I’ve shared my love of cold pressed juice before, so when I was offered the opportunity to take a CEDAR Cold Pressed Juice Cleanse and their door step juice delivery service a spin, I couldn’t say no. Well I could’ve actually, because as an endurance athlete in the past I have, many times.

As someone who is training almost 10 out of 12 months a year, I don’t have time to do a multi-day detox. I need nutritious fuel all the time to sustain my daily workouts and my recovery. CEDAR happened to catch me just before a pull back week, and with a rest and cross training day coming up in my schedule, I knew at this point of my schedule I could fit a one day cleanse in, so I gave it a try.

Who Is CEDAR?

Stripping away all the complexities of superfood nutrition, CEDAR focuses on what’s important –packing their juices with the nutrients our body needs to perform at its best. Toronto based, you can order their juice delivery service from anywhere in Ontario, but if you’re in the city, you can find them at a variety of locations including the Bulk Barn, Second Cup, Jimmy’s Coffee, and many more.

They also offer a group discount, so if this is something you and a few friends are considering, the company will be great and you can save a few dollars.

Why Cleanse?

Why do people cleanse? Here’s what CEDAR has to say.

Why did I do it? I have often been intrigued by the buzz I hear regularly in the yoga community – feeling energized, clearer mind, resetting the body – so wanted to give it a try.  I am also very aware of my sugar addiction and thought this might be a way to take a step to dropping it.

Delivery to Your Door Step

Now, the juice delivery service is only available with a cleanse. But what I like about the process was that it was so simple! You picked a start date for the cleanse, and the juices get delivered the day before. I picked a start date that was the following week and like clock work everything arrived. I had been looking forward to how all this juice would arrive and I wasn’t disappointed. A cute white cardboard box that was cold to the touch. When I opened it, I found my juices surrounded by reusable ice packs (score the endurance athlete in me thought!) and a cooler style box lining.

The Juices

The 5 juices are well labeled which lead to no confusion and lots of excitement when they arrived. They came with with directions to get the most out of your cleanse which included what to eat the day before and how to ease your way back into the “real world” after the cleanse was finished.

My favourite juice was absolutely number 2, Pineapple Head. It was sweet and delicious and the total opposite of the two Kale juices (those I liked the least – mainly because I just don’t like green juices of any kind). The Lemon’s Your Lucky Day (drink 4) was perfectly sour and the Cracked it (drink 6) cashew juice was great as well – those were my three favourites for sure, and ones I would certainly consider grabbing in store.

My Cleanse Glows and Grows.

While I realize a one day cleanse isn’t the best example of what CEDAR has to offer, I did come out with a few observations.

1. The next day I felt great! I felt light and energized. I don’t feel that this one day had any negative impact on my training and as you’ll see next, it really made me aware of my much needed hydration.
2. Following each juice you are to drink a lot of water. I’m not someone who often drinks water (a very bad habit for my sport). So this one day, certainly forced me to get back into regular hydration and I am thankful for that. I also noticed that I was sweating more during subsequent workouts, so I’m thinking I was likely even more dehydrated then I realized before starting my day with Cedar.
3. I missed chewing! I know that sounds weird, but by 6pm I just wanted to eat something. I wasn’t hunger, felt great actually, but I really just wanted to chew – I missed it. Weird, but that’s really what happened.

Is a cleanse for you? You definitely need to consider why you are doing it. For as much research as there is supporting a cleanse you can equally find research against it. The Cedar products were great. The process was simple, and the delicious taste was motivation to keep at it.