Twenty-four juices, $150 and hours of misery later, four Chronicle editors survived their first (and last) attempt at juicing. From ordering McDonald’s to skipping the final juice, each editor faced their own struggles while trying to complete the cleanse.
Lexi Heinitz
If you ignore the fact that I forced everyone I came into contact with to try every juice so I had less to drink, I finished five of the six juices. I didn’t (technically) cheat, I didn’t get sick, I didn’t plan to quit; I was just afraid of the final slimy green juice. I started off too strong, so I was destined to crash and burn.
I knew I wouldn’t be hungry throughout the course of the cleanse because my day-to-day eating habits are terrible (unless one meal a day is suddenly a health fad) so I went into this relatively confident. My biggest concern was that I would have an issue with the texture of the juices, and I was unfortunately right.
We customized flavors that we thought would be most bearable, and yet, only two of the five juices were actually worth drinking a second time. The other three had such thick, chunky textures that it was nearly impossible to choke them down. It wasn’t that they tasted bad (aside from the Strawberry Dream juice), it was that they had such a repulsive texture that it made my stomach churn.
I wish I could at least say that I felt better, more refreshed, cleansed, at the end of this hellish day. I had joked that my body would go into shock from consuming so many healthy things, but I felt no difference.
By the end of the day, I did feel like I was losing my 
mind because that whole 24-hour time period was spent thinking about juice. Even the thought of drinking another juice right now makes me cringe.
If I had tried to do this alone, I would have 100% quit after the first drink, ordered takeout and called it a day. However, knowing that my friends were suffering with me helped a bit — just not enough to finish the last drink.
Gabriella Boyle
I cheated. I cheated the entire time of the cleanse. From the first sip of the first juice, I knew I was in for a world of trouble.
The first juice made me gag from the first sip. It took me almost two hours to finish it. When I drank about half of the juice, I knew that I would need to eat something for me to keep these juices down successfully. The only food I was allowed to eat all day was two cups of “leafy greens.” I hate vegetables but chose to enjoy two cups of steamed broccoli for the day.
Juice two was the one everyone else seemed to like, but I quickly discovered I hate the flavor pomegranate. While alone in the newsroom, this drink took me another two hours to drink. I was officially over the idea of finishing the rest of the juices.
Okay so now onto juice three. I finally had someone with me to experience my pain. Madison, unfortunately, got to witness me gagging with every sip. I’m pretty sure she enjoyed every minute of my misery. I made the unfortunate decision of trying to chug this one, but that didn’t work out very well (insert gagging sounds here). I did successfully finish this juice.
Juice number four was the one I wanted to finish the quickest because I wanted to drink juice number five, Strawberry Dream, so badly. This juice was disgusting again, and now I was gagging in front of an entire classroom. At this point, I was offering people sips of my juice just to help me finish it quicker.
My final juice, number five. This was my swan song, my waving of the white flag. I was so excited to drink the Strawberry Dream. It looked so good, something that Barbie would be found drinking. I was thrilled, and I was wrong.
I started drinking this about five minutes after I finished juice number four, and maybe that was the mistake. I couldn’t even keep the first sip down. I think the rice milk got to me. It was like taking a sip of sand. It resulted in a mad dash to the bathroom where I threw up for the first time of the day. After that, I decided to take a major break from juicing.
About an hour later, I threw up again because of the previous juices I had. I continued to carry around juice number six, hoping I would drink it.
On my drive home, I made the terrible decision to stop at McDonald’s. I know, I know, what was I thinking. Well, I ordered two plain burgers, a four-piece chicken nugget and two plain cheeseburgers. I was starving.
The shock to my system resulted in my throwing up two more times. Juice number six still sits in my fridge, unopened.
Madeleine O’Connell
I didn’t finish the last two juices. I tried and I even got more than halfway done with the fifth one, but it couldn’t be completely finished because it tasted like chalk. There was no way I was going to finish the last one either. It had a pulp texture to it and I hate pulp.
Apart from not finishing the juices, I only cheated with food once and it was an accident. It was just a few almonds so it’s not like it was a super unhealthy way to cheat, anyway.
I thought this wouldn’t be so bad. I am known for constantly snacking, but I thought I could do myself a favor and do this juice cleanse for one day. I wasn’t too worried because the flavors we got seemed pretty okay and I get green smoothies a lot. I can say that there was only one drink that I didn’t struggle with at all to get down and that was the second one. In my opinion, it just tasted like lemonade. Once I had gotten to the last few drinks, I realized the first one was not too bad either.
Since I was fighting a cold on the day we did this, I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. That made it easier for me to not eat throughout the day. I could probably never do this for more than one day because on a normal day, the juices would not have filled me up nearly enough.
Unlike some of the others who did this, I did not feel sick or bloated before, during or after the drinks. This surprised me because I get a very upset stomach easily.
In the end, I was glad that I didn’t force myself to finish all of the drinks because I am sure that would not have ended well. I also don’t see the point of doing this juice cleanse. If I had done it for more than one day, I may have seen a change in my body but because it was only one day, there were no major effects from them. I didn’t lose any weight, I didn’t feel like I had more energy and I didn’t feel like my body got cleansed.
Madison Miller
I’m the only one that finished all six of the juices. I need to start off saying that I’m a winner before I explain how much this cleanse made me feel like a loser.
The first juice started off well. The flavor wasn’t amazing, but it was definitely tolerable. It was a pretty similar situation with juices two and three as well.
Juice number two was the thinnest of the six and I think it was to blame for a dramatic increase in hunger at about noon. My biggest fear with all of this is that I would be starving and miserable all day. I didn’t really feel like this was nearly as much of an issue as I thought it was going to be. Honestly, I wish this was the issue.
By juice number five I hit a big, juicy wall. Suddenly all the juices were no longer tolerable, but very much gag-worthy (they were thick, chalky and had a terrible flavor). I found myself having to chug both of these juices in order to even get them down. It was a painful and sad experience that left me feeling sick. I was not expecting to basically have to shotgun thick juices during a meeting.
I didn’t want to not drink any of the juice because I was afraid it would lead to me feeling extremely hungry. I wish I didn’t drink them all because now when I see juice at the store a part of me gets scared.
I consider our 24-hour juice cleanse to be my “day of drinking.” I’m calling it this because the next day I felt like I was nurturing a massive hangover. I was sleepy and irritable because the juice had clean pressed every ounce of energy I had. I actually made it 48 hours without consuming anything besides juice.
I’d like to think that this cleansed me of something (besides urine) and somehow was letting my body restart, but I’m not sure I would do this again. If I did, I would be making my own juices that don’t taste like I took a bite of dirt and washed it down with toilet water. I did feel pretty powerful telling people I was cleansing (am I a Kardashian yet?).
Co-written by Gabriella Boyle, Madison Miller, Alexis Heinitz and Madeleine O’Connell.
