A friend of mine is a Fit Team consultant and purveyor of Fit Sticks, a dietary supplement that is added to a bottle of water and consumed twice daily. It purports to help you lose weight, burn fat, and suppress appetite. It’s also accompanied by a 1200-1500 calorie diet. I’m trying it for two weeks! Let’s see what happens. I’m not going to strictly stick to the diet, as I’m still nursing my baby girl, but I’m tracking calorie intake and tying to stick to around 1500 calories. 
Author / cmdudenh
Re-entry
I felt fabulous after my third full day of the juice cleanse and cucumbers. Fabulous! Full of energy, focused, and not hungry at all. I lost 4 pounds. Adding food back into my diet was difficult. Everything I ate made me feel bloated and slightly nauseated.
The biggest issue with the cleanse was the social pressure. The world wants you to eat. Your friends want you to eat. Without a partner, i think committing to something like this would be extremely difficult.
That being said, i would like to try and “cleanse” a couple of times a year. I think I’ll just make my own juice next time!
Detox
One unfortunate side effect (or coincidence?) from the cleanse is an oily, breaking out face. My skin is almost slick! The instructions said this was a possibility, but I had scoffed at that, not convinced that the escaping “toxins” would have any effect. Well, they did! So I decided to use my favorite detox face mask to try and fight it! Detox all around!!! This mask is the awesomely named Cackle Spackle from Perfectly Posh, my new favorite line of self care products. It looks odd, but it’s so refreshing! Charcoal gives it the grey color, but it smells great, sharp and minty, and it cleans and tightens my skin like crazy! Hopefully, now that the cleanse is ending, the mask and the reintroduction to real food will end the oil spill! 
Almost there
7:43 pm on day three! One and a half bottles of juice to go! I made the mistake of eating a couple of my son’s French fries and my stomach is in complete revolt! I will definitely have to take it easy with re-entry tomorrow.
Today was definitely the best day for me. I felt good all day, not too hungry, and I actually have a bottle of juice left, my last UpBEET. I’m going to save it to use as smoothie base in the future. I’m finishing my last Detox Greens, which I find really difficult to drink (it’s very swamp waterish), then I have the best for last! Spicy Lemonade! This bottle is lemon juice, water, agave, and cayenne pepper. This recipe is very similar to the original Master Cleanse recipe, and I find it super delicious. The mix of spicy tart is perfect for my taste buds, as I don’t prefer overly sweet drinks in general. I plan on making this recipe whenever I feel like I need a little boost!
Fantastic!
So this morning I feel pretty fantastic. I’ve got lots of energy and a clear ability to focus. I’ve lost three pounds so far, and the headaches of the first day are gone! Hunger pangs are few and far between! Of course, it’s the last day, but I feel like I’ve finally adjusted. I do need to go grocery shopping later though, which will be the real test! I can’t wait to drink my cashew milk!
Blood of my enemies
Motivation is difficult to find tonight. I did great yesterday, and okay this morning, but now that I’m home it’s tough. John and I keep each other on point at work, but my family isn’t as concerned. So far, I don’t really see any benefit from the cleanse, except I’m headachy and grumpy, but I want to stay the course.
Tonight, I drank UpBeet as my “dinner” juice. It’s an off putting thick, red color. It tastes okay, it’s just hard to get past the color and texture. My three year old ran gleefully around the room yelling, “Mommy’s drinking blood, Mommy’s drinking blood! Mommy’s a scary vampire!” While I’m proud of his knowledge of folklore/monsters, this doesn’t encourage me to keep consuming the juice.
O+ Juice
:(
I ate four pringles. I couldn’t help myself.
Day 2 – morning
So I have a ripping headache today. Did the juice do this to me? Lack of caffeine? General malaise? I’m breaking the rules and taking some ibuprofen. Headache + grumpy baby + no food = sleepy, unfocused Cindy. I added extra black coffee (totally allowed!) to my cashew milk juice this morning and feel a little better. Juice flavor recaps in a bit.
3 bottles
This particular cleanse allows for 3 small servings of one type of vegetable each day. And, if you get really lightheaded from all the “toxins” being released, you are allowed to eat a few raw nuts or seeds. You can also drink all the water with lemons or limes that you would like. 
Halfway through day 1, and I feel a little lightheaded and slightly giddy. This is odd, since the juice contains roughly the same amount of calories that I normally consume. Hmmm. Its magic! Or science? Who knows. At least I’m handling it better than John. I was ready with my cucumbers and limes!
The first bottle
Cashew Coffee Milk was absolutely delicious, at least to me. I’m lactose intolerant though, so non-dairy milk is not new to me, though cashew milk is. The coffee was creamy and had hints of cinnamon. It was filling, and i savored that bottle for a looooonnnnngg time, starting at 9am and finishing the bottle at 10:15am. My bottle was also slightly slushy, which made the drink taste like a not sweet frappaccino. Yum!!
Bottle 2&3: Pineapple Mint & Sweet Greens
I enjoyed our second bottle too, and made it the entire 3 hours between bottles that the cleanse suggests. The fresh minty flavor mixed with citrus was refreshing, and I savored this bottle too. Delicious and refreshing. I ate my first serving of cucumber after finishing this bottle and felt satisfied and clear headed.
But now, we have reached bottle 3, Sweet Greens. Ummm, more of a challenge. Tangy grass. It tastes like tangy grass. Like Bertie Botts EveryFlavor beans Grass bean, except for not as good. And its thick. Uck. But, I shall choke it down.
The first thing: Juice Cleanse
John and I have been discussing our need to eat healthier for some time. I’m a vegetarian, but I love bread and cheese; John is part of the microwave generation. We love to surf around for silly fad diets and crazy supplements (which might be part of future installments). I love finding great deals, and am obsessed with Groupon! What does this equal? Juice Cleanse! We purchased a 3 day, two person Whenever Juice Cleanse from Juice from the Raw as a Groupon. Since we are both addicted to caffeine, we chose the “Cashew Coffee Milk” version, which promised to help combat caffeine withdrawal during the cleanse.
If you’ve ever been on Groupon, you’ve seen tons of items like this. We chose this one because it was a median price (not the cheapest, but not the most expensive) and had good ratings for taste. If I’m not going to have bread or chocolate for three days, I at least want the juice to have a decent taste!
Unboxing
Just a warning, this particular cleanse did have an additional shipping charge past the Groupon price, so be aware if you are on a juice cleanse budget!
Our box of wonder!
The juice arrived very securely packed in cooler bags, once box for each person. The cleanse contains 6 bottles of juice per day, for 3 days (18 bottles in all). We got a variety of flavors in addition to the aforementioned Cashew Coffee Milk, and will talk about those more later.
I have to say, the initial appearance of the juice was a little off-putting. The “cold pressed ingredients looked a little like scary science experiments or pond scum. They also take awhile to defrost. We set out our bottles according to the directions and waited for our start date!
Green slime?
Librarians Try Things 