Juice Cleanse: Why Do We Juice?

I woke up this morning certain that my phone had died and I had missed my alarm. Instead, I had actually woken up before my perfectly timed chiming period (Sleep Cycle reference). I'm also super hungry but have run out of lemon for my tea in the morning. So here I am sitting in bed, with hunger in my throat, but unwilling to drink the Brainiac juice sitting on my bedside table.
Urban Remedy's email this morning told me that I'm supposed to glow today. As if my juice cleanse has the same magical powers as pregnancy. Looking at myself in the mirror, I don't feel like I'm going to be glowing. I look disgusting, this horrible pale color with a yellow undertone. I'm not blaming my juice cleanse for my unattractiveness. That I can only attribute to poor genetics and my lack of sun. Now I wish I had asked my parents to send me to LA for a "job fair" and gotten my winter tan on. But honestly, even if after this cleanse I feel all fresh and healthy, how could that be properly translated to the world without the appropriate sun kissed face??
Today, I'm hoping to continue with my job app streak. But I'm not feeling as motivated as I did yesterday. Since I submitted my last app, I've started looking at positions I care more about and would be devastated if I didn't get a call back from. I've also stalked every person remotely related to these companies on LinkedIn to see how they got there. I've discovered that they got there by being better than me.
All my life people have told me not to compare myself to others, but that just seems like the biggest load of crap. Grades, GPAs, resumes, not to mention the load of superficial insecurities that I have that do not relate to job searches are all a comparison game. Sadly, I think that I wanted to do this juice cleanse to make myself a better version of myself. I was hoping that I'd be thinner and prettier and more attractive. Maybe this juice cleanse could be the thing that jumpstarted the me that I always dreamed I'd be? That statement seems potentially harmless. Be your best self, right? But under that statement is the true unshakable insecurities that will undoubtedly haunt for the rest of my life. And unfortunately, there's no juice cleanse to detox me from that.

Juice Cleanse: Day 1

My first day on my juice cleanse was really difficult. I started the day wondering why in the world I thought this was going to be a good idea. I found the first couple drinks absolutely disgusting and preferred starving myself to forcing more of it down my throat. Honestly, I felt like giving up after the very first drink, already regretting completely wasting $185. Urban Remedy said to take it easy fitness wise during my juice cleanse, so I took that as permission to become a couch potato. My intention was to do some job applications, but of course I just watched TV. Specifically, I bought the first season of Girls and watched that for the first time while grimacing through my juice cleanse. If you want more insight into my thoughts during the first day, here's some tweets:

I 100% wish I had spent this money on soul cycle classes instead of this cleanse. This sucks. Ugh.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 4, 2014

Suffering through my juice cleanse by watching girls. Like seriously, could I be more of a bougie cliche right now? pic.twitter.com/rJbhEWyutC
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 4, 2014

You know what would be fucking amazing right now? A giant cheeseburger...I'm salivating.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 5, 2014

Like its kind of disgusting how it's 5:30 and I've consumed less calories than a bottle of naked or odwalla juice.
— Rachel (@rachietalksalot) January 5, 2014

Here's my review of the drinks on the first day:

Juice #1: Brainiac is made of Cucumber, Celery, Spinach, Parsley, and Lemon. What it tasted like? Watery, salty celery. Gross. It took me 2.5 hours to gulp that shit down. I seriously hated it, especially how salty it was. I understand that they needed to put my sodium levels somewhere in this juice cleanse, but it tasted like they put all of my daily sodium in my first drink. They didn't, but they did put 10% of my daily sodium intake.

Juice #2: I found this one (Time Machine) slightly easier to gulp down. I wouldn't say I liked it, but I didn't grimace quite as much with every sip.

Juice #3: The Flush. I was super worried for this juice. It sounded pretty similar to the other green juice I had had that morning and almost puked up (Brainiac) but its name was even worse. The name 'Flush' made me think that the moment it touched my lips I'd have to run for the toilet. Surprisingly that didn't happen. And the ginger in Flush made the rest of the drink much more tolerable for my taste buds.

Juice #4: It was carrot, beet, apple and ginger juice. I wasn't in love, but it seems like the juices are getting better as the day goes on. I could see myself buying this drink when I'm in a healthy Marina, yuppie mood. Apparently beet juice is amazing for detoxing your liver, so they named this juice "After Party."

Juice #5: A-MAZ-ING. It was a raspberry shake and it made me feel so much better about the whole cleanse. It's odd, but I think the JUICE element of this has been weirding me out. In reality, juices from Naked and Odwalla are pretty thick, so having all the juices so far be so thin and watery kind of disgusted me. But this juice/shake was so thick with the yumminess of raspberries. It was definitely my favorite drink of the day. I think this juice helped me regain my strength...and the drink was aptly named "Warrior."

Juice #6: Relax. I was really expecting to like this drink more. The reviews I read from bloggers said it was amazing, so when I finally got to #6 I thought the day's struggles were already over. But after the thick quality of Warrior, I was disappointed by the thinness of the Cashew milk. I vaguely could taste an horchata-like quality to this drink. I'll probably like it a lot more tomorrow....and now I want a real horchata.

Well, the whole day is done and I'm not feeling as hungry as I thought I would. I think this might be because I went to bed feeling more hungry the night before. That's the final part I feel like I should mention. I just downloaded the app FitBit, which has been giving me a calorie target for each day based on my activity and the amount of weight I want to lose. After all the calories I burned from Soul Cycle, I actually ended up having LESS calories with my real food (and froyo) than on my juice cleanse........Maybe it would've been better to just eat normal food and have a tough workout?

Urban Remedy: Pre-Juice Cleanse

When I was in Geneva, I was feeling pretty lethargic and gross. I got it in my head to do a juice cleanse and be more healthy. Unfortunately, during the summer I didn't have enough time to both enjoy the yummy food in San Francisco and do my juice cleanse. But here I am again in San Francisco for four weeks with plenty of time to do the juice cleanse, so I have no excuse. Well, I guess I did have an excuse. Juice cleanses are pretty freaking expensive. Ranging from around $150-$250 for 3 days.

I looked around at a bunch of local juice-cleanse spots and settled on Urban Remedy because the juices sounded pretty yummy (well for primarily vegetable juices....) When I signed up for the cleanse, I assumed it would just be those three days. But in reality, it's a 9 day ordeal. In order to prep your body for a juice-only diet, Urban Remedy recommends that you cut out pretty much everything that's good in the world.

So basically, I've already been deprived of chocolate and steak and milk and alcohol and everything yummy since January 1st. Unfortunately, I still have 6 more days of cravings and they will only get worse.

However, I think I did a pretty good job with all my diet restrictions. For breakfast, I would have a breakfast scramble full of veggies. I made my parents buy me chicken which I ate at every occasion. I had my fill of pistachios (like honestly it was disgusting). And I watched my friends with envy as they downed chocolate chip cookie after chocolate chip cookie. Oh and I forgot to mention I also peed all the time. Urban Remedy told me to make sure I actually get my 8 glasses of water a day, which made me realize that I NEVER get my full 8 glasses. Even though it seems like 4 water bottles isn't a lot....it's so much water I have to pee every fifteen minutes!!

I must admit, I cheated. I wasn't supposed to eat sugar or soy, but I met up with my friends at Fraîche after I went to a Soul Cycle class and I just couldn't resist the cool, refreshing froyo. But I got it in soy instead of original because I felt like that would be healthier. Unfortunately, I ended my 3-day pre-cleanse period with horrible cravings which were not helped by my brother who dragged me to Krispey Kreme and In-N-Out as I ate my berries....god I want a fucking cheeseburger, with a milkshake, and more cheese on the side...maybe some poutine on the side. FUCK. I have to start a juice cleanse like this.