Month: December 2009

I mentioned yesterday that I was doing the Blueprint Cleanse – it’s a “cleanse” (I hesitate to use that term, because it gives the wrong impression) that consists of 6 juices a day – 4 green juices, 1 spicy lemonade, and 1 thick and creamy nut milk (each 16 ounces). But I’m cheating. Well, let me just do the recap and I’ll explain more later…

Guidelines: 1) You are supposed to wait at least an hour between juices; 2) you can drink unlimited herbal tea and water; 3) you’re supposed to finish at least 2 hours before bed; 4) there are some allowed “cheat” foods.

And guess what? Dori is doing this with me! We wanted to do it together for moral support 🙂 We’ve been gchatting all day long.

Monday – Day 1

6:15am – I wake up. I drink a big mug of water, lemon juice, and cinnamon from 6:30-7:30am while I’m doing work. I also take a probiotic and 2 maca tablets.

7:30am – I do a 30 minute exercise video from ExerciseTV.

9:15am – I get to work and I’m a little hungry so I have my first juice. It’s a green juice and it’s delicious. I drink water and tea after it.

11:45am – I have my second juice. I’m not that hungry, but I figured it was time. This is another green juice.

12:00pm – Oops, maybe I am hungry. Hm. Drink some more tea.

12:30pm – Okay, I really am hungry. I break into juice number 3. It’s another green juice. Yum! I have more tea and more water.

2:45/3:00pm – Yeah, hungry again. I have juice number 4, which is a spicy lemonade (filtered water, lemon, agave nectar, cayenne). I don’t see how this will keep me full for long. I keep having water and herbal tea.

4:30pm – I don’t want to drink anymore because I keep having to pee! This is a lot of liquid.

4:45/5:00pm – Very hungry, so I have juice number 5 (green juice). Yikes – Am I supposed to last on one juice for the rest of the night??

6:30pm – I take a sip of the last “juice” (cashew nut milk with cinnamon) and I’m kind of grossed out. I thought this was supposed to be the best one! It’s heavy and thick and the cinnamon makes it terrible.

7:00pm – I’m talking to Bobby complaining about how horrible this is and how I should never have done it. He says to suck it up.

7:30pm – I get home and drink the rest of the nut milk. It grows on me, but it’s still not my favorite.

8:00pm – I need to chew something. I break out the celery (a cheat food) and have celery dipped in maple syrup (not technically on the cheat list, but maple syrup is in lots of “cleanses” so I figure it’s okay). I also make 2 lemonades (lemon juice, water, and a whole lot of maple syrup).

10:00pm – I go to bed. This is the earliest I have gone to bed since… I don’t even know when. Probably middle school.

Tuesday

Honestly, pretty similar to Monday (but no exercise in the morning – I slept in and then did some errands). But today I cheat a little bit – I have a cup of coffee with some of the cashew milk in the afternoon, and then I have a cup of decaf after that.

At night, I can’t stomach the cashew milk. It’s heavy and it tastes weird to me. Why does everyone else seem to love it? I opt for a big bowl of steamed broccoli topped with some olive oil (I need the fats if I’m not having the nut milk), maple syrup, nutritional yeast (a nutritional powerhouse), and some dill.

Now I’m sipping some extra lemonade that I made (lemon juice, water, maple syrup).

Maybe I’ll go to bed early again tonight… or maybe I’ll do some work. I have some stuff I wanted to get done before tomorrow.

How do I feel?

Honestly, the best I have in a long time. I have a pretty bad case of IBS (or something?) and I was constantly bloated for the last month (at least)… but not now. I obviously can’t live on green juices for the rest of my life, but this is a nice break. I’m looking forward to my last day (tomorrow, Wednesday), but after that I’ll go back to eating normal foods. Maybe my stomach will be okay for a few days – I can only hope!

Maybe this shows that you can do a healing cleanse without being unhealthy or miserable. I don’t know if I would recommend doing this without cheating, because it doesn’t seem like a lot of calories, especially if you are tall (I’m just about 5’10”) or active. For me it’s been awesome because I feel like my digestive system is finally working properly.

I’ll do a more detailed post of exactly what the juices contained, the instructions that come with them, and more – after my final day.

Have you ever done anything like this? Or any other type of “cleanse”?