The Detox

The Schedule (follow schedule for the herbal cleanse pills according to your product directions)

8:30am: 8 oz. berry drink, 8 oz. herbal tea, 8 oz. water
10:30am: 8 oz. green drink, 8 oz. herbal tea
12:30pm: 8 oz. veggie juice or green drink, 8 oz. water
2:30pm: 8 oz. water, 8 oz. green drink, 8 oz. herbal tea
4:30pm: 8 oz. berry drink
6:00pm: 1 cup soup, 1 cup broth, 8 oz. herbal tea, 8 oz. water
7:30pm: 8 oz. herbal tea or water
Bedtime: 1 oz. aloe vera, uh, maybe

The Products

Garden Greens BerrySplash – 1 scoop mixed with 6 oz. water.  This was given the Best Tasting award (I don’t know where it came from or who awarded it).  First Impressions: It smells cloying and it turns into a bright purple drink.  As long as you mix it really well (really well, until no sediment remains, use warm water if you need to) and drink it quickly (no sipping here), it’s okay.  I certainly wouldn’t call it “good tasting”.  If you don’t mix it well, you end up with sediment at the bottom and it tastes like crushed chewable children’s vitamins.  It’s bad and it’ll make you drink 16 oz. of water just to get the taste out of your mouth.  Maybe that’s the point.  You’re also supposed to follow this with 8 oz. of more water.  Do this separately and don’t mix it all to make 14 oz. of icky berry drink.  Final Thoughts:  Either start with hot water to mix or use all hot water and you’ll get a much better drink as it gets everything dissolved.  Still not great, but not as cloying as before.  Or maybe we got used to it.  It’s no morning oj, but I could see mixing it up now and then to get some good berry antioxidants in your system.

Garden Greens Essential Greens – 1 scoop mixed with 8 oz. water.  First Impressions: It mixes up better than the BerrySplash, but it kind of smells the same.  I think I picked up the Very Berry Flavor.  Perhaps the Apple Banana would be better?  Again, drink this quickly and follow with an 8-oz. water chaser.  Seriously, people, if this is rated Best Tasting, what do the other nutrient powders taste like?  The smell reminds me of a berry Crystal Light drink, with that funny fake-sugar essence.  I’ve heard that the VegeSplash tastes better (Zesty Tomato), but the Essential Greens gives you the 14 veggie content plus the algae and whatnot.  This is not pleasant stuff… I think I need real fruit or carrot juice to make my taste buds stop clenching.  If this is the routine, I can guarantee I won’t make it any longer than 7 days max.  Final Thoughts:  Okay, again, if you mix with warm/hot water to get it all dissolved, it’s more palatable.  I find it easier to drink cold than a room temperature (and definitely not warm).  T had the pleasant experience of discovering that if you pre-mix the powder so it’s ready to drink 2 hours later (like, when you’re at work), it gets pretty thick, like aloe vera gel (he blames the algae).  Maybe you’ll like it better that way?  I wasn’t as turned off, but that’s probably because I had warning.  From now on, we’ll be mixing right before drinking.  Again, not something I enjoy drinking, but I’d add it to my meals to feel like I’m being healthy.  Bottom line, it’s not as bad as I thought and you shouldn’t run scared as I first thought.

Total Body Rapid Cleanse – This is what we started with because I ordered the Garden Greens product and it hadn’t arrived by the time we started the detox.  It’s 2 pills in the morning, 2 at night, with a scoop of fiber at each time.  I’d prefer an additional pill over drinking fiber, but you really can’t smell or taste the fiber, especially if you mix it into hot tea.  Honestly, I was a little worried as to how this would “cleanse” the system, but I didn’t have any real problems.  I just felt more regular – no explosions or cramping or anything. 

In the End

The first day was the worst, if only because of the massive headache I got at the end of the day.  The second day was better, with only a small headache at night, but I really wanted to eat something.  It was the second day that I could, uh, see evidence of icky things being flushed out.   The third day, I was just not looking forward to drinking my meals anymore.  I also still had a headache and I was not feeling full of energy and great.  I felt like I was just trying to get through the day with as little discomfort as possible.  That’s no way to live, so I just stopped.

You read about some people dropping weight right away.  I didn’t really, not in those first 3 days.  Maybe at the end of the week I would have. 

I certainly was not hungry at any time, except right before I went to bed.  I attribute this to always drinking something every two hours and drinking a lot of water.  I think this is a good habit to continue, as long as your snack/drink is fairly healthy.

I’m not opposed to doing an week long herbal cleanse periodically, changing my diet to cut out red meats and fatty foods.  That I can do.  It’s the cutting out food altogether part I didn’t like.  Why could the program just involve you eating a lot of steamed vegetables?

The berry drink and green drink are good ways to add nutrients to your diet.  They just aren’t great for replacing meals.  The day after stopping the “detox”, I already feel more clear-headed and energetic than I did while on the “detox”.

If you do try to detox, even for a short while, be very careful when going back to eating food.  Start slow, start with vegetables, and start with easily digestible foods.  You will thank me for that piece of advice. 

If you can detox for 2 weeks or even the full 21 days, I think you would essentially flush out your system and drop weight.  I thought dropping some weight quickly would be worth giving up food, especially since I never felt hungry, but it’s not.