CLEAN Cleanse

What is the Clean Cleanse?

The Clean Cleanse is a 21-day complete body detox. During these 3 weeks, the Clean Cleanse requires you to do a 3 key things:

  1. Take Cleanse Supplements.  Jumpstart your own body’s own detoxification process by taking a few natural supplements aimed to remove toxins. Replenish your body with nutrients that helps aid in digestion and support your liver and digestive system as you detox.
  2. Eat from the Elimination Diet. Avoid foods that are common allergens and only eat from the Elimination Diet list. This allows you to help identify if there are certain foods that causes your body to react poorly as you re-introduce those foods back into your system post-cleanse.
  3. Liquid Breakfast & Dinner. Aid your body in detox and digestion by having a liquid breakfast and dinner. It takes your body at least 8 hours to fully digest food, so by drinking dinner, it helps your body quickly breakdown and absorb the nutrients that you need and helps kick the digestive system into detox mode. You also have to allow 12 hours between dinner and breakfast so that your body has time to completely digest from dinner and kick into detox mode every evening.

Why Cleanse?

I believe that I already lead a pretty healthy lifestyle. I exercise regularly, I don’t drink soda or eat a ton of processed foods. Also, I love to cook with fresh ingredients so that means no canned or frozen pre-made meals for me.

Even then, I know that I can be doing healthier things for myself – but what does that really mean? Two years ago, I heard about the Clean Cleanse from a few coworkers who were doing it. Not knowing too much about it, I did some research and read Dr. Junger’s book, Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself. I really liked how Clean opened my mind to think about my body in a more holistic view. Living Clean is a part of a lifestyle, and to cleanse for three weeks can help break old habits.

There are many sources of toxins in our modern day living. Do you feel like there’s enough hours in the day for you to do everything you need to do? Me neither. Being busy often comes with a side of convenience in the form of fast food and grab ‘n go snacks. While your body is built to break down those foods, over time, whatever toxins your body doesn’t digest or process will build up and collect in your body.

Imagine the preservatives that are added to keep a bag of cookies fresh in your cupboard for months at a time. Whatever that’s helping keep those cookies fresh and not decomposing in the bag is also now in your body. Those preservatives make it really hard for your body to digest. Over time, those cookies will probably break down, after all, our bodies are pretty strong. But it takes time, and the more energy that your body spends on breaking down those cookies, the less energy it can spend on help your body detox completely.

This is where the Clean Cleanse comes in. By putting foods that are easy for your body to digest, you’re making sure that you’re keeping enough nutrients and energy to go on with your day to day, but also giving some time for your body to flush out the gunk that’s been collected over the years.

How do I get started on the Clean Cleanse?

After doing the cleanse once a year for the past 5 years, I’ve collected a good amount of information about this cleanse, and have blogged enough about it that I’m able to tell you that it’s very doable. The program is designed to not mess with your daily routine too much, you’ll eat enough so you won’t be starving and grumpy all the time.
On this cleanse, I’ve been able to still continue taking spin class and do other workouts at the gym. If you put your mind to it, it’s 100% doable and you will notice a change in your energy levels, your mood, and most importantly, your body.
Here’s a few things to help get you started:
  1. Buy foods from the Elimination Diet List. Here is my grocery list – it is a great place to start as you’re buying food for the cleanse. You can also print out the entire Elimination Diet Guide from the folks at Clean.
  2. Prepare the supplements for your detox. There are two ways to do the Clean cleanse. The first is to buy the Clean Kit which costs upwards to $450 for the three weeks. Since that’s a bit pricey for me, I’ve done research on a DIY supplement list. Check out my guide for Supplements for a DIY Clean Cleanse. In total, I usually spend around $100-$150 on my supplements.
  3. Knowledge is Power, read the book! I believe that it’s always good to know and understand the reasons behind why you’re doing this cleanse. Clean was definitely a great way to get my head in the right place as I started and continued to do my cleanse. I felt like the more I learned, the more motivated I felt to guide my body through the three weeks.

Every time I complete the cleanse, I see great results from it – an increase in energy levels, reduce my percentage of body fat by > 5% and lose 5-10 pounds, plus just feel better overall. I can’t rave about this cleanse enough, and hopefully you find some of the information that I’ve posted on here useful to you as you begin cleansing.

Additional Resources

  • My CLEAN Diaries – I’ve done the cleanse 3 times now and have blogged about it each time. This is a great resource for you to see what being on the cleanse is like, and some tips I’ve learned along the way.
  • My CLEAN Recipes – Some recipes to get you started!