Is your body feeling like it needs to detox and reset? Genie Juicery offers a range of juice cleanses to suit every body
Balance. It’s the key to everything in life really, but with endless happy hours, free-flow brunches and new restaurants in Hong Kong popping up across town, it can be difficult to keep on track with your fitness and nutrition. However, Genie Juicery (one of our fave juice bars in Hong Kong!) has created a range of signature juice cleanses to help you reset and detox when everything is getting a bit much, and we decided to try the intermediate 3-day option. So how’d it go?
Why do a juice cleanse?
Let me start by saying, this was not my first rodeo. Living with Crohn’s Disease (a shitty–pun intended–auto-immune disease that plays havoc with the intestinal tract), I’ve lived on many a liquid diet. During various long-term hospital stays when my disease has been at its worst, I’ve lived for weeks on the same liquid formula that NASA astronauts use to get all their vitamins in space. Even when I’m feeling “well”, I often do a juice or soup cleanse when things aren’t feeling quite right in my body, but usually I prepare all of the said juices and soups myself, which is super time consuming, not to mention super annoying in my tiny Hong Kong kitchen. So, even though I knew kind of what to expect from the experience, I was excited to see what a professional cleanse would do for me.
The reason I wanted to try this cleanse was because I’d overdosed on dairy during a trip back to New Zealand and the arthritis that affects my knees as a result of my condition had kind of spiralled out of control as a result. On top of that, I was feeling really lethargic and heavy in myself and wanted to get my body back on point. Would this cleanse from Genie Juicery help?
Choosing the right Genie Juicery cleanse for you
Genie Juicery has been around since 2011, which is practically a lifetime in Hong Kong business years, and their success is for a reason. Owned by two ex-Aussies who are certified Health Coaches, the cleanse menu is as diverse as the people it’s made for. Beginners are covered, as are advanced juicers, and gym junkies who need extra protein. They even offer a soup cleanse for those who want to mix it up a little, and each cleanse can be done for between one and six days, depending on your schedule and the results you’re looking for.
I opted for the 3-day intermediate level juice cleanse.
Day 1
The day before my cleanse, 16 freshly-made, cold-pressed juices were delivered to my door. Packed into handy cooler bags for easy travel, it’s a good idea to make room in your fridge before they arrive, so it’s nice and simple to get them cool again. The juice also came with the Genie Juicery Bible, which covers all FAQs and has lots of other handy info in it (I particularly love the glossary of fruit and vegetable benefits.) I made this my bed time reading material after devouring my final meal for three days at Arcane – #yolo.
When I woke up on Day 1, I was excited to see what Genie Juicery had in store for me. You’re provided with a pack of psyllium husks that you drink with a big glass of water as soon as you wake, to flush out your system with fibre and set you up for the day. The first juice of the day was The Master, a blend of lemon, lime, acai, cayenne, chia and maple, and it was delicious. The flavour was kind of sour with a hint of spice, and I couldn’t help thinking about the Beyonce Diet as I enjoyed it. Maybe I was working on my inner Sasha Fierce?
A few hours later, it was time for juice two, but this one was actually more like a smoothie. Smooth Operator is made with avocado, spinach, banana, apple, vanilla and chia, and it was way thicker than the first drink. I really liked the taste, as there was no bitterness, like you often get with green juices.
For my early lunch juice I had the Green Dream (coconut water, cucumber, celery, aloe vera) followed by Orang Utan (carrot, orange, turmeric and ginger) a few hours later. The Orang Utan was definitely the most flavourful of all the juices, kind of like a regular juice you’d order when you weren’t cleansing, while, for me the Green dream was the least tasty of all eight, though still pleasant enough to drink.
Along with the juices, you also receive a pack of chia seeds to add to one of your afternoon juices, so I added it to juice five: Sawadekah (kale, spinach, cucumber, coriander, pineapple, lemongrass). I really liked this one as it had a lot of tropical flavours going on that made it easy to drink.
Hawaii H20 (coconut water, pineapple, spinach and chlorophyll) and Life Blood (beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon) followed as my dinner time drinks before closing out the day with Sweet Dreams, a really good mix of almonds, medjool dates, pink Himalayan salt and vanilla, that was a lovely “mylky” way to finish the day.
So how was the first day? Honestly, I found it pretty easy. I was never hungry and I really enjoyed the taste of each juice, plus the convenience of having all the juices made for you made life super simple. As I went to bed that night I was pretty sure that I had this juice cleanse thing down.
Day 2
It turns out that I was wrong. I woke up on Day 2 around 5am feeling pretty nasty. My stomach was having cramps and I became VERY friendly with my toilet throughout the rest of the day. Actually, I spent the entire day of Day 2 in bed! Though I knew the side effects for cleansing (headaches, weakness, cravings, dry mouth, runny nose, cramps, constipation, gas and pooping) and Genie Juicery had reiterated these in their Bible, I’d never felt like this before on any of my other detoxes. I just figured it was my body’s way of expelling all of the nasty toxins I had ingested over Christmas, and was quite happy to binge-watch trashy TV shows, tbh.
I still managed to get all of the juices down, along with lots of water to keep things moving. Every day, the juice order remains the same, and each juice is numbered on top so you can easily know where you are at.
Thankfully, Day 2 was still a day off for me, but I became a little concerned in the evening when I was still feeling a bit rough, as I needed to go to work the next day. Would I be capable of sitting upright?
Day 3
The answer was: yes! I woke up feeling really good on Day 3, plus I knew it was my last day, so that gave me some extra pep. I had the first two or three juices at home before packing my cooler bag full of the other ones I’d need to make it through the day at work. We’re lucky that we have a big fridge in the office, but if you don’t you’ll need to work out how you’re going to store yours somewhere cool.
By the final day, I’ve got to admit that I was kind of bored of the same/sameness of routine. The juices were all really tasty and I never felt hungry, but it would be cool to mix up even a few of the flavours, especially if you’re doing longer than 3-days. I know that each juice is specifically designed to work with the ingredients at each time of day, so it may not be possible, but some food (or juice) for thought.
As I drank down my final Sweet Dreams that evening, I was really glad that I’d tried the cleanse. Overall, I felt lighter and I was interested to see how long the feeling would last, with my dodgy tummy especially.
Post-cleanse
The next day, I was finally able to eat again, but I wasn’t really hungry in the morning and was reluctant to eat too much. I opted for a big bottle of coconut water which I devoured during the day, miso soup for lunch and a Thai-style Tom Yum with vegetables for dinner. It’s now been almost a week since the cleanse, and I’m still feeling really good.
I really feel that the experience helped me to reset and to think more about what I’m putting inside my body. The side effects from my Crohn’s Disease (arthritis and skin irritations) definitely eased up over the course of the three days, and it was the general sense of clarity that I felt/feel that I’ve enjoyed most.
Genie Juicery has developed a wonderful system that genuinely helps you to detox and doesn’t leave you starving (my cleanse totalled around 1160 calories per day.) Whenever I’m feeling unbalanced or out of whack throughout the year, I’ll definitely do this again. Plus, each juice comes in a glass bottle which you can reuse, recycle, or plant a herb garden in (I will let you know if it works); and I think that’s pretty cool.
Order your cleanse from Genie Juicery online
