OH BOY.
Naturally, my friend and I searched Pinterest first for cleanses. I came across "Dr. Oz's Three Day Cleanse" a lot along with a cute little graphic shown here. It even came with a shopping list, so we headed to Meijer that very night to gather our supplies.
Seems easy enough, right?
DAY ONE. I got up early to make sure I had time to make the tea and morning beverage. For some reason I thought the drink recipes would be somehow similar to the juicing recipes I've used with similar ingredients, but I was very, very wrong. First, the texture. Not just the morning drink, but all of them. It's like drinking sludge. Bitter, icky, kinda-fruity-but-still-leafy tasting sludge. The worst by far was the lunch drink, as it is extremely large (double the size of the breakfast and dinner), and the worst tasting. The texture is also the worst here because it contains four stalks of celery, and because it's just in a blender (not juicer), you get to slurp down all of that lovely celery pulp. The dinner drink was probably the best, and my friend even said "I actually like this one!" when she tasted it.
So, after the first day, I was far from satisfied but still ready to give it all three days. My friend was ready to quit as well, offering me $20 to quit with her. But we decided to give it another day.
DAY TWO. Woke up grouchy and hungry and stayed that way all day. The lunch drink was even harder to finish (I don't think I even finished it...) than the previous day.
Time to get a little personal. So cleanses...are supposed to cleanse you out. But I did not feel that way at all, even halfway through day two. I was taking a probiotic and everything, but was every bit as bloated and bleh as I had been before. So needless to say, about 3/4 through day two I was about ready to give up.
I still made my dinner drink and headed to work that night, though, in hopes that my will power would outweigh the growling in my stomach.
But, in a wavering moment, I asked my best friend if she wanted to quit. She replied that she was about to make the dinner drink but would way rather have some crackers, so yes, she was down to quit. Of course, once I heard that, I thought. "All right, I'm out."
And I was. I came home from work that night and my friend made me pancakes. And those were the best pancakes I have ever had. Honestly, I don't regret it at all.
Of course, part of me wanted to just stick it through one more day, but I just couldn't. Le sigh.
OVERVIEW
Morning Drink- fruity and the peanut butter is nice, however the copious amounts of raspberry seeds might be one of the most frustrating things...ever.
Lunch Drink- A really leafy green taste. Tastes healthy, which is nice, but the texture is awful. It's like drinking 24 ounces of cold celery cucumber kale sludge. I like that it included coconut oil, but I can incorporate that into my diet in much tastier ways.
Dinner Drink- Definitely the best. The cayenne made it more interesting and satisfied cravings for other foods, but still sludgey.
I understand that, generally, cleanses take time, and that the first couple days are always the hardest. Unfortunately, on this cleanse, all you have is a couple of days, and if you don't see results then, you might just not in general. If I had the funds I would way rather try a ten day juice cleanse than this three day one, as for me the main issue was the texture.
All in all, this cleanse was a fail. I do not suggest it, although it may work for some people, as people's bodies react differently to different things. I just don't think it was working how a cleanse is supposed to. I could deal with the hunger and grouchy-ness if I was seeing results, but I was not, and was having severe doubts I would within the last 24 hours.
So, basically, if you are going to try a cleanse, research it, and make sure it's something you think you can do! Also make sure it's healthy, because some cleanses are not. It's important to still get all the nutrients your body needs when you're on a cleanse, because a lot of times you are flushing a lot out of your system and need to rebuild.
If any of you know of a good and effective cleanse, I'd love to hear about it! Thanks for reading!
~Beth
