3 day Juice Cleanse - Raw Honest First Timer Opinion

So today's post is something a little different and something I've never done before. Last week after exams, I did a juice cleanse. I took my time to do a lot of research before undertaking it and so this post is going to be about the process of deciding, how I came to the decision, the unboxing, first impressions and a full review on the whole process. 
I have also made a video of the unboxing and my very first impressions of each of the drink. Trust me one of them is hilarious! Click here to watch. 

Deciding
I purchased my juice cleanse almost a month before I had it scheduled to be delivered. I knew when I was in the midst of exams I wouldn't be eating very well. Not that I would be eating terribly but I knew I was probably going to be getting some sort of takeaway after each exam and so I knew my system would be full of junk. As it happens, I had a KFC on Monday night, a McDonald's on Tuesday night and then I didn't actually go out to an Italian on Wednesday and instead I did head home and make chicken and rice. But I'd also been snacking on lots of chocolate and crisps during revision. I wanted to do a juice cleanse to clean out my system and just reset myself. 

When you've eaten a lot of one food - especially fast food - for a while, your body starts to crave it. I wanted to force myself to eat clean and just get that balance back in check. 

I started looking at the health risks and benefits. I didn't want to do this for losing weight. I don't believe in diets or counting calories and I don't believe in quick fixes, the majority of people who do diets have a yo-yo lifestyle and as soon as they go off the diet they start to gain weight again. I think the best way to be fit, is to be healthy eat a balanced diet and do exercise. It's a whole lifestyle change. So when I saw people were losing a stone in 3 days I thought either a) they are lying or b) they aren't following the important 'rules'. 

Even though I three day juice cleanse is a complete meal plan for those 3 days, they don't advise any strenuous activity and they say to only undertake the normal daily activities. I was planning on chilling out a lot and relaxing after exams so it was the perfect time for me to do. 

I did however, still want to keep myself in check. I wanted to make sure that I knew this wasn't a weight loss tool and this was just a CLEANSE. I forced myself not to make any irrational decisions and so I waited to purchase anything. But for the next week I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Company
Once I decided to go for it, now I had an even bigger decision to make: which company? There are so many places out there that offer juice cleanses now but I was looking for a few main qualities:
  1. Affordable: Unfortunately, probably the main incentive for me. I'm a student and I'm always trying to save money where possible so when I saw the prices of some of these plans I was shocked. It really is very expensive but a lot of them seem to have deals and discounts on intermittently so make sure to check out the social media pages. Plus a lot of places seemed to have free delivery. 
  2. Reviews: Although, websites can unfortunately moderate reviews and delete negative reviews, I always look for a mixture of opinions and honest reviews from independent sites. 
  3. Information: Even though I had done what I considered a lot of research, if a company had some key information about expectations and the reality of the juice cleanse, I found that much more settling.
  4. Scheduled delivery: I didn't want to be thinking about it during the exam days so I wanted to buy it now for it to be delivered much later so that it would be ready the day I was.
  5. Fruit based: I am extremely fussy in pretty much everything I eat so I'm sure a lot of those who know me would have been shocked that I had even considered a juice cleanse, but I'd read that a fruit juice cleanse was much more palatable especially for beginners. When I looked around, I noticed I was drawn to those that had a variety of options for different types of people. 
Fuel Station
Fuel Station, for me, was the only one that ticked all of those key points. It was the cheapest package I could find and with I discount, I got all the juices for £52. There were some incredible reviews, including celebrity reviews, but also some not so positive reviewers who in my eyes had unrealistic expectations. They had a lot of good information about advice and what not to do. 

They had the option to have it delivered at a much later date and promised it would still be cold and fresh on delivery. Finally, they had many options depending on your specifics needs from added extras to my much desired, fruit base cleanse. 

I ordered the Fruit Boost Detox. This included 4 drinks a day:
  1. Green Lemonade: green apple, lemon and kale.
  2. Zesty Orange: orange, carrot, green apple, ginger and lemon.
  3. Berry Red: red apple, red grapes, strawberries and cucumber.
  4. Green Lemonade: green apple, lemon and kale.

Unboxing
I was very pleased with the box it came in. I thought it was very important that they included the 'FRAGILE' stamp even though the bottles are very packed inside. I especially love the warning; This food may make you fit.
Inside the box, it came with a very clear card of instructions and then it had the competition included on the opposite side. Both made it clear how personal this journey is.

Inside the box was a thick polystyrene box which contained packaging, the juices and a very much melted ice pack. I was a little disappointed by the temperature of the bottles. They had an ice pack in with them but that was completely melted and the bottles were room temperature. I collected them 20 minutes after they were dropped off so it's not like they were waiting and if I had, had gone out for lunch like planned, they would have been warm for sure. I think considering that, you have to make sure that you are in and around to immediately put the bottles into the fridge.
But I was excited! I was ready to go and start in the morning! I thought I had realistic expectations on the results and the taste. I was extremely nervous about the green juice because I didn't know if I was going to be able to eat it at all but I thought the orange and red juices would just taste like fruit and would be super yummy desserts!

First Impressions
So I woke up bright and early on Thursday and headed to the fridge to grab a green juice and filled up my Brita water jug. I had a feeling I would need a lot of water to wash down each little sip.

If you haven’t seen my very first initial impressions of each drink I would probably go a watch the video first. It’s hilarious! Click here to watch and then come back to read.

I was really nervous and scared about the green juice. I’ve never liked vegetables other than carrots and potatoes. I tried every green smoothie imaginable when I first got my Nutribullet and I didn’t like any of them. I hate them. Almost to the point of throwing up. I was worried I would feel the same about this one. But I loved it!

You can barely taste the kale and it doesn’t have a strong green smell, it just smells fresh. The only taste you can actually taste in lemon and it is a little overpowering but it just tastes like flat lemonade. Seriously. If I didn’t see the colour of the drink, I would have probably guessed that it was lemonade. I’m not even a massive fan of lemonade but I love this! Without a doubt my favourite drink!

The red one was the one I was most excited for. What can go wrong with a purely fruit juice and all those berries will be yum! Well it was horrible. How I was wrong. It was so pulpy and had massive chunks, topped with it being sour. I can’t even describe the flavour but it was definitely not desirable. I tried blending it in my Nutribullet in the hope it would make it much smoother but unfortunately although smoother, the taste was the same and it just left me with a thick layer of foamy bubbles.

I didn’t even know what to expect when it came to the orange juice. I thought it would be the thickest with oranges and carrots but I liked all the ingredients alone, except ginger which is meant to boost the immune system. Honestly, it didn’t taste of much. It tasted like weakened carrots but the overwhelming after taste was ginger. It left a very spicy taste…if a drink can be spicy. But it was nice!

Off Schedule
So how did I go? For a person that has 3 proper meals a day and lots of snacks I think I did really well but...I couldn't hack it.

The first day I stuck to the first 3 drinks but by the evening I just couldn’t handle another liquid so I did have some raw cucumber which is semi-on plan. Not really but still. The second day was also semi-successful because I had 3 drinks plus a packet of crisps. They were sun bites though! I just wanted something substantial that I could chew. The final day was the hardest. I stuck to it in the morning with 2 juices but I needed to wash my hair. Where am I going with this? MY hair is super thick and long and takes forever to wash. If I don’t eat beforehand, I can get really dizzy and need to sit down half way through so I did end up cooking. I cut up some chunks of chicken and quickly grilled them and that was it.

Overall
Overall, I mean I didn’t stick to the 3 day juice cleanse as planned but I do think I did okay. Compared to what I thought, the juices were much smaller and not very thick, which as it turns out is a good thing, but I just didn’t want to do this to lose weight so I didn’t want to bring myself to starvation, which is clearly the point. I definitely understand why they say not to exercise when on it because I definitely would have begun to feel faint had I not eaten.

I would recommend this to people in part. I think it’s important to do this for for health benefits and not just to lose weight but I definitely wouldn’t say to do a full juice cleanse for any longer than a day. 2 juices and a clean meal is a much better solutions I think, or even 3 juices, one for dessert for example.

Would you ever do a juice cleanse?

DISCLAIMER: This review was not sponsored and is only my opinion as a normal individual. I am in no way an expert and all information I gathered is of easy access online.

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