14 Feb My boyfriend on a juice cleanse

Urban Remedy

The story behind how my boyfriend ended up on an Urban Remedy juice cleanse and survived!

For those of you who follow me on facebook, you may have seen my little video experiment.It all started with a company called Urban Remedy. They are based here in Southern, CA and they make fresh juices as meal replacements and as a “cleanse”… Well, I am not someone who is a fan of “cleanses” and when the company reached out to me to “try” their products I went back and forth with them for some time.

As a Licensed Sports Nutritionist who focuses on food intolerance and LONG TERM weight loss solutions I am pretty close minded to the idea of a “juice fast or cleanse“. I don’t like the idea of severe caloric restriction and I don’t feel good about short term weight loss due to drastic measures.

That being said, I agreed to be “open minded” and “TRY” the cleanse so that I could actually speak from personal experience vs. what I have learned without actually doing it.

So the package arrived. I am not gonna lie, 18 bottles of colorful juice with awesome tropical names like “Time Machine”, “After Party” and “Warrior” made be curious but I was also chicken. I have worked hard to achieve my current health and physiques so I didn’t want to do the severe restriction.

I have blogged about the negatives to cleansing. I have been MORE than vocal about my negative feelings about cleanses. Now I was in a dilemma. Why did I tell them I would “try” this when I didn’t really want to? And also, why exactly was I so against being “open minded” as I tell so many others to be!?!?!?

So, being the SOLUTION oriented person that I am, I did the next best thing. I did what ANY sane girlfriend would do. I nominated my boyfriend to do it instead! 🙂 Ha!

After all, boyfriends make GREAT guinea pigs!

Now keep in mind, my boyfriend Brooks is very physically fit and very physically active. He eats upwards of 3000 calories per day. He is a competitive swimmer, eats primarily natural foods, likes juicing fruits & veggies, but has never done a “cleanse” like this.  Some of you know him as he helped with the Super Shred, and he wrote Every Step Counts.

Before I turn things over to Brooks so he can give you his thoughts as somebody that actually DID the 3-day juice cleanse, you should watch this video.  Many of you know that I filmed videos of my boyfriend along the way.  I put all those videos together and you can watch them all right here: – The VIDEO documenting his experience.

 

Okay…Brooks here!  I hope you enjoyed the video!

Sooooo…everybody wants to know how it was.  Before I get there, let me give you a little background info.  I have never done a ‘cleanse’ before.  I enjoy making my own fresh vegetable and fruit juices, so the concept of ‘juice’ is not new to me.  I have the same Licensed Sports Nutritionist qualification Natalie does, and I’m also a NASM CPT and CES.  So I’m no stranger to nutrition and all the different things out there.  Like Natalie, I’m not a big fan of ‘extreme’ diets, etc..  Consistency over time is what is key.

That said, I do want to set the record straight JUST a bit about Natalie ‘making’ me do this.  I knew she wasn’t crazy about it…and watching her staring at 18 bottles of juice trying to figure out what to do was only amusing for so long.  So I told her I would do it if she liked.  I figured that when I was in the military, I went a week without food during SERE training (Survival, Escape, Resistance, Evasion).  So going 3 days on only juice wasn’t that big of a deal to me, so I said I would do it if she would like.  She jumped at the idea, and the rest is history!

My feelings during the cleanse…I felt pretty much like I figured I would based upon how I felt going without food during SERE school.  You are hungry for the first 15-20 hours, then it just goes away.  You might be cranky or a bit more irritable, but you are not hungry.  Urban Remedy ‘recommends’ that you consume ONLY the juice, but they also state that if you are really hungry, or need more, then you could have organic fruits, vegetables, or soaked nuts.

I would say I had enough energy for basic office work, but not for working out.  On day 2, I went to swim practice where we did about 3500 yards which is over 2 miles of swimming.  As you can imagine, I needed more than the 230 calories or so from the juice during the hours before hand.  So on that second day, I had some soaked nuts, and 2 or 3 bananas over the course of the day.  I had 1 before I swam, and after I swam I felt SUPER weak, so I had 2 more.

Trying to do anything performance related while on a cleanse is just plain silly.  I was so weak in the pool it wasn’t even funny.  I was even weaker after practice as I had pretty much exhausted all of my glycogen stores at that point.  As I discussed in the video, day 1 provided 1000 calories, day 2 provided 830 calories, and day 3 provided 670 calories.  The most protein in any of the days was 28grams.  As a 195lb male at about 6% bodyfat, it doesn’t take a degree in nutrition to know that I need a lot more calories than what the juice provided.

How were the Juices??

That said, I want to take a second to talk about the juices.  The juices were AWESOME!  As somebody that never used to eat vegetables, I really like juicing and have been doing it the past 2-3 years or so.  Basically what they gave me was 1 day of the 3 cleanses that they offer.  I had 18 different juices…and even the ones I didn’t think I was going to like (I can’t stand beets…) were pretty darn good!

In the video I’m sure you saw the part where I made a funny face.  That was just a natural reaction as I didn’t read the label.  That was the ‘green day’ and that was a 10 calories juice that was mostly lemon juice with chlorophyll.  I was seeing green and NOT thinking I was going to get the lemon taste and it caught me by surprise.  The juice was actually VERY good!

You can go check out the specifics of all 18 juices on their website HERE.

So, would I do a juice cleanse again?

No, I would not do a PURE juice cleanse again.  I think the juices were awesome, but I don’t think you need to do anything so drastic to your calories.  I think you need more protein and to eat healthy food WITH the juices.  Here is the thing…the body ‘cleanses’ itself naturally.  The best thing to do is create a healthy lifestyle for yourself.  Doesn’t do much good to eat junk all the time and do a 3 day juice cleanse if you are going to go right back to feeding yourself junk again.

If you drink plenty of water, and eat balanced meals made from REAL unprocessed food most of the time, you will be fine!

I would recommend people try the juices though.  If you have never juiced before, it will give you lots of ideas and will help you find what you like.  If you have juiced before it will give you ideas of combos you might not have thought of!

As far as doing the juices on a regular basis, there are a few ways I would recommend it.  You could drink 6 juices a day and supplement with some real food.  Or what I would like honestly, is to be able to have 2-3 juices per day with my regular meals.  You could buy one ‘day’ of juice and spread it over 2-3 days.  I wouldn’t go much more than that as the juices are fresh and should be used within 3 days.

I hope that kind of clears things up.  The juices are awesome, but I think they need to be supplemented with real, unprocessed food…especially if you have decent caloric needs, are athletic, or are doing anything that needs mental or physical performance.

How much weight did you lose again?

Oh yeah…and that 4 1/2 pounds I lost.  It pretty much came back as I knew it would.  Look at it this way.  Think of the glycogen in your muscles as your ‘sponge’.  Each gram of glycogen in the muscles holds about 1oz of water.  As you restrict calories, the body will burn up the glycogen stores, thus burning your ‘sponge’.  No sponge means nothing to hold water.  You can still be 100% hydrated, but there is nothing to HOLD the water in your muscles any longer.

Then, when you DO eat something (carbs) and you replenish your glycogen stores, you replenish your ‘sponge’ which will then start holding 1oz of water again.  There is no way I ‘burned’ an additional 15,750 calories in 2-3 days which is what it would take to ‘burn’ the 4.5 lbs I lost if it was bodyfat.

So…all in all, it was good to do and about what I expected from previous experience.  It didn’t change my beliefs about juice cleanses, but I will definitely be ordering the juices again to spread out with my daily meals.

I hope you enjoyed the videos and my write-up…

– Brooks aka ‘the guinea pig’

Natalie here for the wrap up:

I still feel the way I did before putting my boyfriend through this experiment. I am a HUGE fan of juicing in ADDITION to real food and while maintaining a healthy caloric level. I personally will not be doing a “cleanse”. For those of you who do believe in cleanses, that want to do one, I encourage you to do your OWN research. If you decide to do one, choose a company with a good reputation and listen to your body. If you don’t feel right it is likely NOT right for you.

One thing I do like about Urban Remedy is they make good products over all. I personally WILL be using their juices and meal replacement drinks in addition to my clean diet.  To learn more about Urban Remedy , their whole food juices or to learn more about the cleanse that Brooks did look HERE.

To save 10% on anything from them use coupon code: NJF

Excuses or Solutions…YOU Decide!!!!

-Natalie Jill

 

Comments

comments