Update: 6 Weeks Drinking Celery Juice

People are still talking about celery juice!  What many thought would be a passing fad is still going strong. Just type in #celeryjuice on Instagram to see the hundreds (maybe thousands) of people drinking celery juice everyday and experiencing miraculous health improvement.

A few weeks ago I decided to try celery juice for myself to see if it was really worth the hype. I wrote a post all about it: the origins of this health fad, the benefits, how to make it and my own experience drinking celery juice for two weeks.  Check out that post here!

Today I’m back with my celery juice update.

For a total of six weeks I drank celery juice every morning on an empty stomach, just as Anthony William (the Medical Medium), creator of the celery juice challenge recommends.  I was fully committed to the process and even got a new juicer. I was really hopeful that I’d see some amazing results like those I was reading about online.

Overall, my results were...mixed.  Did I experience a health breakthrough? Not really.  Did I see any positive results? Yes, definitely!

Will I continue drinking celery juice? Well…

My Experience

I know many people are skeptical about the idea of drinking celery juice and question how beneficial it really is. There’s a lot of debate because there isn’t concrete scientific evidence to prove that it works in transformational ways.  The evidence is mostly anecdotal (though pretty compelling from what I’ve read). Not to mention, it’s promoted by a guy who calls himself the “Medical Medium,” and says he gets his knowledge from a spirit guide.

Despite all of this, I kept a pretty open mind because I do believe that conventional medicine doesn’t always get it right when it comes to healing and addressing the root cause of illnesses.  Natural remedies and diet changes can do a lot to support health and aid in recovery.

I also read William’s recent book, Liver Rescue, which I found really, really interesting.  It gives a completely new perspective on the underlying cause of various illnesses. it also gave me a bit more background information on celery juice and its effect on the body. I give a brief summary of this in my previous post.

So over the last six weeks, I faithfully drank my celery juice every morning and tracked how I felt along with any physical changes I experienced.  

Overall, I really enjoyed it! It became such an important part of my routine. This was more mental than physical, but I felt great drinking something that was completely natural and healthy, compared to a fattening coffee or sugary tea. It took some time and effort, but allowed me to prioritize my wellbeing a little everyday.  It was like a form of self-care.

Here’s what else I noticed:

Energy

Many reported feeling super energized after drinking their daily celery juice.  For me, I did experience a bit more energy. I had recently weaned myself off coffee prior to starting celery juice and it became a nice replacement for my morning joe. I wouldn’t say my energy was through the roof, but it was a nice pick-me-up in the morning.

Digestion

Drinking celery juice had a major impact on my digestion. I noticed this almost instantly and wrote about it in my previous post.  Bare with me here, this is a little TMI! I suffer from mild IBS with symptoms like bloating, gas, upset stomach and constipation.  While drinking celery juice, and even after, it really cut down on these symptoms. It seemed to really soothe my stomach after drinking and cut down on stomach discomfort throughout the day.

Prior to drinking celery juice my bathroom trips were pretty infrequent, which isn’t the healthiest.  It means your body isn’t eliminating waste, which can cause toxins to build up in your system. And this can lead to increased inflammation and other more unpleasant side effects that can negatively affect your health.

Celery juice completely changed my...bathroom experience. I went from going every few days to one or more times a day, which is pretty drastic. I felt much better-- less bloated and uncomfortable on a regular basis. In that way, celery juice had a positive impact on my gut health.

Skin Conditions

My primary reason for trying celery juice was to improve my skin, specifically acne and eczema.  I’ve suffered from eczema consistently for over a year and more recently have experienced an onset of acne, since going off birth control.  Many of the celery juice success stories involved healing chronic skin conditions and I was hoping for similar results.

Unfortunately, I didn’t see a substantial change in my acne or eczema.  I know six weeks isn’t an extremely long amount of time, likely not enough to see drastic improvements.  However, I do think it’s enough time to start seeing some changes. But I really didn’t see any obvious changes in my skin.  

My eczema remained the same, with minor flare ups every week or two. My acne, on the other hand, actually got worse. I was experiencing more frequent breakouts and pimples were popping up on new areas of my face where I didn’t normally break out.  

At the time I thought this could be a detox effect and tried to push through.  But it just seem to be getting worse and worse. It’s possible that celery juice was helping to rid my body of toxins and they were escaping through the skin.  It’s also possible that if I kept with celery juice things would have improved like it did for many celery juice advocates.

But after six weeks I decided to stop drinking celery juice.

Why I Stopped Drinking Celery Juice

Like I said, I actually enjoyed drinking celery juice.  It was fully a part of my routine after six weeks and I had no intentions of stopping.  Then something changed that made it really hard to continue.

The main reason that I stopped drinking celery juice is because of how hard it was to find celery!!  The struggle to find good celery is real! It seems like literally everyone is drinking celery juice these days, which is great, but the stores can’t keep up. At least not in my area.

At first I was buying my celery from Costco, which was organic and a great price.  Then, out of nowhere, they ran out and almost a month later still haven’t restocked (I called weekly to check!).  I tried Whole Foods, which also ran out shortly after and hasn’t had organic celery for over two weeks.

I’ve tried many other supermarkets and had mixed results.  I learned that not all celery is created equal. Sometimes you will get a bad batch (organic or conventional) and it can taste HORRIBLE.  Toward the end of my six months, I seemed to be getting more bad than good.

So many times I went through the whole process of washing the celery, juicing the celery, cleaning the juicer (about 15-20 min), only to take a sip of undrinkable celery juice. It had a bitter, almost metallic taste that just didn’t seem like it could possibly be healthy.  I like to think of myself as something of a celery juice connoisseur at this point (lol!), so I know what celery juice is supposed to taste like. And that was not it!

This kept happening and I felt like I was wasting time and money. Basically throwing away bunches of celery, that cost anywhere from $2 - $4. It was also getting to be stressful--I never knew how the juice would come out and didn’t always have time to go through the entire process all over again. I had no way of knowing what celery to buy or if the juice would even be drinkable until I tasted it, even if it was organic.   

This, along with a few other issues made it hard to sustain:

• Time commitment - finding the celery, making the celery juice every morning (can’t really be made in advance),
• Cost of celery - about $2-4 a day (sometimes more) to make 16oz of juice,
• Skin results- didn’t see any change in my eczema and acne seemed to get worse.

Final Thoughts

Even though I’m no longer drinking celery juice on a daily basis, I don't have anything negative to say. It did wonders for my digestion and even though it didn’t give me the results I was hoping for with my skin, I still experienced some physical and mental benefits.

It’s definitely something worth trying depending on your health goals, schedule, budget, and access to celery.

I’m not completely done with celery juice yet. I plan to incorporate it in my diet every now and then when I can, but not everyday. At least not until the stores can keep up with the demand for good quality celery.

Have you tried celery juice?  What was your experience?