As the new year commences, the richness of winter holiday treats often makes people feel sluggish. Add to that the fact that “lose weight” is a New Year’s resolution for about 40% of people, and January becomes the perfect time to try a juice cleanse. 

Many people in my circle of friends had said how good juice cleansing made them feel, and how much weight they lost. There are several places in Omaha that provide juice cleanses. Evolve Juicery & Kitchen is one that offers a wide variety of juices that are cold-pressed, meaning a hydraulic press uses thousands of pounds of pressure to extract the maximum amount of liquid from fresh fruits and vegetables.

Evolve specializes in paleo and keto diets, neither of which work well for this predominately plant-consuming editor, but their juice cleanse is offered in one, two, or three-day options. 

“Have you ever done a cleanse before?” the clerk on the other end of the phone asked. No, but let’s go for broke, I said. “You might not want to do that,” she said. “You’ll, uh…you’ll be spending a lot of time in the bathroom.”

It was not the idea of frequent trips to the toilet that held me to one day, but the price—$45 for six juices per day. Evolve offers packaged juice cleanses, such as the spicy cleanse or the simply cleanse. I chose juices a la carte at the same price.

Having stayed up until 1 a.m. the night before my cleanse day, I awoke at 10 a.m. ready for a liquid-filled day—and already felt behind schedule. The clerk said that those who drink caffeine regularly should drink coffee or tea, black, before starting on the juices. “Otherwise you’ll have a headache,” the clerk said. Instead of my normal coffee, I brewed a cup of tea, drank two swallows of bitter black liquid, and tossed the rest down the drain.

The first juice to drink in the cleanse is an eight-ounce bottle titled “the anti.” This is coconut water, lemon juice, turmeric, ginger, lime, and cayenne pepper. It contains 50 calories, 13 grams of carbs, 1 gram of sugar, 0 protein, and tastes like lemon and ginger.

Lemon and ginger, incidentally, became the theme of the day. Three of the six juices contained both ingredients.

The instructions are to try and space out the juices by two hours, with 16 ounces of water in between. That’s why the 11 a.m. hour brought the consumption of 16 ounces of water before leaving to run errands, including going to the grocery store on a stomach full of liquid. 

The errand run meant missing the noon drink. At 1 p.m., I consumed the first of my three green juices, the clean green. This bottle contained the juices of green apple, cucumber, kale, and celery along with ginger and lemon. It had 92 calories, 16.3 grams of carbohydrates, 1.2 grams of fat, and 4.7 grams of protein. It tasted crisp, with the distinct flavors of tart apple and cucumber. Those who are not a fan of kale should not worry. The vitamins from kale are there, but not the taste.

At this point, the cleanse would end at 9 p.m. As someone who often retires for the evening at 9 p.m. with a book, this timeframe left me feeling anxious.

The next two hours consisted of unloading the groceries and sitting in front of the television while consuming another 16 ounces of water. At 2:55 p.m., I opened a bottle titled “beet it,” a concoction of cucumber, orange, beetroot, and ginger juices. It tasted earthy, with a distinct flavor of beetroot, but it was not overpowering. It also contained 140 calories, 34 grams of carbs, and 4 grams of protein. The other option for this juice was “tropical beets,” which contains pineapple and pear juices and, the clerk said, tastes less like beets.

The 4 p.m. hour brought with it a novel and 16 ounces of water. Twenty minutes later, my head hurt. The instruction to drink a little bit of caffeine should have been to drink one full mug. An hour-long nap relieved this problem. At 6 p.m., I looked in the mirror. My face and stomach looked thinner, my collarbone more pronounced.

Three hours and three juices to go. The next drink was the “pucker up granny,” a simpler concoction of green apple, ginger, and lemon. The 16-ounce drink was about 360 calories, with 84 grams of carbohydrates and 6 grams of protein. The label did not lie. This tasted lemony and sour. This was the only unpleasant beverage. 

The carrot apple juice came one-and-a-half hours and 16 ounces of water later. It was fine. The drink was made from the juice of carrots and green apples, and contained 220 calories, 54 grams of carbohydrates, and 2 grams of protein.

The clock striking 9 p.m. brought with it the juice titled “simply greens.” One of the clerk’s instructions had been to end on the simply greens because of the reduced sugar. This juice contained 70 calories, 14 grams of carbohydrates, and 6 grams of protein. It is  a combination of cucumber, romaine, spinach, celery, and lemon juices with cayenne pepper—essentially a salad in a bottle—and a tasty way to get the vitamins from these vegetables. After drinking apple-based juices all day, it came across as bitter.

Sugar count is one disadvantage of a juice fast. According to WebMD, those doing a juice cleanse should try to keep a ratio of 3:1 vegetables to fruits. If each of these three juices containing green apple held the juice of one medium apple, that is approximately 27 grams of sugar.

Another disadvantage is protein. This combination of juices contains 22 grams of protein. The average man or woman in America weighs around 200 pounds, according to healthline.com, and should eat about 75 grams of protein daily.

The calorie count for the day came out to under 1,000 calories.

The best number of the cleanse came at 6 a.m. the following morning, when the number on the scale reduced by 1/2 a pound. Although the caffeine headache starting again in the back of my head felt terrible, seeing that number felt fantastic. 

Visit eattoevolve.com for more information.

This article originally appeared in the January 2022 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.  

Photo by Bill Sitzmann