I’ve looked into doing the Blueprint cleanse before, but I quickly dismissed that thought. It’s $65 a day. A DAY!! I’m too cheap. I can think of a thousand other things I’d like to spend $65 a day on.

Thanks to Pinterest, I found some at home variations, and decided to give it a go.

The Blueprint Cleanse consists of 5 juices that you drink throughout the day. I’ve made them all with a few changes.

You start each morning with the “Green Juice”.

Green Juice (makes about 32 oz)

• 2 granny smith apples
• 2 kiwi (peeled)
• 4 stalks of celery
• 1 stalk of kale
• Handful of spinach
• 1 bottle of water.

I threw all the ingredients (except the water) into my Ninja Blender and gave it a whirl. I gradually added the water until the green stuff stared resembling juice.

Because I don’t have an honest to goodness juicer, I had to strain the juice (UGH, this part sucked).

This is the most time consuming- labor intensive part. It just takes time to separate the juice from the pulp. Put the pulp in a separate bowl while you to continue to strain, you’re not done with it yet, not by a mile.

Take the reserved pulp, and add it back to the blender along with more bottled water, and blend it again. The point is to get the most out of the greens.

I strained 3 times before finally wrapping it up. it’s helpful to strain into a large glass measuring cup, then you’ll know when you’ve got what you need. You should have about 32 ounces.

Now that you’ve got the gist of making the juice, I’ll tell you the other juices I’ve made.

Yellow Juice (makes about 32 oz)

• 1/4 of a whole pineapple
• 1 red apple
• 1 whole cucumber
• 1 bottle of water

Red Juice (makes about 32 oz)

• 1 beet (peeled)
• 4 carrots
• 2 red apples
• juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 1 bottle of water

Spicy Lemonade (makes about 16 oz)

• 1 tbsp honey
• juice from half a lemon
• dash of cayenne pepper (or more, to taste)
• 1 bottle of water

Put a little bit of hot water in your bottle before adding the honey so it dilutes easier. Add the lemon juice and cayenne, then top it off the bottled water.

Cashew Milk (makes about 16 oz)

• 1 cup raw cashews
• 1 tbsp honey
• dash on cinnamon
• dash on nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 bottle of water

Very important! You MUST soak your cashews in water for AT LEAST 2 hours before making this.

Add the softened cashews to the blender along with remaining ingredients and about half the water. Blend together, strain, blend again adding a bit more water.

You should drink the juices as follows:

8am: Green Juice

10am: Green Juice

12pm: Yellow Juice

2pm: Spicy Lemonade

5pm: Red Juice

7pm: Cashew Milk

Here’s where I veer off course. I didn’t like the red juice AT. ALL. The beet flavor was very strong. I tried adding extra lemon juice, honey and frozen blueberries. Nothing seemed to mask the strong flavor. So yeah, the red juice, not happening. It all went right down the drain after the photo shoot.

The green and yellow juices are my favorites, so I decided that I’ll just replace the red juice with another yellow juice.

The cashew milk is good, not great. I’ve actually found a different recipe where after making the milk, you blend it with a frozen banana. That sounds good. right?

I actually haven’t decided how long I’m going to do this for. I originally thought I’d do 3 full days, but honestly, I went slightly cray cray after a mere 4 hours, I wanted to eat something, chew something. And watching Adam eat chips certainly wasn’t helping. Since I skipped the red juice anyway, I decided to eat a sensible dinner in it’s place.

Guess that’s pretty counter-productive to a cleanse, huh?

Going forward, I’m going to try to do this for the next 3 days. Whether or not I’ll substitute a real meal in place of a juice remains to be seen, but regardless, I will be juicing up all my fruits and veggies. I will not let all that stuff go bad.

YOUR TURN:

Has anyone ever tried a cleanse? Which one? Did it work?