The Juice Cleanse Reset Diet (7 page)

Type 3:
You are the average person eating the standard American diet (SAD), which is a diet high in processed food and animal fats, and low in fiber, complex carbohydrates, and plant-based foods. Depending on some of your habits involving caffeine, sugar, and processed food, you should spend four days in the precleanse phase. You will want to reset your attitude, energy level, taste buds, and digestive system, and perhaps your weight and beauty as well. You have probably been eating too much processed food and not enough real, live food. You may be accustomed to eating only small amounts of food all day and then a huge dinner at night. In the precleanse phase, we will get your metabolism going in the morning, keep it on track all day long, and wean you off caffeine and sugar before you begin the juice cleanse, to help you avoid unpleasant detox symptoms like nausea and headaches.

Type 4:
You are the junk food junkie who needs to completely overhaul your diet and reset for a healthier life. You will find that you may need to reset your attitude, energy level, metabolism, taste buds, digestive system, beauty, and weight. Your current eating habits may have you feeling sluggish and overweight, and you may not even like the taste of healthy food. We recommend that you spend seven days
in the precleanse phase. If you try to rush the process, you may experience headaches, nausea, and irritability, and may not even want to continue with your juices. During the precleanse phase, we will begin the detox process in a mild way, and will start resetting your attitude and taste buds to prepare you for the juices.

The point of the quiz was not to make you feel good or bad about your current eating habits. We want to help you find your starting place. Each person’s definition of a healthy eater is different (whether you are—or are not—one), so we want to help you easily define yourself for the purposes of the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet. Now that you’ve discovered your type, you’re ready to begin the precleanse phase. Let’s get going!

Depending on your daily choices and lifestyle, you may be storing
a lot of toxins that will come up, and out, during the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet. And that might get messy. If you go straight from a diet of manufactured, chemically treated fast food to nutritious, real liquid food, all sorts of unpleasant things may happen. You may get a headache from the lack of caffeine, or a rash or nausea from all those chemicals coming to the surface at once. You may also be grumpy or tired or irritable as your hormones struggle to regulate themselves.

To avoid the nasty possibility of dealing with all of these toxin-related issues at once, we will walk you through a three-step process in this program. First, you’ll ease off the junk through the precleanse phase (discussed below), where, depending on what type you are, you will stay for two to seven days. Then, when your body is ready, you’ll start your juice-cleanse phase (see
chapter 4
), where you’ll stay for three or more days, depending on whether you’re making juice or smoothies. Finally, you’ll finish with a postcleanse phase (see
chapter 5
), through which you’ll reintroduce healthy foods to solidify your new habits.

The precleanse is the first formal phase of the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet and is very important. In this phase, we prepare your body for the cleanse. We want to begin to remove toxins, and to make sure
your body is in an ideal state to receive all the benefits of the juices you’ll be making in the juice-cleanse phase.

Do not skip this step! What you need to remember is that your body is adept at storing toxins in all of your cells. One of the purposes of the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet is to rid the body of those toxins. However, the detoxification process can have unpleasant side effects depending on the severity of toxins in your body. Just like in our imaginary office, as we pull out junk from its hiding places, things may look and feel worse before they get better. Jumping into the juice-cleanse phase cold turkey won’t feel good, and it won’t give you lasting results.

For example, if you haven’t been eating organic produce and hormone-free meats or seafood, your hormones may be so out of balance that your food cravings are more closely tied to your emotions than to hunger. You’ll need to reset your attitude and mindset and learn to understand when you’re truly hungry or when you’re facing some other issue and merely using food to divert your attention.

If you live on coffee, diet Coke, or energy drinks, your body is likely addicted to caffeine and your adrenal glands are overtaxed. You’ll need to reset your energy level and metabolism. When cleansing, you may at first feel tired and sluggish without the chemicals your body has come to rely on.

If you rarely eat fruits and vegetables, your taste buds and sense of smell are probably so confused by chemicals and additives that real food may taste bland or “earthy” to you. You’ll need to reset your taste buds to be able to taste all the deliciousness that Mother Nature has to offer.

If you’ve been consuming mostly processed food rather than whole grains, fruits, and veggies, you probably have stomachaches, indigestion, and trouble going to the bathroom. You’ll need to reset your digestive system. You’re so accustomed to feeling horrible after a meal, that you can’t even remember what it’s like to have no issues from food. You’ll be amazed at how great you feel while on the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet!

If you’ve been struggling with your weight, feeling less beautiful than you would like, and cannot seem to stay away from fried food, sweets, snacks, and similar foods, you’ll need to reset your weight, attitude, taste buds, and all the rest! Once you successfully rid your body of stored-up toxins and begin filling your body with organic fruits and vegetables, you’ll be amazed at how the excess pounds melt off, your skin improves, and people begin commenting on how “rested,” “youthful,” and “glowing” you look!

Precleansing is the first step to resetting. Remember, by precleansing for a period of time, the body can begin removing those toxins because it will not be working as hard to remove and process toxins from the daily food intake. This will increase the efficacy of the juice cleanse itself, because the cells of the body will be better able to absorb all of the great nutrients and live enzymes contained in the juices. Think of this as removing the mess from our imaginary desk to make room for all the new filing systems and organization.

Through the precleanse phase, we’ll slowly remove substances like caffeine, processed sugar, fatty foods, dairy, and meat so that the body can adjust to those changes and any withdrawal symptoms that may accompany them. Of course, if one eats a mainly vegetarian diet with few processed foods or added chemicals, the precleanse phase can be relatively short. For those who live on fast food and diet Coke, the process must be longer. As we discussed in the last chapter, the length of your precleanse phase depends on your current habits and choices. If you haven’t yet taken the test to determine your type, go ahead and take it now (see
this page
).

No special equipment is needed for the precleanse. Any standard blender will suffice for the smoothies, and the meals are simple and plant based, using fresh ingredients you can easily find at the local grocery store or farmers’ market (see
chapter 2
for tips on shopping).

As we mentioned above, the precleanse phase will gradually reduce your consumption of meat, dairy, and processed food as you move toward your juice cleanse. It will also increase your daily intake of fruits and vegetables to increase the alkalinity in your body and begin resetting your taste buds. The all-liquid days flood your body with a bounty of alkaline fruits and veggies. Including more fresh and organic produce during the precleanse phase will help you avoid any negative side effects (headaches, nausea) that can happen when you transition from an acidic to an alkaline diet too quickly. Increasing the alkalinity of your body slowly will help you transition to the all-liquid portion of the cleanse with ease.

As you embark on the precleanse phase, we’d like to share a few important components that will help ensure your success. We call these the dos and don’ts of the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet. Follow these components throughout the program, and you’ll find they’ve become habit by the end of the program. If you continue with these practices daily, you’ll maintain your reset results for the rest of your life.

Increase the amount of water you drink. Your body needs water to function properly, and water will also help wash away those toxins your body begins to release. Regardless of your type, begin each day with 16 ounces of room-temperature or warm water with lemon in it. This will get your digestive system and your metabolism moving. Throughout the rest of the day, continue to drink water at each meal for a total of at least 64 ounces per day. Beyond the 16 ounces of warm or room-temperature lemon water in the morning, we aren’t super picky about what kind or temperature of water you drink, other than making sure it’s well filtered. The most important thing is that you increase your water consumption. Drink it hot or cold, and feel free to add lemon or lime if you like. If you prefer carbonated water, you can drink that any time water is called for in the menu, unless you begin to notice abdominal discomfort, which may be attributable to the CO
₂
in carbonated water. Bottled, filtered, or tap water all qualify, and you can certainly drink more than the amount prescribed. The amounts listed in the menu should be considered a minimum.

If you normally drink coffee, now is the time to wean yourself off of it. Coffee is acidic, and we’re striving to restore alkalinity during the Juice Cleanse Reset Diet, so you’ll be taking a break (at least for the length of the cleanse, if not longer) from coffee. If you aren’t comfortable quitting cold turkey, limit yourself to one cup a day, and if you don’t like it black, make yourself some homemade Almond Milk (
this page
), and pour a little of that into your coffee.

Ideally, you’ll replace your coffee with a caffeine-free green tea or other organic tea by the time you complete the precleanse phase. If you find that you are really struggling with giving up caffeine, you may drink caffeinated green tea (its health benefits outweigh
the negative effects of the caffeine). Study after study has linked tea—green, black, oolong, and white—to an array of health benefits, including lower cholesterol, stronger bones, and lower rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Feel free to drink organic herbal tea as much as you wish during your Juice Cleanse Reset Diet. Don’t use it as a substitute for water, however. You’ll still need to drink your 64 ounces of water.

As we discussed in the last chapter, it’s very important that you choose organic whenever possible for many reasons, including the fact that nutrients in organic produce are superior to those in conventional produce. As we gradually increase your intake of fruits and veggies, we want to be sure you’re getting the most nutrients available, without also increasing your ingestion of pesticides! If you can’t afford to always buy organic, focus on the foods you eat most often and those that are most likely to be contaminated with pesticides. Refer to the Dirty Dozen chart (see
this page
) that tells you the most important items to buy organic. Bring this book with you to the grocery store if you can’t remember.

Although organic may be a bit more expensive than conventional, your body will thank you. You can also help keep those cost differences down by choosing fruits and veggies that are in season where you live, buying from the local farmers’ market (a very easy way to find out what’s growing locally at any time of year), or buying frozen. The freezing process generally does not harm the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, so it’s a perfectly acceptable alternative to fresh. If, for instance, one of our recipes calls for blueberries, but you’re reading this while a snowstorm rages outside, either buy frozen organic berries or choose an alternate recipe.

Don’t worry, we’re not trying to turn you into a vegetarian (but we do want you to incorporate more fruits and veggies into your diet). Although we’ll wean you off animal products in the precleanse phase, you’ll be able to add them back in the postcleanse, to the extent that you want to. Some nutrients necessary for the proper functioning of the human body are much more readily available in animal products than in plants. Of course, whether you eat these things is a personal decision, but we want you to choose wisely if you do choose to eat meat, chicken, and eggs (as we discussed in the last chapter).