BOOK REVIEW: Superfood Juices by Julie Morris and My 3-Day Juice Detox

Let me first say that I LOVE to eat, therefore, I do not believe in diets. In my opinion, if you lead a healthy lifestyle and take care of your body, there is no reason you need to deprive your body of food and it’s ok to indulge every now and then. I do, on the other hand, feel that cleanses/detoxes can be extremely helpful – even if you eat really healthy. We are all surrounded by toxins, internal and external – whether it’s air pollution, toxic personal care products, or stress and negative thinking. In my case, my biggest toxin source is stress…and sleep deprivation. Buying our first house, moving for the umpteenth time, and running around with a high-energy toddler made for many stressful days. After thumbing through Julie Morris’ Superfood Juices book, a light bulb clicked on and I decided to plan out a mini juice detox – what better way to try a handful of her amazing recipes!

One of my first cleanses (five years ago) was supposed to be a seven-day one – using psyllium husk, bentonite clay, and homemade veggie broth. I was crying by day three and since I was doing it alone, I gave up. Apparently, and luckily for me, that was all my body needed because I overcame the majority of my food allergies (pineapple, banana, tomatoes, garlic, peanuts, yeast). I caved so easily and wanted a “real” meal because I didn’t have someone there to hold me accountable…Josh wasn’t a part of that cleanse. So, I was happy when he wanted to do this one with me!

We sat down and wrote out our shopping list to do the 3-day juice detox and came up with a menu and planned out Willow’s meals. I couldn’t believe all the fresh organic produce we needed for just three days!!! Luckily, Josh works at Trader Joe’s 🙂 Also, lucky for us that we had the superfoods (cacao, maqui powder, spirulina, wheatgrass powder) on hand, so our money was only spent on fresh organic produce.

Morris gives sample detox menus and puts them into 5 categories:

1. Quick Reboot
2. Detox & Flush
3. Slim & Tone
4. Strength & Stamina
5. Beauty & Anti-Aging

We decided to come up with our own modified menu, combining a few of the categories, but tried to choose juices that fell into Detox & Flush, Slim & Tone, and Quick Reboot. The amount of recommended juices a day fell between 5-8, depending on which category of detoxing you wanted. We decided to make six juices a day.

  My 3-Day Juice Detox:

Day 1: I woke up super excited to start the day, especially since I had a full night’s rest…if you follow me on Instagram, you know how awful the past month has been sleep-wise. I finished my first juice, Coconut Spirulina, and felt energized! As the day went on, I went through ALL four of the stages of cleansing, according to Julie Morris…not sure if that’s normal, but I hit every one of them. Empowerment, Doubt, Struggle, and Euphoria. At least I went to bed feeling empowered and anxious to start day 2. Here are a couple of my favorite juices from the day:

 

Day 2: Like the first day, I woke up ready to go and excited to try a new juice! We were feeling great until we had to run a couple of errands and all the food smells in the air – it was as if my belly was screaming for a warm meal. It also didn’t help that it was rainy and chilly here…which usually calls for a nice bowl of soup. But I was determined to see this through, no way was I giving up! We had our lunch juice and shortly after, we both got a bit hangry and irritable…even more so after our dinner juice. It didn’t help that we while we were drinking cold juices, Willow was enjoying warm meals! But then we had our last juice of the day, Berries & Cream, and holy, yum!!! It took a lot of effort to make, but it was so worth it – we made extra so we could share with Willow. When I say a lot of effort, it was because we didn’t have the proper tools and tried to do it our own way…which made us both grumpy. For this specific recipe, Morris said to use the “freeze-thaw” method, but since we didn’t have cheesecloth, we attempted another way and it was messy. I’ll spare you the photos of our disaster, but after the first attempt, we decided to just throw all the ingredients in the blender and then strain it. Our juice looked nothing like her beautiful photo, but it was SO good! Here are some of the juices from the day:

 

Day 3: I woke up with a flat belly and excited to start our last day of juicing! Josh hopped on the scale to see the progress so far and suggested I do the same. I’m not one to use scales…in fact, I avoid them, but to keep track of results, I weighed myself before starting this detox and again at the end. Seeing the progress was amazing and I think that gave me all the motivation I needed to power through the day. Out of all the days, Day 3 was the easiest for me – I think because I kept reminding myself that it was the last day and I loved the way I felt. Not once did I feel bloated, which is my issue some days, I felt light and for the most part, energized. All, but one of Day 3’s juices were amazing (Spinach Pear) and I attribute it to a bitter cucumber….it ruined it for me, so bummed. I’ll definitely try making this one again, but taste the cucumber first to make sure the peel is up to par. Here are some of our favorite juices from the day:

 

Julie Morris definitely made our juicing experience a good one – the addition of superfoods to regular juices really enhanced the flavors and nutrient content. We loved how she broke everything down in her book about all the wonderful benefits of juicing, the ingredients and their benefits, different juicing techniques, tips, and what the different categories of detoxes provide. I especially loved how she explained what to expect during your detox – made me feel a bit more normal with my fluctuating emotions! I’m so happy that we chose to use her recipes for our detox because we got to try a nice handful of her creations and we know which ones we’d like to incorporate into our day-to-day lives. You don’t have to do a detox to use this book, it’s filled with 100 juice recipes that would be fun to experiment with over time. I HIGHLY recommend picking up her book, Superfood Juices, you won’t be disappointed.

Here is the list of juices that we tried:

• Coconut Spirulina
• Watermelon Goji
• Spirulina Watermelon
• Electrolyte Chia Lemonade
• Lime Greens
• Veggie Classic
• Berries & Cream
• Spinach Hemp
• Spinach Pear
• Green Apple Kale
• Cacao Pear

This 3-day juice detox cost us approximately $140, which is just a bit under our weekly grocery budget. It’s definitely expensive and even more so for people who don’t have the superfoods on hand. I felt so amazing by the end of Day 3 that I would have continued on with a longer detox, but we pretty much used up all the produce!

The results….

My clothes felt a bit loose, my skin was glowing, I felt light and energized, AND I lost a total of 5 pounds over three days (Josh lost a total of 7lbs). I didn’t have any specific cravings during this time – I usually crave carbs or chocolate, but on the last day, I was craving an apple…so I was pretty excited to make the Green Apple Kale juice – it satisfied that craving really fast! I’m nervous to go back to “normal” and eat an actual meal; I need to remember not to eat until I’m full and to watch my portions – didn’t used to be, but lately I’ve become a stress eater. I’m hoping to continue on this sort of “high” and incorporate juices, such as the Electrolyte Chia Lemonade or Coconut Spirulina, into my daily routine – and I imagine we’ll do another juice detox in the near future.

This experience also taught us that we’d eventually like to get a different juicer, so if any of you LOVE yours, please share what you have!

 

Thanks for stopping by!!

Lots of love,

Mandy