Joe Cross’ 5-Day Juice Challenge – Preparations

We had a marvelous Christmas and enjoyed ourselves immensely . . . perhaps too immensely. The scale is now telling me that I have gone a little too far with my celebrations and it is time to make some changes.

I had a good experience with Joe Cross’ juice cleanse program 2 years ago and have been following the Reboot with Joe blog ever since. Joe has a team of professional nutritionists who post just about every day with a juice or healthy meal recipe or dieting and exercise advice and motivation.

Joe’s team posted recently that they were offering a free 5-Day Juice Challenge Program. Sign up began in December. So far, I am very impressed with the organization of their program. They started sending emails weeks ago just to fire people up a little, introduce the recipes and the juice regimen so people could get used to it. They sent out a condensed grocery shopping list this week too which was so helpful! You were supposed to be eating clean up to this point, with less sugar and refined carbs but I just couldn’t make myself do that so I am going in “dirty.”

I am the only one in my household properly doing the juice challenge. I am attempting to put my children on a healthier diet for these 5 days, dairy-free, gluten free, low to no added sugar, etc. So far, they have a good attitude about it. It’s only 5 days. But they are making plans for what they want to eat come Saturday!

As with any dietary change, the first step is . . . organization! It was time to clean out the fridge. I purposely went light on the grocery shopping for the last week so the fridge started to get leaner. Yesterday, I went through it properly, making meals out of usable leftovers, throwing away spoiled food, washing down the shelves, etc. It took some time but it is SO much easier to start a new cooking regimen when you know exactly what it in the fridge, especially when it is going to be jammed with fresh produce.

I then went grocery shopping. I was surprised to learn that we have slowly adjusted our diets after all the dieting experiments I have done. We aren’t perfect by any means but we actually had some of the fruits and vegetables on hand that we needed for this challenge! Below is our grocery cost for this juice challenge.

Another organization step key for any diet changes is to remember to weigh in! This is for motivation. Take an accurate weight and measurements and take a photo of yourself in a close-fitting outfit. The hardest part of dieting is always the “maintenance” phase afterward. A good before and after set is a helpful motivator to remember what works for you.

So, here we go! If you are joining in the juice challenge, juice on! Good health to you in 2016!