Since I’ve seen the resurfacing of some old stomach issues and skin problems (cystic acne, which is actually a symptom of the issues in digestion) lately, I’ve been considering doing some kind of cleanse to detox my body of whatever is problematic. The key word here is “considering”. I can’t decide: is a cleanse beneficial or scary? How do I prepare 3 meals a day for my husband and children and then just “not eat” for myself? Especially since I teach and work out at 5 Megaformer Pilates classes per week and burn calories like you would not believe. I sent an email to my friend Rebecca with some of these questions, because she is the Cleanse Queen. For the past 13 years, she has done anywhere from 1-3 cleanses per year. Some including her husband and others on her own. Instead of pretending I know all the answers, I am going to give you her guest post here, for your learning and my own consideration. Good luck!

How to Do A Cleanse

1. Very Easy

If you have never done one and you are not sure how you will react the first option is to do a 3 day weekend cleanse of really clean eating of just salads, fruits and vegetables, and brown rice. No sugar, juice, caffeine, dried fruits, etc.

2. A Little Longer (but using things you already have)

Another option would be a 10 day cleanse. The one I like is from Dr. Stone’s book “Health Building: The Conscious Art of Living Well” (affiliate link). In this one, I do:

2 days of salads and 2 servings of brown rice
2 days of just salads and fruit (lots of papaya)
2 days of fresh juice from a juicer

Then back yourself back out

2 days of  just salads and fruit
2 days of salads and 2 servings of brown rice

Every day of this cleanse you wake up and have 1-2 cloves of raw garlic, chased by 2 TBS of high quality organic olive oil with fresh squeezed lemon/citrus juice to help it go down. 2 hours after that have a quality vegetable juice.

This one might feel a little harsh because of the garlic, but it’s only for 10 days and for some reason it’s much easier to do when you know it doesn’t last long. Also, you already have everything you need. You don’t have to go buy a bunch of supplements that are expensive and take 30 pills a day. That brings me to my favorite…

3. The Lexus of Cleanses

My husband and I have had huge success (by that I mean that we always rid ourselves of old, bad eating habits and adopt better choices each time) with the Standard Process Purification Cleanse. The premise of this cleanse is to nourish your body with whole foods so that your body is better equipped to detoxify. I don’t believe in “The Master Cleanse” of just drinking lemonade and cayenne pepper for this reason. If your body goes into starvation mode, it will not function to detoxify rather it will do everything it can to stay alive! I starved myself for a couple of years and suffice it to say it did not bring good health. Our ultimate goal in cleansing bring better health.

To give you a summary of this one so you don’t have to read the whole pdf : you feed yourself whole foods, twice as many vegetables as fruit in a day. Eat protein once or twice a day (I included one egg as one protein and freshwater fish is good, since I know you don’t want to eat chicken), and one to two servings of brown rice. The thing about this cleanse is that there are supplements, but to some extent I really feel like this is what makes it work so well. The whole thing is about $180. Included in all of the supplements is a canister of a protein powder (find out if you need a protein powder) that you mix into a smoothie 2-3 times a day. Honestly, you will not get hungry or feel like you are starving during this cleanse (except the first 2 days when your body is getting used to the routine). This one lasts for 3 weeks.

The only disadvantage is finding a distributor, since it is not sold online. You will most likely need to use the Health Care Professional Search on the Standard Process web site. If you are in the Dallas area, you can get it all locally at the Health Food Shop in Richardson on Coit and Beltline.

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So what do you think? Should I try a cleanse, and if so, which one?

NOTE: I was not paid by anyone to mention any of the products in this post. In fact, if I do a cleanse I’ll be paying THEM money. The link to Dr. Stone’s book is an affiliate link so if you buy it, I get like 2 cents. Thanks in advance!