CLEANSE CRAZY
The fad diet is all the rage- and now, it's finding its way into the workplace. But what happens when you juice on the job?
T HEY’RE expensive. They’re trendy. And if you’re trying to lose weight fast, they may be your only hope.
Juicecleanse devotees swear that going on an allliquid detox like BluePrint Cleanse or Cooler Cleanse for a few days leaves them refreshed, energized, glowing — and a few pounds lighter. It sounds simple: Gulp down about six coldpressed juices per day instead of eating solid food, and supposedly toxins get flushed out of your body, and pounds melt away. But what happens when you attempt to stop chewing on the job?
“I remember telling my coworkers, ‘I’m about to go on a cleanse for 27 days, I just want to let you know,’ ” says Astoria resident Lia Sur, 33, who works in sales. “My coworker was like, ‘Oh great, you’ll be the biggest bitch alive.’ ”
At the other extreme, some offices are a little too into juice fasts. “I work in fashion — cleansing is as common as Christian Louboutin,” says 24yearold fashion stylist Alex Sweterlitsch, who lives in Midtown and cleanses every two or three months. He recalls a time when a cleansing coworker’s juice disappeared . . . and reappeared on someone else’s desk. Awkward!
If you’re cleansecurious, you’ll probably run into the following scenarios once you take your first swig of green juice at your desk.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
“I’ve never brought a cleanse to the office without it having be a conversation,” says Justine Schwartz, 28, an editor at the Web site She Finds who cleanses a few times every quarter.
Whenever she had a threeday BluePrint Cleanse delivered to her office, it would trigger a barrage of nosy questions from coworkers: Why are you doing a cleanse? Does it taste good? “‘ Why’ is kind of a difficult question to answer,” says the Greenwich, Conn., resident. “Obviously it’s to lose weight. It’s a little personal.”
Katie Dingeren, 23, who lives in Westchester and works at a Manhattanbased travel and hospitality p.r. firm, recently tried Cooler Cleanse with two coworkers. They filled the office fridge with juice bottles and kept each other on track viia text message when they were off the clock. She says her tightknit office — the staff eats lunch together every day — generated tons of comments about their liquid diets. “I got made fun of constantly. They would say things like, ‘What do you want for lunch? Just kidding — you don’t eat!’ ” She’d either brush them off or reply, “You’ll be jealous when I’m done with this and skinny and healthy!”
Dingeren’s former colleague and cleanser-in-crime Molly Ford Leibowitz, 27, added that their coworkers were fascinated by the idea and wanted to know everything about the cleanse, like the ingredients in each juice. “People think you’re crazy,” says the Williamsburg resident. “My boss thought it was a bit ridiculous that I was dominating the office refrigerator with my juice bottles . . . I just felt tired. I talked lesss. My coworkers would say, ‘Molly’s so hungry, she can’t talk.’ ”
How to deal: Cooler Cleanse cofounder Eric Helms suggests people reply to invasive questions with a simple, “I’m juicing today . . . I’m actually consuming 15 pounds of fruits and vegetables!”
Clear your calendar
For most New Yorkers, business lunches and afterwork events where cocktails and appetizers flow freely are the norm. So what happens when you’re not able to eat or drink because you’re on a cleanse? Simple: You don’t go out. Leibowitz, whose p.r. job requires a constant stream of client entertaining, planned her group cleanse with coworkers around days when they didn’t have a lot of work events scheduled. “I made sure not to go out to work lunches and made sure not to schedule business drinks,” she recalls. “You can’t eat, you can’t drink alcohol — you really have to block off those days. I skipped events
and sent other people in my place.” But her job comes before the juice: If a work event arises, she’ll go and, depending on the situation, break the cleanse.
How to deal: If the work engagement is important and you can’t cancel, Helms suggests calling the restaurant ahead of time and tell the host you’re cleansing. “A lot of people do this, and they’ll have a tall glass of ice ready for your juice,” he says. “Instead of dessert, order a cup of chamomile tea with lemon. This allows you to still be part of the meal — in liquid fashion.”
Potty problems
It’s pretty basic: All that liquid you’re ingesting has to come out somehow. “If I’m in the office, it’s good,” says Sur. “You’re drinking so much juice and you’re drinking a lot of water and herbal teas. With all that, I always had to go to the restroom every few seconds.”
How to deal: Helms claims that bathroom fears are a myth — or at the very least, wildly exaggerated. “You will urinate more frequently, but should be able to go about your daily activities with no problem,” he says. “Since you are actually supposed to be drinking eight 8ounce glasses of water each day, cleansing should not pose additional restroom runs.”
The grouch factor
But the hardest part about being on a juice cleanse at the office might not be your coworkers or clients. It might be battling your own hungerinduced fatigue or irritability.
“Work was tough around 3 or 4 o’clock,” recalls Liebowitz. “I noticed my brain sort of slowed down around 4 o’clock.”
Sur, who’s done cleanses ranging from three to 27 days, had never gotten grouchy on one — until a fiveday cleanse in July. By the end, she was irritable and snappy. “I really wanted to eat food and break the cleanse.”
Dingeren, Liebowitz’s coworker at the time, even ventures to say that “Sorry I’m so bitchy, I’m on a cleanse right now” is an acceptable excuse for onthejob grouchiness.
But Sweterlitsch disagrees: “There’s never an excuse for workplace bitchiness, especially a selfinduced juice cleanse. Blame it on Monday — not on really delicious juices.”
How to deal: “The more you prepare, the easier it will be . . . seriously,” says Helms. “If people follow our preparation instructions and eliminate processed foods, meat, dairy, caffeine and alcohol for two to three days prior, it really makes a huge difference. If you eat clean before starting your cleanse, you’ll minimize discomfort and should have plenty of energy to go about your normal daily activities.”