Last week I did a 3-day juice cleanse with Harvest Juicery in the West Loop. I have done cleanses before, even done cleanses with Harvest, but this is the first time I have ever cleansed in the middle of winter. It’s January and the beginning of 2018, so for weeks prior I had been hearing everyone talk about cleansing to kick off the New Year. Whether they were doing Whole 30 or a juice cleanse, I wanted to get in on the action.

Before my cleanse, I made sure to avoid all processed foods and switched from coffee to green tea for 2-days prior to my start date. I began my cleanse on a Tuesday so I didn’t have to worry about juicing over the weekend, and I made sure to down as much water as possible.

Tuesday rolled around and it was time to start! I drank a nice big mug of warm lemon water and headed to Harvest to pick up my cleanse. While on Harvest’s cleanse, you drink 6 juices a day along with 2 smaller shots. The juices were each labeled with a number and I drank the juices in the order they were labeled. Every morning I started with a green juice, followed by a root juice, another green juice, a citrus juice, a green juice and then a nut milk to end the day. Along with the juices, there were AM and PM juice shots. Pretty self explanatory and easy to follow, but more importantly it was surprisingly filling!

Below is a list of ingredients in each juices:

• Morning: E3 Live Shot (Blue Algae)
• Green Juice 1: Spinach, Kale, Turnip Greens, Cucumber, Pear, Lime
• Root Juice: Carrot, Apple, Ginger
• Green Juice 3: Spinach, Kale, Cucumber, Celery, Pineapple
• Citrus: Fennel, Orange, Lemon, Mint
• Green 4: Spinach, Parsley, Apple, Kale, Celery and Lemon
• Nut Milk: Almond, Cashew, Saigon Cinnamon, Vanilla Bean, Portuguese Salt Cream
• Night: Aloe Shot

      **Side Note: Harvest doesn’t include a beet juice in their cleanse because beet juice pulls too many toxins too quickly.

While I never felt hungry, one of the things I didn’t love was drinking cold juice when it was freezing outside. I think I might be a summer juicer only. That said, I drank tons of warm lemon water in between juices not only to stay warm, but to subdue my appetite just long enough to get to my next juice. I spaced my juices out every 2 hours. I didn’t feel many changes in my gut other than less bloating, but I did feel a lot lighter and clearer mentally. The one side effect I wasn’t expecting and didn’t even know could happen was I detoxed through my skin. I broke out pretty bad, which apparently is something that happens to people when they cleanse. Beware!

As a whole, my largest takeaways where the AM and PM shots and the mental clarity. I absolutely love love loved the shots. The E3 Live shot is a perfect way to get easily absorbable vitamins every morning, and the aloe juice is great for calming before bed. It has naturally occurring magnesium which absorbs quicker than a supplement! I loved it so much that I am looking into learning how to make aloe juice at home and taking an aloe shot every night. TBD blog post maybe?

Overall, I am a fan of juicing but moving forward I may stick with 1-day cleanses, maybe adding a few 3-day cleanses in the summer. I am also planning on adding fresh juices to my daily diet more regularly. I think there are so many benefits from juice that you just can’t get from any other form of nutrition.

Go to Harvest Juicery in the West Loop, I promise they will be more than happy to walk you through the 3-day process and get you on your way! Not to mention they have a bunch of other nummy goodies in-store (ahem my favorite avo toast ever)!