…and hated it! Last weekend I decided it was time to give my liver some love and try a 48 hour liver detox cleanse. Because of my schedule, I decided Monday and Tuesday were the best days for me to do the cleanse. My liver is very good to me and I want to keep it that way. I had been feeling a little sluggish and after alot of fun summer events over the last few weeks, I thought this detox might help. I am still not sure if it did, but here is how the 48 hours went:
*Disclaimer, be sure to research any type of cleanse and of course talk to your doctor if you have any medical concerns before trying something new*
After reading a bunch of different articles and opinions from various nutrition sources I decided to try Dr. Oz’s 48 Hour Liver Detox, it involved eating liver friendly foods and was not too restrictive which is what I needed because I was not changing up my workouts for the 2 days (morning lifting workout, teaching spin in the evening). I feel I eat pretty clean for the most part, so I didn’t think this cleanse was going to be too challenging…I was wrong.
First up: Prep
On Sunday, I followed all the recipes and made my juices and prepped my veggies for my snacks. I made my breakfast quinoa so I could just grab and zap it in the morning. I planned on making my lunch smoothie the morning of to keep it as cold as possible. I also made my dinner which became nicknamed “the stew” in our house. It involved a whole lot of vegetables roughly chopped and boiled for an hour. While I am I am not sure if I followed the recipe correctly or what… but it was definitely the worst part of this cleanse.
Day 1 Here we go:
I start off my morning with my workout and come home to my first bowl of quinoa and prunes (my husband questioned my age and said no one under the age of 80 should have prunes in their house…) I drizzled flax seed oil on it and dug in. It was good and filling! I started off my day very optimistic and actually excited about this!
Fast forward to 9:30a…
I started to feel hungry and turned to my pomegranate juice mix to hold me over…it was ok but not great.
Finally lunch…
I choked down my blueberry banana smoothie and was still really hungry. There is something about having a liquid lunch, but I pressed on and kept trying to remind myself of the good things I was doing for my liver.
The day wore on and I munched on my bag of green beans and radishes. I never felt full and had a headache all day…when it came time to teach, my energy was low, but I tried to remember I have a nice bowl of “stew” waiting for me at home along with an apple and sauerkraut…yes you read that correctly…apples and sauerkraut were part of the plan. As mentioned before, the stew was awful. There was not a bit of flavor but I was so hungry at that point, that I had a big bowl and chased it down with my ‘kraut and apples (it was actually good!).
20 minutes till bed…24 hours almost down:
The last thing I was instructed to do was drink a cup of dandelion root tea before bed. I did and nearly brought up my German dinner feast up. I don’t like tea to begin with, but this tea had a strong licorice taste, which I hate!
As I was watching a few minutes of tv before dozing off, a Taco Bell commercial came on and I actually said YUM out loud (I have only eaten at Taco Bell twice in my life, neither by choice), this is when I knew I was in trouble and I still had a long 24 hours ahead of me.
I wake up the next morning, actually feeling like I have a little more energy than usual at the hour and head to the gym. From there, I repeat everything I did the day before. The day wears on and I am struggling to get through each hour. My energy is really low, I have a major headache, and just generally very cranky. Before my evening spin class, I did contemplate to throw in the towel. I really wondered what the point of this was and really if there was any benefit to doing this. I am not sure how I even got through my class, I felt awful, but I figured I had come this far I might as well stick it out. I choked down my final German feast and disgusting delicious dandelion tea and go to bed…
My alarm goes off on day 3 and I literally danced out of bed! I throw on my workout gear and make my way to my usual pre workout snack clif bar. It has never tasted SO delicious. And that was it, back to normal. I tried not to go crazy and binge on some big unhealthy meal, and eat as normally as possible. I didn’t just torture myself for 2 days to undo it in the first 5 minutes of day 3! Overall, I didn’t feel any different, I didn’t feel cleansed. I did loose 3.5lbs, but I think that was just the lack of calories and I am sure I have already gained it back, but I will say I did feel like I was little less bloaty, again I am not sure it was just lack of food. So here are my final 3 thoughts on the detox cleanse:
-I will never do it again
-I think I can keep my liver healthy with a balanced diet and mixing in some liver friendly foods on a regular basis
-After doing my research on this, I can’t BELIEVE the cleanses that are out there and the insane things people will do. Eat healthy everyday and live a balanced life and I don’t think a cleanse is necessary.
Run On-
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