Review - Vertical Maple Water

Brand:  Vertical

Flavor:  Maple Water

Where to get it: here @ LuckyVitamin.com

                                Can someone please help me? Can you tell me if I like this or not? I’m so serious. I can’t tell. My brain was basically like…you’re on your own on this one. Hargle bargle. It’s water…but a little sweet. But not sweet like sugar sweet, sweet like if you didn’t know what the word “sweet” meant. You might then describe it as sweet, not knowing what “sweet” meant. That makes no sense. But it’s so accurate. It’s maple water, but it’s not sweet like maple syrup. It’s also not void of taste like water. I gave one to a co-worker and she LOVED it. I think it might be like Cable Guy, starring Jim Carey; I had to watch it 3 times, and then I fell in love with it. I’ll get back to you after I drink a week’s worth of this stuff. So intriguing.   

                 

               

Tastes like:  Sweet, no, water, no, sweet….water

Taste rating:  I can’t tell!!/10

Qualities:  Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten-free

What’s in it:

Juice Cleanse Final Day (!!) Recap

Day 3 - I made it! Not a carrot, not an egg white, not a single piece of solid food passed my lips in 3 days. I can't believe it, it seems very surreal to me. I think the overall experience was a good one. If I did it again with Jus by Julie, I would select my juices ala carte next time. It's REALLY hard if you hate a particular juice, and it's on the menu all 3 days.

It also kind of bothers me that services like this are advertised as ways to "kickstart" a healthy lifestyle. If me, version 1.5 years ago had tried this, I wouldn't have made it through the first afternoon. I feel like if you've made peace with self-deprivation already, you will have a much better chance of being able to do a program like this. I ended up losing 7 lbs over the course of the 3 days, but I'm not going to weigh myself again for another few days to see how much of it is "real". Hopefully, my brain has gotten a much-needed reset and this plateau is dead on the floor.

Day 3 Intake:

Morning Glory – NOPE

Spicy Lemonade

Sweet Spin

Acai Blend – (10/10, 150 calories) YUM! My favorite juice of the cleanse. Banana is prominent flavor, but it’s perfectly tempered with the other ingredients.

Island Coconut – (10/10, 200 calories) This was also SO YUM! I would rather drink this than a milkshake. Not even lying.

Xtreme Greens

Nutritional Breakdown:

Total Calories:  730

Carbs:  162g

Fat:  14g

Protein:  12g

Day 2 of the juice fast!

Day 2, made it with no solid food intake AND no hypoglycemic episodes! Glory! I felt a lot better too, no headache and not as sleepy in the afternoon. I found myself abstractly hungry, I missed the actual process of eating food. Well, no one said it would be easy, did they? I also skipped the first juice because the thought of having to choke down more Morning Glory made me want to quit on the spot.

Day 2 intake:

Morning Glory - NOPE

Spicy Pome-Nade - (8/10, 100 calories) Tasted a lot like pink lemonade, seemed to have less of a kick than the Spicy Lemonade

Sweet Spin

Chia Berry

Not So Chunky - (4/10, 210 calories) I had high hopes for this, but it tasted more like unripe bananas mixed with peanut butter. It was pretty bitter and it kind of broke my heart.

Xtreme Greens

Nutritional breakdown:

Total Calories:  750

Carbs:  153g

Fat:  16g

Protein:  18g

Juice Cleanse, Day 1 Recap

Well, I made it. Not a morsel of solid food on day 1. Egg whites and a "moderate" amount of raw or steamed veggies are allowed, but I really wanted to make it at least 1 day on the juice alone.

I did pretty well, hunger-wise, until around 7pm. Then the drive-thru fantasies set in, and fierce. But I fought them off with all kinds of guilty pleasure E! shows that I had on the DVR. I think I peed 50 times throughout the day (not exaggerating), and I drank a lot of tea. Blood sugar-levels were good throughout the day, but dipped a little at night, which I corrected with a 100-calorie chocolate milk. I had a low-grade headache for most of the afternoon, but that could be due to not being able to have my first-thing-in-the-morning Diet Coke. I missed it a lot more than I thought I would, which might be a good thing to consider. Addicted, much?? I slept like poo though.

Here's the day 1 intake rundown:

Morning Glory – (0/10, 120 calories) This tasted like a lettuce/celery/dirt milkshake to me. I had to hold my nose to get it down, and chase each swallow with tea. I am not kidding. I couldn’t taste the fruits in here at all.

Spicy Lemonade – (10/10, 70 calories) A lot like Crystal Light lemonade with a kick. The amount of cayenne was just perfect.

Sweet Spin – (6/10, 160 calories) MUCH better than the first green of the day. Heavy on the banana flavor up front with the spinach in the aftertaste, and I tasted zero dirt.

Chia Berry – (8/10, 130 calories) I really liked this one. Perfect balance of tart & sweet, really a pleasant juice.

Choco-Nana – (8/10, 150 calories) I was really hungry when I drank this, and it quieted my desire for solid food a lot more than I thought it would. The addition of strawberries in this juice give it a less-sweet flavor that’s really nice.

X-Treme Greens – (4/10, 150 calories) I would put this one right in the middle of the other 2 green juices that I had today. It tasted a little perfume-y to me. I didn't love it, but it didn't need a chaser, at least.

Nutritional breakdown:

Total calories:  780

Carbs: 182g

Fat:  14g

Protein:  14g

Have mercy on my soul, I'm doing a 3-day juice fast!

I hit a weight-loss plateau about 3 months ago, and I’ve tried a lot of things to bust through it – to largely no avail. I read this article about a lovely gal from Britain who is also a type 1 diabetic, and she had a very successful and fulfilling 3-day juice fast. The company she used is overseas from me, so I set out to find an affordable alternative in America. I actually found Jus by Julie because there was a Groupon for it. This led me to their website, which is awesome. They also have a ton of good Yelp reviews, so I decided this was the way to go.

I’ve never done something like this before, and I’m pretty nervous. I had dreams about it all last night, and slept like poo. I’m not really sure why I have so much anxiety, I chose to do this, no one’s making me, and I can quit on it if I really want to. But still. The most challenging this is going to be balancing my insulin intake, because a few hypoglycemic incidents WILL sabotage this in a hurry. Wish me luck!