A few years ago my dearly beloved husband was inspired to go on a month long juice fast after watching the documentary Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. After a full month of strict juicing not only did he lose a lot of weight but it left him feeling invigorated and much more energetic. Back then I was never keen to jump on the juicing bandwagon with him. Whilst I realised that juicing could provide more benefits to me than just weight loss, being a relatively normal body weight I didn’t feel the need to juice was urgent. To add to my reluctance, I found that juicing at home was always such messy work and quite time consuming especially because my juices had to be adapted for my fructose malabsorption. Our Breville juicer is one of the traditional centrifugal style ones that most people have and in order to gain the maximum nutrients from the juice you need to drink it immediately. I now much prefer using my new Omniblend blender for juicing as it is much more efficient and far easier to clean.

The Boy prides himself on educating me on anything non-veterinary as he believes that if I’m left to my own devices I become very one track minded and only learn about food and felines. There is nothing REALLY wrong with that is there? One night earlier this year he put on a documentary called Eat, Fast and Live Longer. This Michael Moseley film explores the benefits of fasting on our longevity and health. It’s definitely worth a watch if you haven’t already and it opened my eyes to the fact that you can be slim and still be unhealthy. Wanting to live long and happy lives together we both made a pact to try and fast for one to two days week. We each implemented our fasting in our own individual ways but the boy defaulted straight back to juice fasts and found the whole process far easier than I did.

Eat, Fast & Live Longer HD by limoslight

My own version of the fast was a struggle and after a few weeks of unsuccessfully trying to satisfy myself with piles of raw vegetables and packets of Slim Pasta I turned to the Boy for advice. Like some sort of answered wish within the same week I was contacted by Jac from Au Naturale with offerings of some cold pressed juice samples.

Cold pressed juice is different to that made with my juicer at home. With cold pressing there is no heat created by friction or grinding thus the fruit and vegetables remains raw and do not oxidise or degrade. This means much more of the nutrients and enzymes remain intact. After having a chat with Jac about my fructose malabsorption I was relieved that she was more than happy to adapt the ingredients of her juices to avoid any high fructose fruits so that my gut would remain happy.

My juices were delivered direct to my front door which gave me the chance to talk with Jac and learn more about her newly founded business. We stood out on my porch in the sun sharing stories about how closely we have found our diets to be linked to our own health and well-being. We really are what we eat. Having over five years’ experience as a chef she has a strong interest in using raw, organic and locally sourced products. I loved hearing that she supports our local farmers and purchases her produce from our local Farmers markets in Subi and Fremantle in addition to sourcing some direct from growers in the Swan Valley. LOVE!

The samples didn’t last long and I had already knocked back all three by midday. My interest was well and truly sparked and I was keen to give her more intensive three day extreme juice cleanse a go. In exchange for writing about my experience she kindly offered to provide me and the Boy with a buy-one-get-one-free deal. She emailed me an information pack detailing how to prepare for the three days.

Normally during our working week, the Boy and I eat a predominantly vegan diet and avoid eating animal products, processed foods and grains. Consequently I only really needed a day or two to prepare myself for my juice cleanse however for people who are used to regularly eating meats, grains, sugars and dairy products I strongly recommend taking a couple of days or more to prepare yourself. If you have quite a high amount of processed foods and sugars in your diet you may even want to consider doing a couple of single day juice cleanses first to get your body used to the process. If you don’t, I can guarantee you will not get a very positive outcome and risk making yourself unwell.

The following week Jac arrived on my front door with a whole eskie full of juice. It was hard to believe that my entire next three days of meals were contained in there and I was keen to see what it included. Basically, for each day you are given a 500 ml bottle of juice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, a veggie shot for each morning, a fresh young coconut for an added bit of energy with lunch and two 250 ml “snack” juices. There are three different types of “meals” and two flavours of “snacks”. The cleansing juices are much lower in natural sugars in comparison to some of Jac’s other juices and contain vegetables such as cucumber and celery which are claimed to help with the body’s cleansing process whilst still being gentle on the digestion. The veggie shots are designed to give a concentrate of pure vitamins and health. Jac is a big fan of juicing fresh turmeric and includes it in one of these shots in addition to some of her juices.

The eve before I started my cleanse I dreamt about juice all night. I kept dreaming that the Boy accidentally drank all my juices by mistake and I got half way through my three days and didn’t have enough left. This bizarre dream kept on repeat loop in my brain all night giving me a fitful broken sleep. Once morning arrived I bolted up out of bed and grabbed my first bottle of “Green Caterpillar” made with celery, cucumber, ginger, kale, lime and parsley with the green apple being replaced with grapefruit to make it more fructose friendly. I quickly gulped down the first half of my bottle before I remembered that I was supposed to start my morning with a hot lemon drink. Being a huge breakfast fan I wondered to myself how on Earth I would cope with drinking just liquids for three days.

Jac had advised me to avoid all caffeine starting from the day before the cleanse but I confess to you dear readers that I’m not that strong willed. I reduced my intake to one small black coffee each morning and drank herbal tea for the rest of the day. Later that day I had a business meeting in the city and afterwards we stopped in at The Terrace Hotel for a coffee and bite to eat. Well not for me of course! I brought my “Clean Paws” lunch juice with me in a cold pack to keep it cool. This juice contained coriander, celery, cucumber, ginger, kale, lemon and lime with the papaya replaced with grapefruit and pineapple. I watched on in hungry envy as my colleagues devoured their cake and coffee. I remained very hungry all day. Despite not eating, I had an insane amount of energy for the whole day. My work mates joked that they doubted I would stay like that for the full three days and it must be the high before the low.

I had the Ginger Yam juice for dinner which was made from celery, cucumber, ginger, lime, sweet potato, turmeric and grapefruit. Afterwards I enjoyed a bowl of miso soup as suggested by Jac using gluten free miso paste and hot water without all the trimmings of tofu and seaweed. I was thankful for the warm goodness in my belly as it helped ward off my tummy’s grumblings and let me sleep. The Boy caved and ate a couple of buckwheat crackers and a bowl of frozen blueberries as his hunger was unbearable. At well over six foot tall he is nearly twice my size so I can understand how much more hungry he must have felt. In hindsight I think he will need an additional large juice bottle per day to see him through.

As my first day drew to an end I was surprised that I was only slightly bloated despite drinking over two litres of juice. Fructose malabsorption sufferers are recommended to limit their juice intake to about half a glass per serve which I had obviously exceeded. Jac had kindly ensured to adapt all the ingredients to leave out all the high fructose veggies and fruits which made a huge difference but I knew I would be bound to getting mild symptoms by the end of the day. As I lay in bed my tummy let a few loud gurgles before I fell into the deepest sleep I had in weeks.

Day Two I woke up to find my skin was noticeably cleared and my weight had dropped by 600 grams. My hunger was not as unbearable as the first day and I felt buzzed and full of energy albeit a little light headed. My bloating from the night before has settled down surprisingly quickly. Usually if I have an FM reaction it will last for at least 2-3 days. My hyperactivity lasted for the whole day despite working a long and late shift that didn’t get me home until after 9 pm that night. I was still pretty hungry all day but being the second day I was starting to get used to it.

Day Three followed on from a night of less satisfying sleep as the Boy had tossed and turned all night which in turn kept waking me up. I awoke feeling tired and struggled to get going compared to the other two mornings. I found my gut reactions and bloating had stayed at bay and was amazed at how I hadn’t buckled under the pressures of hunger and eaten real food.  I weighed myself and I had lost a further 500 grams.

My skin was literally glowing with health and was even clearer than usual feeling velvety soft to touch. My breakfast juice picked me up more than I thought but by late morning I was starting to lose steam again. I opened up my young coconut before lunch and drank the cool refreshing water along with some of the softer jelly like meat inside. Jac had advised me just to drink the juice but told me some people still eat the flesh. As the coconut meat does contain some fats it isn’t ideal to have while on a cleanse. I am glad I breeched protocol however because the extra energy gave me a new lease in life and I was back to the pumped up, energetic juicing freak I had been for the past two days.

By the afternoon I felt absolutely fine and being on the home stretch I knew I was going to make it. I started making plans for my first meal the next morning and decided on trialling coconut flour paleo pancakes. Seeing the finish line always makes a race easier and I found that last night was actually the easiest.

Oh my, I DID enjoy my food the next day though!

I highly recommend giving a juice cleanse a try. You will feel healthier, more energetic and may even lose some weight in the process. I will not lie to you, you WILL be hungry. For someone like me who eats a lot and eats often, this was the most difficult part and there was a significant battle of wills at play. Thankfully, if you stick to your guns you will find it actually gets easier each day that goes by. But yes. You will be hungry!

Despite the hunger and internal struggle that it created, I really enjoyed my juice cleanse and I’m now hooked having already booked a second one with Au Naturale that just I completed on the weekend. I hope to try and do one once a month just to reset my overworked gut, immune system and overall health back to a baseline. I am even considering trying a five day cleanse…is that crazy? Juice on!