IN THE BEGINNING
It’s Autumn, the weather is getting colder, and as is common for me, I love to give my body a rest through a cleanse or detox whenever I’ve been through, or I’m about to embark on, a lot of changes. You can read more about other detoxes I have done here. I’ve been back in London for a month now, my third time living in this fine city in 10 years, and I’m so happy to be here. Nonetheless, any move, gypsetter or not, brings about a lot of change.
So I turned to Google and started searching juice detoxes in London. It took me a while to find the right one but I fell in love with Purifyne Cleanse because they are organic, and use a hydraulic juicer which means that all the juices are cold pressed. Cold pressing ensures the most nutritious and live juice possible. They also have a wide variety of juice cleanses to cover everyone’s needs and understood that I wanted to do a green juice cleanse in order to nurture my body and give it a gentle immune boost in time for the winter season.
Day 1.
I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas, and when the delivery did arrive I was immensely impressed. The first delivery contained 15 juices for the next 3 days, a pack of supplements, a missal mitt to dry brush my body with, a laminated instruction card and a sweet letter with further details, encouragement and guidance. My flatmates oohd and aahd at the vision before us. The largest variety of organic, cold pressed green juices we had ever encountered, especially for a juice cleanse. This was going to be fun!
I followed the instructions and started the day with herbal tea while I waited for the delivery, and then had the morning juice mixed with a flat spoon of Colosan powder, and then 4 Alka-clear with a glass of water about half an hour later before running out the door to some meetings, armed with another green juice and the daily green soup. The soup is absolutely delicious and you can really taste the garlic and parsley, which are incredibly detoxifying, although it made me a little conscious of my breath around my meetings!
It’s only the first day, which for me is normally quite easy. By mid afternoon I started feeling some detoxifying and cleansing symptoms: headaches, sore eyes and feeling kind of like a cold was coming on. My flatmates sent me their food vibes when we sat together in the kitchen and they ate dinner, and I sipped on my alkaline tea which is also provided by Purifyne. I wasn’t hungry at any point, but did crave sugar for energy in the late afternoon, and was really tired by 10pm, so showered and went to bed.
Day 2.
I love this feeling: waking up so clear and full of energy! I noticed some white mucus has formed at the back of my throat and was coming up which is wonderful. My body has already started cleaning itself. I started the day with a glass of water and the juice of 1 lemon, followed by another glass of water and the 4 Alka-clear, and then went straight to my temporary office with all of my juices for the day.
The day sped by with only a little hunger at midday which was happily satisfied with the green “soup” until 4pm when I crashed. Literally. I couldn’t work anymore. I could feel my body moving into a state of ketotis, my heart rate slowed down, and I became really tired. I laid down on the sofa, and took a gentle nap for an hour, concluding that I would just take it easy and rest for the remainder of the day. The headache came back at this point, and I noticed my skin flare up with a few spots. These are all signs that my body is releasing toxins.
I took the prescribed hot bath with Epsom salts before bed, and noticed that my body and skin felt really hot afterwards, another sign of detoxification. It took me ages to fall asleep because all of a sudden I had all this unexpected energy, but once I did, it was deep and restful.
Day 3.
I’m not particularly enjoying the breakout on my jaw and neck at the moment, which makes me want to stay at home and in bed.
Spots on the neck as well as the jawline are related to the adrenal glands, which means this juice cleanse is giving them a good flush out and a chance to heal. Stress as well as eating sugar and processed carbs causes the adrenal glands to work harder, so they are finally getting a rest, and a chance to purge at the moment. I feel moody and grumpy as the toxins are being released and flushed out of my system.
I also became really lightheaded today and found it really difficult to concentrate. I feel stressed, harried and introverted. I suddenly feel overwhelmed by life and all the things that I have committed to and I don’t really want to speak with anyone, and rather rest and relax. After a few hours work in the morning and my Skype meeting in the afternoon, I took a bath and then before bed I had another hot shower which helped relax me and calm my nerves.
Day 4.
I was so busy today, I barely had time I think. In between work, my personal training session with David from DS PT, and meetings that went late into the evening, I didn’t have a chance to feel into my body, the detox process and check in with myself. However, after feeling tremendously grumpy and moody yesterday, it was a pleasure to be in good spirits and like people again! I could tell that I was not very focused and had trouble concentrating all day, which left me acting like a giddy school girl, but I felt healthy and well, if a little bit lightheaded. The heaviness from the previous days was gone and I enjoyed interacting with society.
I was surprised that I didn’t feel hungry at all this day, as in the previous two days I felt quite ravenous towards night-time, with only some herbal tea to subdue the rumblings of my tummy. I had a dinner meeting during which I happily sipped on my tea while the others ate and felt just fine, despite a ridiculously decadent looking peanut butter chocolate brownie being served for desert!
Day 5.
I’m both sad and excited that its the last day of my Green Juice cleanse with Purifyne.
I am sad because it’s just such a pleasure to be taken care of, in the way that Purifyne do. All my green juices are carefully made and nutritionally balanced, they include a sisal mitt for dry brushing, Epsom salts for detox baths, supplements and herbal teas, in order to make the whole experience easy and nurturing. I love having all my juices for the day ready to go, because it means that I don’t need to spend any time thinking about or preparing foods for the day. Even though I love cooking, it’s very time consuming and when you’re busy, it’s such a nice solution to just have green juices to reach for throughout the day.
I am excited because it means that I get to do all the social things again, that I missed out on because I wanted to take a break and because my body didn’t have the energy for late nights. I haven’t been missing food so much, but I did feel quite hungry at times on the first 3 days. Eating is such a social thing, and the habits that we have around food come from a place of caring for and nurturing one another so when you take meals out of the equation, the options you have for doing things together change quite drastically for some reason.
Again, I had a really busy day today starting with work from a cafe, and the meeting a good friend whom I have not seen for a year which became a five hour walk around the canals and mansions of North London, which was quite an adventure of its own, and something I’ll share with you another time. I came home by 9pm utterly exhausted, and still two of my green juices remaining, which I left untouched and went straight to bed after a hot shower.
AFTER THOUGHTS
I love doing juice cleanses and detoxes, though I must say that this one happened to fall into a really busy period of my life, which I wouldn’t recommend, because I didn’t allow myself to relax and enjoy the stillness and the time off from life as much as I like to during a cleansing process. In the future I must remember to schedule cleansing processes in quiet times, however as I’m self-employed, you can never really judge when will be busy and when will be quiet!
I did notice that after a day or two back to eating, I felt like a fluffy cloud had been lifted and that the past week of juice cleansing had just been a dream which I drifted through. During the cleanse I felt much more present and in the moment, and stopped worrying about things that I couldn’t change. As my body was detoxifying, I focused inwards more than outwards and felt really sweet and cozy, despite occasional grumpiness.
It’s been a few days since I’m back on solid food, and I notice that all my sugar and caffeine cravings have disappeared which is wonderful as they are both something I’ve been wanting to nix as much as possible again. I also notice that I get full much faster, need much less food and eat less often. This makes sense of course, as my stomach has shrunk and my eating habits have had a break and a chance to renew themselves. I’m craving lots of fish and light vegetable soups as well as anything green, and not much else. I’m finding grains very heavy to digest and don’t want them at all, however am suddenly reaching for the natural raw yogurt sold at my local farmers market which is wonderful as my body is showing me that it needs probiotics.
Overall, this cleanse has been one of my favorites. The variety of juices from Purifyne was incredibly impressive and I think I could live off them, I I could include 1 or two more drink which included more protein! I feel healthy, light, energized and ready for winter with an immune system that’s well prepared.
