If you know my history, you’re probably confused as to why I would even consider doing a juice cleanse considering that drinking juice all day for 3 days sounds like a recipe for disaster but before going into it I told myself that it would be okay if I didn’t finish it or if I wanted to eat food during it because I wasn’t going to force myself to continue with something I didn’t want to.
Another thing that I knew I really needed was support and having someone tell me that I was almost through it was really helpful and important too.
Now my goal going into it wasn’t ignorant and I didn’t think that I would go and drink juices for 3 days and somehow all these “freedom foods” would be magically cleared out of my system and I’d be radiant. I went into it knowing that cleanses aren’t this thing that is a “cure” for a bad diet.
There are soo many juice cleanses out there and available in Vancouver that I couldn’t decide which one to go with. I’ve done a cleanse from Sambazon before but you were allowed to eat on it. This time I decided to go with a 3-day Buddha-Full juice cleanse from Buddha-full. I decided to go with theirs because not only did their juices sound super interesting and delicious but they were also the closest juicery to me.
Juice cleanse protocol
The Buddha-Full juice cleanse was 3 days and the juices on day 1 and 3 are the same but you get something different on day 2. If you decide to go for their 5 day cleanse, the juices continue to alternate for the 5 day cycle. Another thing I enjoyed about their cleanse was that they made sure to mix in both sweet and greener juices so you don’t end up only drinking juices loaded up with natural sugars all day.
The 3 day Buddha-Full juice cleanse was $175 (including tax) and you get six juices (500mL) to have each day. Another fun fact about their juices is they refrigerate their juices right after they are made so that they retain it’s nutrition!
You get to have 5 juices a day and each one has a function.
- Hydrate
- Activate
- Boost
- Alkalize
- Nourish
- Restore
DAY 1:
I went to the Buddha-full store Monday morning to pick up my juices not knowing what I was in for. I don’t know if it was the busy-ness of work or what it was but I only ended up being able to finish 5 out of the 6 juices. The main “symptom” I felt this day was feeling cold. I felt cold all the time from drinking the juices that I actually ended up heating up the golden mylk at the end of the day because it was really getting to me. Other than that it was a great first day of the Buddha-Full juice cleanse.
Float
This juice was one of the stranger juices. It had coconut water, blue magik (which makes it so pretty!), hemp oil and lemon. The hemp oil floated on top which explained the name. I had no idea I was in for and mind you, this was my first juice. If all of them were going to be like this, I was concerned for how my next couple days were going to go. Luckily, it was surprisingly okay. It
Glow
This green juice was sweetened with pineapple and then greened up with cucumber, celery and cilantro. The pineapple wasn’t prominent enough in it for it to be considered a sweet juice so I liked that. If you aren’t a fan of celery, this would not be the juice for you. This one was super heavy in celery flavor.
Golden Aura
One of my FAVORITE juices of the bunch. It was so sweet and a gorgeous orange colour. The juice had orange, carrot, turmeric, ginger and pepper. It sounds crazy to have pepper in a juice but you need to add pepper to turmeric for easier absorption. I actually ended up splitting this in half into another bottle. I had to add water to it because it was on the sweet side to get more out of it since it was soooo good! Love it!
Green nirvana
This juice was wayyyy more green than the glow one earlier because it didn’t have any fruit in it. If you’re not a fan of kale or spinach this one is going to be a struggle to get through. I wish it had more ginger flavor because unlike the one earlier, there wasn’t much flavor to it.
Red Rumi
Yay another sweet juice! This one was simple and made with apple, beet and lemon. The prominent taste in this one were the beets so it was really earthy and sweet at the same time. As with the golden aura juice, I mixed in some water with this one to dilute some of the sweetness. But, it was a great juice! I can only imagine how many beets and apples they put in it! It was a whole lot of juice and beets are not very watery or a veggie. Loved this one too!
Golden Mylk
This is something I make often at home so I was curious to see how this would be different than the one I usually make. This had almond mylk, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, maple syrup, black pepper and ginger. On the first day I had it, I heated it in a pot slightly because my body was just feeling too cold from all the juices. I really liked it and the maple syrup added a slight sweetness to it which made it feel more like a treat at the end of the night than something healthy. Something I like about Buddha-full is that they make everything in-house including their nut mylks!
However, on the 3rd day when I had this a second time, it was different and really clumpy. I’m not sure if it was just because it went bad (even though the expiry was the day after), I had it cold instead of warm or what happened but it was disappointing because it was also the last drink of the 3 day cleanse.
I contacted Buddha-full about this and apparently this happens because they make their own almond mylk and if they don’t filter it twice sometimes it ends up being clumpier because of the pulp. It also can happen if you leave it out of the fridge too long because if you leave fresh almond mylk out too long, it can go bad. Lucky for me, it was the former not the later.
DAY 2:
I was worried about this day because people usually say that this is where they struggle because they start coming down from the “cleanse high”. I wasn’t hungry or anything this day either because I felt that the juices were adequate. But I did miss the sensation of chewing and eating things so I definitely had lots of wandering thoughts about eating. I stayed strong though since I only had one day left to go. Plus the juices were mostly all new and I was excited to try them all. Something that surprised me was that even though I have a pretty active job, I didn’t feel like I had any less energy being on juices compared to eating regularly which was pretty cool.
First light
This was another one of my favorites and I was excited to start my day off with this one. It was made of orange, pineapple, celery and aloe. Even though there was orange in this, I was surprised that it wasn’t orange because it’s such a prominent colour. I guess they really went heavy on the celery with this one! I liked the light sweetness from the fruit in this one but it also had a slight bitterness from the aloe. It didn’t have any aloe chunks in it or anything but it was sweet enough to give me energy first thing in the morning without leading to a crash from a natural sugar high.
Thrive and Alive
Just what I was dreading…another KALE juice. Eugh I love my veggies, you all know that but I cannot get over the bitterness and texture of kale massaged or otherwise! So to be honest I was dreading this juice but it was not actually that bad because the apple added sweetness and the ginger added a bit of spice. It was still pretty green tasting though but it definitely wasn’t as bad as I thought.
Golden Aura: Yes! I got to have this gorgeous orange coloured drink every day of this cleanse and LOVED ever drop of it!
Ganesh’s greens
When I saw this I thought oh great….another kale juice today! Luckily, it also had apple, lemon, cucumber, and celery which helped but it was definitely not a sweet juice. I noticed that the activate green juices in this cleanse are sweeter green juices and then later on the day you get the alkalize green juices which are more of your traditional green juice that don’t have any sweetness to them. I didn’t mind though because later on the day I don’t need as much natural sugar running through me. It was good and was like what you would typically expect when you think green juice.
Root to sky
Another beet juice for the nourish portion of the cleanse! This one had carrot, beet, ginger, turmeric, apple and lemon. Compared to the Red Rumi, the Root to Sky juice had more depth of flavor because of the addition of ginger and turmeric. The carrot was in the background and if you didn’t tell me it was there I wouldn’t notice it too much. I was glad that this one wasn’t as sweet as the Root to Sky one though because I don’t like having things too sweet late at night. All in all, another favorite of the bunch!
Raven
Ooh this was one of the strangest juices I ever heard (besides the float). It had 9.5 h2o (alkalized water), charcoal, grapefruit essential oil, chia seeds and lime. I know, so weird! It was also black from the charcoal so I was thinking….what on earth am I getting into but it was surprisingly pleasant. I’m not sure how to describe the taste of it though but it was lightly sweetened and quite enjoyable to drink. Strange but good.
DAY 3:
This was the hardest day for me. Not because I was hungry or anything but I felt really sick and couldn’t finish the juices. I did three but after that I couldn’t go on drinking them. I didn’t feel good so I ended up having a small dinner meal to end off the night. So I finished the rest of the juices the next day and ate a small dinner in the evening again.
On this day I didn’t drink the juices in order and drank what felt right for my body. I felt bad for not being able to complete the cleanse because I was so close. I only had a few hours left in it but I reminded myself that I did this cleanse to feel healthy again and it wasn’t going to be this end all be all thing that I was going to force myself to do if I wasn’t feeling good. Perhaps they may have been the last bit of the “detox” symptoms that made me feel that way. But I had work the next day and I decided what was best for me at that time was to eat something so I could feel okay the next day.
Would I do the Buddha-Full juice cleanse again?
Yes and no. I don’t think I would do a 3 day juice cleanse again because first of all, it’s a nice reset but I don’t think cleanses actually work to “clear out all the junk in your system.” I think it’s a great thing to do if you’re wanting to feel healthy again and get your taste buds back on the right track because I found that after I did the Buddha-Full juice cleanse I no longer craved sugar or junk food because I hadn’t had it in 2.5 days.
My main takeaway from the whole Buddha-Full juice cleanse experience was to really just listen to your body and sometimes it needs a rest so having liquids all day could be beneficial but it’s not a “cure all” for a bad diet. I’d do it again but perhaps next time, I’ll do a 1 day cleanse instead.