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.
