then.

It happened.

The Cleanse.

Gastrointestinal distress.

(I told you this was going to be a super honest review.)

You guys. About an hour after I drank my dinner/dessert juices, I went to pee and with NO WARNING AT ALL… GASTROINTESTINAL DISTRESS.

And then 20 minutes later.

And then 20 minutes later.

And then again.

And then I went to sleep, and woke up and AGAIN.

{I’m trying to be coy about this and not gross you all out… but DUDE. So much GASTROINTESTINAL DISTRESS.}

Thoughts on Day 2 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse (during the day): This is great! I have plenty of energy and I’m not hungry and the juices are tasty. My stomach feels good, I’m not bloated and I don’t need a tums to survive the day.

Thoughts on Day 2 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse (after 7:30pm): This was a mistake. Why did I pay for this to happen to me? It’s like paying for the stomach flu. What in the actual heck was I thinking?

Day 3 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse: Monday

When I woke up on Monday (which THANKFULLY was a work-from-home day), you would have thought I’d be empty.

You would have thought wrong.

I was still feeling pretty awful, which was the OPPOSITE of what I wanted with this cleanse. However, I joined the recommended Squeezed Society Facebook group “for encouragement and tips” and searched the word “bathroom” and found that it was really hit or miss who was going to be pooping their brains out all night. Lucky me.

Anywhoo. I only had one day left of the juice cleanse and DANG IT I’m not a quitter. However, I was now a little scared of what would happen when I introduce normal food into my diet and I had to go into the office the next day, so I decided to augment the plan a bit for day 3.

I started with my coffee in the morning – two cups, thank-you-very-much. By then, my stomach was feeling much more settled. So, I poured juice 1 (breakfast) over ice and sipped it slowly while working away at my laptop.

That went well, so I skipped juice 2 again (sorry juice 2, I’ll get to you eventually) and for lunch I drank juice 3 over ice AND had a toasted bagel with butter on it.

And then. You guessed it. Gastrointestinal distress.

Sigh.

So, after lunch I had a bowlful of pretzels and water as a snack. And everything seemed… okay. Around 4:30pm or so, I had half of a cashew milk. I didn’t feel up for a cycle workout, so I did 20 minutes of stretching and yoga instead. For dinner, I decided to just go all-in with actual food and had a Caesar salad with sauteed shrimp. It was delicious. I had the other half of the cashew milk for ‘dessert’ because apparently, I’m a masochist.

Less than an hour later I was back in the bathroom.

It’s fine. I live here now. {sob}

Thoughts on Day 3 of Squeezed Juice Cleanse: I only drank 3 of the juices and had real food, so maybe this shouldn’t count as a full day of the cleanse? Either way, I wasn’t feeling great. Still fine on the bloating and lack of tums. However, still not okay with the whole gastrointestinal distress especially in the evening after dinner. My energy levels were fine, but my tummy felt… fragile. I basically felt like the day after you have the stomach flu or food poisoning and you’re a little scared of food. But also, hungry.

After the Cleanse:

I had 5 bottles of juice left (3 bottles of morning snack 2, and one bottle of 4 and one bottle of 5). I decided to use the leftover bottles as a ‘morning snack’ while going back to eating regular food over the following few days. Thankfully, on Tuesday (day 4) I really was empty and the pooping stopped.

Final Thoughts on the Squeezed 3-day Juice Cleanse:

What did I think of the Juices? I actually have no complaints at all on the flavors of the juices. They are all pretty okay without any super harsh grassy flavors. I mean, do they taste as good as a peanut butter cup sundae? Nope. But for what they were, they were pretty good. The ones that I felt were a little sweet were much better when I poured them over ice. And I drank all of them with a straw (except the cashew milk, which I sipped straight from the bottle), which I think helped too.

Did the Squeezed Juice Cleanse Do What I Wanted it To Do? I really feel like this was one of those Disney channel ‘be careful what you wish for’ kind of lessons. My initial complaints were that my stomach felt bloated and yucky and I wanted to get my portion sizes back down to normal. So yes, the juice cleanse did help me complete those goals. However, like I said… it was basically like I paid to give myself the same effects of food poisoning. And it was NOT worth it.

How Much Weight Did I Lose? As you can see on the chart, when I started the juice cleanse the scale was immediately impacted. Note: my goal was not to lose weight specifically, but to feel better. However, surviving on nothing but juices and visiting the toilet a million times in three days is obviously going to show itself on the scale.

With that being said, I ended my juice cleanse a week ago and my current weight is 2 pounds less than the morning I started the Squeezed Juice cleanse. Typically, it takes a force of nature to make the scale move even a pound for me, so I’ll take this as the consolation prize for the pain and suffering.

Would I recommend this to someone I cared about? No. No, I would not.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this posts, for fun I checked with Google what you all would want to know about my juice cleanse experience. Well, here are my super honest answers.

• Does a Juice Cleanse Make You Poop? Yes.
• Does a Juice Cleanse Help You Lose Weight? Yes, possibly.
• Does a Juice Cleanse Give You Diarrhea? YES.
• Does a Juice Cleanse Make You Tired? Only after you pooped out your brains.

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