I know, I know, you're probably thinking 'lord not one of these,' but I promise you there's more to it than that. The #celeryjuice trend is really hitting the social media and wellness industry like wildfire - just like any juice cleanse, special smoothies, tonics or pills do. So for a longggg time, I mean a long time, any post or article I saw about consuming celery juice, I did the same thing that most of you did - rolled my eyes and moved on.
But, as someone who aggressively researches things, and also realizing that it is my job within this blogging space to share my knowledge of what works, and what doesn't (at least for me,) I figured it was at least in my due diligence to do a little digging.
Here's what the internet tells you:
It's crazy hydrating
It aids in digestion
Has been known to help with eczema or psoriasis
Can aid in weight loss
Is packed with antioxidants
It's the ultimate 'detoxer'
It tastes amazing!
Helps to prevent UTI's
Lowers high cholesterol
And apparently is the fountain of youth
There are an insane amount of articles out there about what the benefits are - but here's the thing: don't believe all of the hype. And I say "all" because there certainly is some benefit to consuming it, although not much has been scientifically proven or approved by the FDA.
If we're just talking about celery (and not about the juice trend) here's what you can find. It IS packed with antioxidants: vitamins A, C, K and a whole slew of other things. According to Healthline, you can find upwards of 12 kinds of antioxidants in just a single stalk. It also is super anti-inflammatory, so regardless of its within your digestive track, or chronic inflammation, it can help calm this down. Its also packed with fiber - and being made up of 95% water, this allows its positive effect on the digestive track to really thrive - helping things like decreasing chance of ulcers, and protecting the lining of the stomach. Low on iron or magnesium? Yup, you can find that in there too. All in all, for 2 medium sized stalks at 15 calories, and the best vessel for peanut butter in my book, this veggie does sure pack a lot of punch.
So if you've made it this far, my guess is that you're thinking you'd like to know what happened to me over those three weeks. We're almost there, I swear.
Let me first say that there are a "few rules to live by" if you're going to give this a whirl. The first, you're supposed to be drinking this on an empty stomach as soon as you wake up, aim for 8-16 ounces and to not eat anything for 30-60 minutes after consuming. I've also seen most articles state to either use a juicer, or blend and strain to remove the pulp from the juice. Take these also, with a grain of salt - not literally, of course.
So to line up how I started with this, let me first preface to say that I didn't follow these rules - not completely anyway. I did drink this on an empty stomach, about 30 minutes prior to eating everything (if not more). My morning routine, also, is busy. I'm up around 5:30 a,m., out the door and to the gym typically by 5:45 a.m., get a solid 45-60 minutes in of a workout, before coming home to shower and THEN have breakfast. I personally like doing a fasted workout - if I were to eat too much before the gym it would just honestly make me nauseous. Just a personal preference, so do you if you need to. If it was a weekend, I still tried to stick to having nothing to eat at least 30 minutes after consuming, if anything just water and my coffee. The other rule I stuck to was the amount, I'm drinking somewhere between 8-16 ounces depending on how much I make (or what's leftover, as I try to make two to three day's worth at a time to just make my life easier. The other rule though, straining? Yeah, I didn't follow that, and here's why. All that good stuff, those vitamins, antioxidants, are found in the fiber. If you have the type of a juicer that removes that, or you blend and then strain, well there goes all of that healthy product right out the window. I have an amazing Blentec blender which does everything - including juice, so it pulverizes the water and celery down as if it was strained, but with all the added benefits. I'm also conscious to not add too many celery stalks if you don't want to feel any of the 'pulp'.
Proportionally I was doing about 2 cups of filtered water to 2 rinsed celery stalks - tops and all. That gets me about 2-3 days worth, depending on if my husband has some too - and YES, he has feels about this as well.
So here we go. I started every morning by gulping down my juice. I'm going to put this out there right now that I do not enjoy the taste. It's definitely too grass-y and green for me. I love a fresh juice, so for this to not wow me in flavor says a lot. That being said, sometimes I'd add in a splash of lemon juice or serve it over crushed ice, which seemed to make it taste better. Most of the time though, I just slug it back like its 2007 and I'm taking shots in a bar like a champ. My chaser, is usually a few big gulps of water. I also have to say that I started this process around some travel for work, so while one of my trips I was able to bring some with me, another one I did not. And that's when I noticed the most of the difference. When I returned home, I mostly equated my off feeling to being away, so I continued with my juice drinking up until about a week ago. I have since started back on it, but here's what happened when I was drinking it.
My bloating was basically nonexistent. As I've talked about in How to Beat the Bloat - my belly is definitely sensitive, and small things can definitely set me into that puffy state. That being said - drinking this every morning resulted me in having no bloating. Yes, I said it, NONE. Even on those times that I over indulged or had dairy by accident (or when I just wanted that friggin' buttered bread!) my body was able to handle digesting it so much better on its own.
Another big digestive problem solved? I was more regular than ever. Call it TMI, or call it a miracle, my body was on a clock. This was one of the things that my hubs also noticed the biggest difference on. He also saw way less bloating (and his belly is stronger than mine) but our digestive track got on such a schedule you could nearly put a clock to the a.m. when it was time for #2.
Now I get what you're thinking - how do you even know this was what helped? When in my head I wasn't sure if this was the thing that was helping both of our guts, I stopped. Because for me, I love to test out different things, methods, products, etc. I also am pretty solid at self-diagnosing things within my own body, and oftentimes of others since I've done so much research on more holistic methods. So here's what happened. I stopped drinking celery juice and within 48 hours the bloating came back. And also within that 48 hours, my body's ability to digest slowed down. After 3 weeks of being literally on the clock for getting to the bathroom, I wasn't able to go for almost two days. That NEVER happens to me. While my digestive track is pretty good, and pretty regular, it noticed a big difference without the added benefit of the juice. After almost a week of not drinking celery juice, I mentioned to Frank that I thought it might help for me to get back to drinking it, that I had noticed a difference with it. The real kicker - the husband test. He did too, without any prompting he said he had noticed he was more bloated and less regular as well, so just like that we decided to reintroduce it.
Here's what I didn't know was going to happen: my skin started to clear up. If you've been following me on instagram, I've been sharing a struggle with some pretty bad hormonal acne I've had for the last few months - a few changes are the root of this, but ultimately I am working to fix it. Keeping my clean skincare routine in order, changed my shampoo and conditioner to make sure I was using a nontoxic formula, increasing my water intake, and regular masks with Follain's May Lindstrom, The Problem Solver (use my code ref15_b5tp5r to receive 15% off your order! This stuff is a serious game changer.)
But to no avail, my skin was still struggling. Little did I realize, about a week into doing the celery juice, it seemed as though my diligence in skincare, was making my skin clear up! And the second I stopped drinking it, my cystic acne came back like wildfire. I'm talking within 24-36 hours my face started to break out again. It wasn't until I started doing more research into the benefits of celery juice did I realize that a huge added benefit was how it can affect the clearing of skin - even for more serious issues like eczema or psoriasis (which I do have light cases of also.) I had noticed that my scarring was lightening up, I was experiencing less dullness, and overall I felt less puffy.
What's important to note here is that when your gut is healthy, the rest of your body is healthy - and what you put in has a direct result in your other organs and body functions. So for whatever reason, the juice was keeping my gut clean, thus resulting in less breakouts. Wild, isn't it?
Another unexpected perk? A serious energy boost. For some reason my body just felt more awake. Here's a crazy concept - maybe because my body was riding itself of all the unnecessary digestive issues, toxins, call it what you may, I felt just, lighter, overall.
While it's hard to say how long these benefits will last for, I know my body well enough to know that something about this is working. I also know that there's always a good possibility of the placebo affect, but its a little hard to deny the positive physical changes within my body. I've been back to drinking it for a few days now, and I've already noticed my belly to be less bloated - and that includes a work event where I (not) guiltily ate half a bagel and 4 munchins, and a dinner date with my hubs that was accompanied by a Moscow mule. I seem to have taken care of the immediate breakout on my skin, but now that I've seen what some of these benefits are, my goal is to continue to drink celery juice for another month to see what it'll do in the long term. While I do believe that there tends to be circumstances of placebo affect, I cant fake a breakout or the lack of a bloat, or the regularity of my body's schedule. And after the amount of research, videos and photos I've seen, there has to be some credibility to this actually working for people - severe cases of eczema cleared up in months, chronic digestive illnesses being eased, and a ton else.
Have questions about what else I experienced? Have you tried the trend? Let me know in the comments below.
xx
Rita