Dr. Oz 3-day Detox Cleanse, from my point of view

We spent last week at the Oregon coast. Games were played, walks on the beach, movie watching, a beach bonfire, ball throwing sessions for doggies, and a trip to the Oregon Coast Aquarium... and lots of eating. What is it about the ocean air that makes us want to eat, eat, and eat some more? The sun went down, it must be time for ice cream and cookies. Never mind the fact that I’d already consumed too many M&M’s to count, Guinness, and a large mango smoothie topped with whipped cream earlier in the day. Not to mention the breakfast, lunch and dinner we consumed in-between snacks.

Time to cleanse! I’ve never participated in anything like this before, but then I have not been the age I am now, with a brand new tendency to collect a few extra pounds around my mid section.

Recently, a friend told me about her 25 pound weight loss through a Dr. Oz diet that begins with a 3-day smoothie based cleanse. The initial cleanse claims to reboot your system and balance hormones. Sounds promising. I like the fact that everything can be found at a local grocery store, and it’s all recognizable, healthy, simple food. 

Just to be clear, I am volunteering to do this Dr. Oz developed cleanse, but I am not affiliated with him, or anyone representing his ideas in any way. I brought this challenge on completely unaided. This cleanse was developed several months ago, and many people have done it and survived, maybe even thrived, I don’t know. All I know is that I really like the idea of eating super healthy for a few days.

Graphic from The Dr. Oz Show web site

Day 1: I got up extra early to create the breakfast concoction that would kick start my Monday. While sipping a hot green tea with lemon, I dropped ingredients into the blender one by one... Raspberries, banana, spinach, almond butter, lemon juice, flax seed, and cold water. Yum! This made one full glass of goodness. Just before I finished it, I took a multivitamin with the final sip and followed that with about three ounces of a strawberry flavored probiotic supplement yogurt-like drink. So far, so good!

At 11:30 I started making my lunch. I’ve never met a vegetable I didn’t like, but that was before I met celery and cucumber blended together. I peeled the cucumber and removed the seeds, peeled the skin off the apple and removed the core. Chopped up four celery stalks. Cut up a whole pineapple, removed the core, cut it into chunks, and placed the remainder in the freezer. It took me exactly two hours to choke this smoothie down. This made two large glasses full (or about 4 cups), which was a glass and a half too much. This green concoction was followed by another multivitamin and an Omego 3 supplement.

I chose the breakfast smoothie as my snack, since it was by far the best out of two. By 5:30 I was starving, but I managed to put off drinking the dinner smoothie until around 7pm. So far, the dinner drink was my favorite. The combination of mango, blueberries, avocado, kale, coconut water, and a bit of spice from the cayenne, was good.

I ended the day with a luxurious 30+ minute extra hot Epsom salt and lavender oil bath... ahhhhhhhh.

BREAKFAST

LUNCH

DINNER

Day 2: I woke up with a slight headache, but that quickly disappeared after a cup of green tea with a slice of lemon. I’m feeling less hungry than I did yesterday and much more energetic. And, guess what? I lost 4 pounds!! Seriously! Probably just fluids, or my scale is wonky, but I’m psyched and motivated to continue.

After I consumed the morning smoothie, vitamin and probiotic, I got to work putting together the lunch smoothie. It’s so large, and my least favorite, so I wanted to take a little of it with me to drink on the way to yoga. I figured this would give me a head start on tackling this green monster, which consists of more chewing than drinking. Note: Keeping it as cold as possible helps a lot.

I doubled the recipe for the dinner smoothie and drank half of it for the snack portion and the other half for dinner. I’m really craving real food, but I’m sure I can handle one more day of this. I had to make a trip to the grocery store tonight for a few more ingredients I’m running short on. That was torture. When did grocery stores start with all the samples?

Day 3: I had a slight headache in the morning again, but I guess that’s to be expected since I haven’t had any caffeine since Sunday. After drinking a cup of green tea on my morning commute, the headache magically disappeared. I drank the morning drink on the way to a meeting. I’m starting to get used to this to-go food in a cup.

By lunchtime I was starving, but not looking forward to having that green drink. Much to my surprise, it actually tasted decent today. I’m not sure why, there was no difference between today’s lunch drink and yesterday’s or the day before that, but the flavors tasted better. Acquired taste? This reminds me of when I was in my 20’s and wanted to be able to order a simple drink in a bar. I forced myself to like gin so I could order a dry martini up with two olives. Ha! I felt so grown up. Now I’ve taken another maturation step and acquired a taste for celery and cucumber!

The dinner drink was again fabulous, but left me wanting hot, chewable food. I was really looking forward to morning, planning my breakfast of a farm fresh egg and... coffee.


Thoughts and tips:

• Buy the best fruits and veggies you can afford. I purchased everything at my local New Seasons. They were very helpful with the vitamins and supplements I needed too. Everything I used was fresh, locally grown and organic, which makes a difference for me psychologically as I’m consuming it. It’s so comforting to know you’re putting only good things in your body.

• I am a protein addict. I don’t feel right unless I have regular protein based foods, but I never felt deprived during the 3-day cleanse. Each drink has some form of protein in it. I never thought one tablespoon of almond butter would be enough protein for breakfast, but it seemed to be fine.

• Keep the drinks cold. It really helps to have at least one item in each drink that’s frozen when you put it in the blender. I purchased fresh frozen blueberries, which added a lot of sweetness to the evening drink. After cutting up a whole pineapple, I froze the chunks in a sealed container. The raspberries I used were already in my freezer from our last crop. Keeping these drinks ice cold helps their palatability immensely.

• Drink plenty of water throughout the day. This will help keep you hydrated and keep things moving along.

• Stay close to a bathroom. Make sure you are relatively close to a bathroom the whole time you’re on this cleanse. All that liquid has to come out, not to mention how these fiber-filled smoothies clean out your colon.

• You don’t need an expensive blender to make these drinks. The glass container on our old 15-year blender broke a month ago, so we borrowed an inexpensive one from my Mom. It worked fine.

• Coconut oil and almond butter. The benefits of these fats are astounding, and they became my friends during the cleanse. But remember, these are good in moderation, because they are some of the only sources of protein you’re consuming during the cleanse. Don’t go adding these in large quantities to your existing diet, they’ll definitely make you pack on pounds.

• Remove the peeling, or not. The recipes don’t say anything about whether certain fruits and vegetables should be peeled. I did peel the apple, cucumber, and lime, but I suppose if you’re feeling adventurous you could leave them intact. I find those parts too bitter and tough for my taste.

• My cravings have been curbed. Now that I’ve completed the cleanse, my cravings for anything remotely unhealthy have been eliminated.

• Questions? You can ask me anything about the cleanse you want. I might even know the answer.

Enjoy the cleanse! I’m going to go chew on something now.