It’s been a few weeks since I finished my 3-day Blueprint Cleanse and I still feel great. I knew I wanted to share my experience on my blog but wanted to wait a little bit before I did.
As a refresher, I decided to try the 3-day BluePrint Cleanse after discovering how much I liked juice out in Los Angeles. It was filling and energizing. After 2-months of super healthy eating in preparation for my video shoot with BeFit, I was nervous Thanksgiving might reverse my good habits. I wanted to see if doing a cleanse would act like a reset button, eliminating newly sprung sugar cravings from dessert, stuffing and wine. My intention was never weight loss. Any mention in my review of weight loss that I include is because it was a part of the experience.
Day 1 as I mentioned was not too challenging. Day 2 was a little harder and 3 was a struggle.
My first mistake was not preparing for the cleanse. I didn’t realize when choosing my begin date that the three days prior to starting should be part of eating a clean, vegan diet. WIth a house full of Thanksgiving leftovers that were going to get thrown out, I didn’t exactly follow the recommendation. I didn’t eat fast food, but I did eat meat and dairy.
I felt light headed around 9 am Thursday morning. You are allowed to eat 1/4 of an avocado, celery or cucumber on the BP Cleanse but since I didn’t do my research ahead of time, I never made it to the grocery store. If I had, at 9 am I would have had something. Instead I went to The Bar Method. If you sign up for a class, you have to cancel at least an hour ahead of time (sometimes 12 hours) or you get charged $15 as an unlimited member. I find this a huge motivating factor in the morning typically. The class actually took my mind off of food and I felt better after chugging down some water.
A lot of people asked if I worked out on the cleanse and I did. I did not however run or do any cardio. I did the Bar Method all three days. Typically, I burn between 300-400 calories per class. To me, this is not that strenuous. We are all different. I would not have gone running or taken a spinning class.
Ok so after the cleanse, again, you are recommended to eat a vegan diet for a few days. I did not realize this when signing up for the cleanse! I had dinner plans with my dad and while I could have just made dinner, I didn’t prepare for that either. lol.
That aside, I wanted a green juice when I woke up on Day 4. My first meal was actually a banana. They recommend fruit so I stopped by Trader Joe’s on my way home from my morning Bar class. It was the easiest and quickest option in the store. I was starving and had nothing at home to eat before hand. When I got home, I made myself a smoothie with Vega Sport and Almond Milk with spinach.
Throughout the day, I did not want any meat. It was odd. My cravings were completely different. I wanted fresh veggies, kale, sprouts, fruit, hummus and nuts. At dinner with my Dad, I ordered a salad with grilled salmon on it. The fish tasted weird. Not sure if it was the restaurant or my taste buds. My dad insisted I try a bite of his goat cheese fritters. The roof of my mouth broke out in what felt like a hive! Bumps began to ride along the edge of my molars and migrate towards the each other up towards the roof. It was not comfortable. I had to stop eating. I was surprisingly full eating about half and didn’t feel the need to clean my plate like usual when I order a salad for dinner.
The swelling eventually went down and I’m not sure what it was that made my body react but I can’t help but think it must have been the fish, cheese or perhaps dressing on my salad.
In the weeks since, I have continued to eat less meat. It’s really odd. I’ve been trying to compensate by adding nuts, beans, and hummus to my salads.
As for my weight, the week prior to cleansing I weighed around 132 lbs. After Thanksgiving weekend, I weighed in around 134.5 lbs. After the third day of the cleanse, I was at 131 lbs. The weight gained from Thanksgiving I know was just stored carbs and water. I would have lost it anyway within the week, it just happened in 3-days thanks to the cleanse. This week it’s still around 132 lbs.
Would I do it again? Yes, but I would prefer 1 or 2 days only. I would also like to try my friend Rebekah’s cleanse, The Ripe Stuff. I tried her green juice at our event at The Bar Method and prefer it to BP Cleanse. It’s not as tart. She offers 1 or 2 day cleanses. I think the third day was a little extreme for me. I felt deprived and began to dream about food literally, waking up in the middle of the night. This has the opposite effect on me. While I wanted veggies when I finished, I still wanted the cookie I couldn’t have for the past 3 days.
A 3-day cleanse is not just 3 days. It’s also the 3 days before and the week after they want you to eat like a vegan! This is attractive to me, but not realistic this time of year.
As far as the taste goes, I liked all the juices. I did hear about one terrible reaction to the beet juice from BP Cleanse and a YouTube user commented to share that some people are very sensitive to raw beet juice. From gagging to extreme vomiting, be careful. I opted for the second level with BluePrint which doesn’t include the beet juice.
I would recommend a cleanse to someone who WANTED to try it. I don’t think you NEED it. Your body naturally detoxes itself. I did not do the colon cleanse thing either that many program recommend you do. That sounded a bit too much, too soon I think for me. I would NOT recommend a cleanse to someone who wanted to lose weight. I think it would be a good kick off to a weight loss program but I don’t think it should be done with the sole intention of losing weight.
Did I miss something you wanted to know? Let me know down below. I’m probably going to do another after the new year with The Ripe Stuff! It helps to have people join in on the fun, so if you are interested in doing it together leave a comment.
Thank you so much for posting in detail about the cleanse, I’m going to try an at home version soon using my juicer and blender. I did wonder if this had any ummm ill effects on your digestion during your juicing? All that liquid with all those nutrients would make me prone to stay near a clean restroom lol just curious (even though it may be tmi)
Great question and I should have seen that one coming! haha. NO. I didn’t. I do not have a sensitive stomach however. I did have to pee a bunch but to be honest, I usually do anyway.
I really enjoyed reading this, so thank you! I hate the idea of people thinking cleanses are an absolute MUST and will help them lose weight .. I really like your well-rounded description of the cleansing process and I think your attitude is great! 🙂
Thanks Ashley! It was a fun experiment to do on myself. I was shocked I could do it. Taught me a little about self control and listening to my body.
I have been toying with the idea of doing a cleanse for after the holiday season where I have just been eating everything in site and none of its been healthy! Good tip about the prep work before the cleanse…
Crazy how your body reacts when you do cleanses right? My friends did the whole 30 and it changed them they can’t eat certain things anymore their body reacts so bad now, especially sushi, and dairy. It’s crazy. Thanks for sharing though. Whole foods sells these now I wanted to try one.
I saw them at Whole Foods which is why I chose to review that specific one. I love promoting small/local juice companies but I think people have been choosing to do their own juicing or finding a local deal. I haven’t had any reactions again, but actually the salad did have seaweed salad in it… I think it was a salt thing. I don’t know but I haven’t had sushi yet.
Great review! I just did the Cooler Cleanse and I loved it! I was also dreaming about kale on day 3! LOL!
I was giving serious thought to doing an at-home cleanse (found a cheat for the BPC recipes online!), because, while I need to lose weight, I’ve been feeling run down, and moody, and my skin has been breaking out like mad lately. I’ve heard cleansing can help with all three issues. Kind of like a reset button. It was nice to see your experience with it.
🙂
From personal experience, dairy and sugar make me break out. I can never be dairy free though. I love froyo and cheese too much. Everything else though I could leave haha.
Hey Sarah! I’ve been interested in doing a cleanse and since you were doing the Blueprint Cleanse I looked it up and it is EXPENSIVE! Wow! Are there any cleanses that you know of that are more affordable?
I’m going to try Ripe Stuff after the holidays too! Do you know if they’re doing another promotion?
I believe my promo should still work for 10% off but I will ask if they are doing others. My promo code is SarahFit10% -- I don’t get any commission on it, I promise 🙂 haha.
Hi, Sarah! Thank you for sharing your interesting experience. I am planning to do some sort of cleanse after the New Year too to chick start my weight loss. The cleanse I plan on doing lasts for a week but includes juicing just in the first day. Then you have to eat just fruits for the second day, just vegetables for the third day and the following days include all these foods but with a focus on nuts and fish. It seemed appealing to me because I do not want to do something which involves just juicing for a couple of days, I couldn’t do it, and this cleanse program seems to follow the principle of the dissociated diet which again I do not want to do for a longer period of time, but I would like to try it somehow to see how it goes.
Have a Happy New Year and Merry Christmas!
That sounds like a cleanse I should try! What’s the name?
It does not have a name from what I have seen. I found it on a Romanian diet&health website (I am from Romania), but they do not give any other reference about it.
Very informative! I don’t think I would have known about the pre/post cleanse recommendations but it makes sense. Doing a 1 or 2 day cleanse is something I want to do in the new year.
Thanks so much for giving your feedback. I have been going back and forth on doing a BP cleanse, now I am going to look up your friends! It is nice to hear some advice from someone who has done it. I just stumbled on your blog and I love it especially because I am in the Boston area too! Hope to bump into you one day
xx
Justine
Hi Sarah! I really liked both your blog posts and your video, and I have considered doing a cleanse myself. I just wondered if you get enough calories? I do NOT count calories (and will not, because of personal bad experiences), but I just wandered if you get enough, because as I could on the BP website, you would only get around 800 calories a day from the BP juices.
Laura 🙂
So yeah, it’s not a lot of calories but I did it. I was under the impression though that mine had 1200 calories… you are allowed to have 1/4 of an avocado. My friend that owns The Ripe Stuff also allows her cleansers to have a few almonds as well if you are concerned. I was nervous but I did it and survived. I did not notice a difference in my metabolism afterwards.
I’m halfway through day 2 of of the Ripe Stuff Cleanse (learned about it from this post…) I’m STRUGGLING… I’m not hungry, but I’m tired and kind of blah… I did the Clean Cleanse last year (IT IS AMAZING!) but never a juice only. I’m going to stick to it, the literature says it is most effective if you just drink the juices, so I figure if I’m 1/2 way I can make it… I actually just went back and reread your post for inspiration 🙂 I cardio (arc trainer) and yoga last night, yoga this AM and was planning on a spin class tomorrow -- that is not happening!
Thanks again -- you’re great -- I just found your blog and really like it.
-Christine
Thanks Christine. When I do the cleanses I do NOT do cardio. Drink plenty of water and you can have a little good fat. I had some avocado and raw almonds when I did the Ripe Stuff. You can have some celery too. You could be tired because you are rehydrated or the physical activity is too much. Yoga is fine but I would recommend to avoid spinning tomorrow too 🙂 YOU CAN DO IT. You can do anything for just 3 (or 2 days).
SUGAR WARNING! How can they say that this is healthy and especially cancer fighting? Cancer LOVES sugar! I did some quick calculations. This is not healthy and will send many bodies into shock. There are 48 teaspoons of sugar in a CUP and the “Renovation” cleanse has 45 teaspoons of sugar A DAY! Nearly a cup of sugar a day is not a cleanse or detoxing. It literally is toxic. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 26 grams of sugar per day for women, or 36 grams per day for men.
Green 28
Gold 45
Red 37
White 21
Yellow 21
Renovation 180 grams — 45 teaspoons of sugar
28
45
28
21
37
21
Foundation 171 grams — 42.75 teaspoons of sugar
28
45
28
21
28
21
Excavation 154 grams --38.5 teaspoons of sugar
28
28
28
21
28
21