My experience with the "10 day Green Smoothie Cleanse"

I bought this book on an impulse buy really. I had been looking at another healthy eating cookbook, and noticed this had shot up the charts and already bumped Hillary Clinton's book off the top spot just a couple weeks after release. I don't really know why, but that fact alone grabbed my attention.

I'm writing this simply to describe my experience. I'm not necessarily advocating this program or trying to start a flame war. Discussion, however, is certainly welcome, especially if you've tried this or in general how you've learned to eat healthy. In general, I chose to go ahead and do this, because it was "only" 10 days, and used real food, wasn't a "bottled" program from GNC or anything like that.

Anyhow, back to relevance, I bought the book after reading what it was about. I was less interested, or perhaps more accurately, skeptical about the "cleanse" claims. Evenso, I found that what it was offering was much of what I was wanting to include or increase in my diet anyhow. Namely, I've been gearing towards more and more vegetables and greens in my diet as part of "Eat to Live" by a Dr. Joel Fuhrman. As such, this "cleanse" seemed to fit that program as well. Also I've found the logistics and time involved in eating a similarly sized salad simply takes me too long most days, especially at work.

As it turn out, this "cleanse" made a good jumping off point for me to restart both my weight loss and healthy eating goals. Some of the claims in the book I found to come true. Namely the first few days I was irritable and weak with a couple days of headaches. Additionally the first couple of days included hard cravings for all the sugary junk and "diet" sodas I was addicted to. Some other bizarre cravings came along, namely fried chicken and chinese food. The fried chicken hit me about day 7, and is out of character, as it's a rare food for me anyway, and only really eaten when someone else has set the menu.

By the 4th or 5th day I was starting to feel good, and by day 2 or 3 was no longer hungry despite the very low calories consumed. I would say by day 8 I actually felt "good" for probably the first time in years.

In particular, I lost about 9.5lbs and tailored the program as follows.
-Used more berries (strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and mixed) to replace Mango, Pineapple, and some of the peaches, as I wanted to reduce my sugars even further and the berries are a good fit with lots of fiber.
-Ate two soft boiled eggs and a serving of raw almonds most days for added protein
-Used NOW brand flavorless pea protein to make the smoothies carry me further, and it was a good economical choice for me
-Used "Monk Fruit in the RAW" brand sweetener instead of stevia due to personal flavor preference [also non-calorie]
-Added Cinnamon and Apple Pie Spice to most smoothies for added flavor [both low/non calorie]
-Did not use bottled spring water, but "only" filtered water [your results might be better with]
-Only used Organic for the greens not all products [your results might be better with]
-Used the Mag07 stool softener [I was skeptical of this product, but definitely do not over take, try three before more to see what amount you need each night.] Disclaimer further reading may be unpleasant but feel it necessary to know what to expect: I am convinced this removed some things that had been inside for far too long. Some of the bowel movements, say about 3 or so were NOT to proportion with what I had been eating. Some of the "weight" I lost was apparently from this mass. Also the smell was like nothing I may have ever encountered. It was really bad. After these few heavy "movements" there was virtually no smell or massive bulk in the toilet on subsequent trips.

The book also admonishes you to step lightly back into your solid foods. The day after I had a hashbrown, 2 eggs, oatmeal, chicken and rice, but virtually or no vegetables. Nothing too out of the ordinary, or "unhealthy", certainly not a binge, but I really saw what all the carbs did to me, in just one day. I was still under my MFP recommended carbs however. At the end of this day was already feeling less well. This has overall been a good experiment for me and my relationship to carbs and sugar. I was clearly an addict and so bathed in the "carbs" that like the fish in his water, couldn't see it. This cleanse really let me see that for the first time. As I've cut my carbs to mostly fruit, legumes, peas, etc. instead of the processed carbs, I've really felt better.

Within a few days of the cleanse I had put on about 2.5 of the pounds, but not from poor eating. I track my foods and calories and was still well under my daily goal, so you can probably expect to put a little water weight back on. That said I am still taking smoothies a couple times a day to get my greens in along with at least one healthy full meal. I think this is a path I can sustain, even after my weight is gone and stay satisfied. I think I'm mostly in it for the covenience of the greens. I can still always make some great stir frys, roasted veggies, etc. Hope to stick with it this time and make the change. This little program helped me do more than just eat less of the same things I was before and see how I really react to foods.

If you are on several meds, or have any conditions I'd definitely run this by your doctor before you jump in, it really is a big change to how we "normally" eat. Overall, I think you'll find it positive, if you stick to it. It is "only" 10 days, making it a workable goal for anyone.

Of course, the real goal is just learning to eat healthy. For me, this was a tool to help me do so.