Dr. Oz 3 Day Detox Cleanse Review

First off, I’ll explain what this detox is all about.
It is 3 days long, and you drink 3 meal smoothies + 1 snack smoothie throughout the day (and you can’t eat food or drink anything other than water). You also drink a detox tea in the morning, take supplements and vitamins throughout the day, and take a detox bath before bed. Above I have included a one-sheet version of this detox. You can find the rest of the article about this detox here.

Now, let’s get to the review!
I did this detox with my father, and we started the day after Christmas. We both wanted to remove the harmful toxins from our bodies caused by chemicals in our food and water as well as environmental pollutants, and decided this would be a safe and fun cleanse. We had a lot of fun doing it, and i highly recommend it to everybody!

Day 1:

I woke up pretty late (around 1:00 PM) so we didn’t end up having our tea and breakfast smoothie until pretty late. The breakfast smoothie was pretty yummy and easy to throw together. Afterwards, my dad and I went shopping for the ingredients we needed for the next few days. It wasn’t cheap; especially the vitamins/supplements, plus we had to double all of the ingredients, and we bought all organic. We got home, took our supplements, then I made our lunch smoothie. It was quite a hassle to prepare and took about 20 minutes. It is made up of mostly vegetables and we hadn’t frozen any of our fruit beforehand for this smoothie. It made way too big of an amount for either of us to finish and it tasted disgusting to be honest, plus we didn’t use our best blender so it was quite chunky and bitter. I basically had to force myself to chug it down. At this point, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to continue with the cleanse, but I wanted to do good for my body, so I stuck with it. I looked online for some suggestions for enhancing the taste of the lunch smoothie, and planned to work on it the following day. I am a vegan, so it was difficult to find an omega-3 supplement without fish oil, but I found out we had some vegan-friendly omega-3 oil at home, so instead of taking supplement pills, I just put some of the oil in our lunch smoothies. I found myself doing lots of cleaning on days 1 and 2, as I felt very motivated. Later on, I made the dinner smoothie and it was very strange but actually pretty tasty! The cayenne pepper kick was different and definitely intense but I didn’t mind it at all! (If you don’t like spice – just remind yourself of all the glorious things it will do to your body!) After drinking this smoothie, my body was craving water like crazy. I drank about 4 glasses within an hour or two! I also found myself urinating A LOT, and took it as a good sign that the detox was working. I ended up feeling exhausted around 7:30 PM, so I took my detox bath. I absolutely love baths, so this was definitely my favourite part of the day! My skin felt amazing and I felt so relaxed! I felt great afterwards and got into bed early. I was quite hungry while trying to sleep as I had skipped my snack due to the fact that I had woken up so late. i slept like a baby once I finally fell asleep.

Day 2:

I woke up early (8 AM) because I had to open at work. I had a much easier time waking up than on most days. I was looking forward to the breakfast smoothie, as it became my favourite. I had my detox tea (I put two lemon slices instead of one in my tea, and it was not good after I had just brushed my teeth, but I drank it anyways). I prepared the breakfast and lunch smoothies for us, using our more powerful blender. It made a huge difference! I drank my delicious breakfast smoothie, and headed to work with my lunch smoothie in a jar. Working was difficult, as I work at a vegan restaurant with incredibly delicious food, so I really really wanted a burger, but I resisted. I got hungry around noon, so I had my lunch smoothie. I made a couple small adjustments to make it taste better, and it REALLY worked! I actually quite enjoyed it! (I will explain what I did in the “tips” section at the end of this review). I was still pretty hungry after finishing my smoothie, because I didn’t have enough space in my jar to take my whole half of the batch with me. When I got home, I realized I didn’t have enough frozen raspberries to make the breakfast smoothie as my snack (for your snack, you repeat your favourite smoothie). The one-sheet on the Dr. Oz website does not account for the snack smoothie, so if you’re doing the detox, make sure you are aware of this! I got home and made my snack smoothie around 4 PM, and my dad just had the leftovers from the lunch smoothie as his snack. I whipped up the dinner smoothie for us as he was going out and I put mine in the fridge for when I was ready to drink it. I ended up drinking it between 7 and 10, very slowly. I wanted it to last so I wouldn’t have to go to bed feeling hungry again. Somebody ordered vegan baking from me, so I had to bake 2 of my best things (carrot cake and nanaimo bars.. *drool*). It was SO hard to resist licking the spoons and testing it out.. and the smell of the carrot cake baking in the oven made me want to cry. BUT I DID IT! I RESISTED! I sipped on my smoothie throughout the evening and kept distracted. I had my detox bath a little later than the previous night. I definitely felt pretty hungry and a bit tired all day, but nothing too serious. It wasn’t even exactly hunger, I just never felt full. I guess I’m just used to feeling full when I eat, but I never felt like that on day 2. I could still do everything I normally do and I never felt like I was going to pass out or anything like that. I was very thirsty again after my dinner smoothie and bath and was still frequently urinating. I missed the idea of eating and chewing foods. My energy was a bit low but not a whole lot lower than usual (I generally don’t have much energy anyways). This was the hardest day for me, but it really wasn’t so bad.

Day 3:

I had another wonderful sleep and woke up feeling refreshed. I felt pretty good and found my breakfast smoothie quite filling, which was interesting because yesterday I felt hungry all day. It was a lazy day for me, so I just sat around watching movies with my dad. I prepared our lunch, snack, and dinner all at once over the course of about an hour so I could store them in the fridge for later and take my snack and dinner to work with me. At this point, I was actually finding the cleanse to be fun and enjoyable, but was still looking forward to eating food again! I perfected all the smoothies so I found them all quite delicious. I had my snack at work but didn’t end up being hungry for dinner while I was working. I worked late and ended up having my dinner smoothie when I got home at about midnight and was finished with my bath by about 1 AM. I remember sitting in the bath and having a sort of revelation. I was looking in the mirror and I just thought “this is the skin I am in, and always will be in, and I should love myself and be proud every single day just to be alive.”I went to bed as soon as I finished my bath and I had the most amazing sleep of my life.

Day 4 (after the cleanse):

I felt so well rested when I woke up the next day (although I had to open at work so I only actually had 6 hours of sleep). I weighed myself in the morning and to my surprise, I lost 9 pounds. Although weight loss was not my goal, it’s pretty great! I noticed my body looked more slim, my skin was clearer, and my mood was definitely great (and lately I have been quite depressed). I have been struggling with an eating disorder for many years, but throughout this cleanse it was like that voice in my head was completely silenced. Eating solid food again brought it back a bit, but it is much less horrible than it was before. I can honestly say this cleanse helped me boost my self confidence and fight my eating disorder.I felt extremely energetic (in a good way) and productive at work. I honestly felt absolutely incredible the day after my cleanse was done (which is today, the day I am writing this review. Hopefully these results stick!) I had a ton of positive results from this cleanse and can see myself doing it again many times in the future. I would even say I really felt “cleansed.” I recommend this cleanse to everybody!

Benefits:

Increased energy (mostly once the cleanse was complete)
Healthier hair
Clearer skin
Less “flab” (felt/looked slimmer)
Weight loss
Felt “cleansed”
Increased attention span, concentration, motivation
Elevated mood
Stronger immune system (my partner and my family had the flu and I was around them and did not get sick; I truly believe it’s because I was detoxing!)
Better breath
Clearer thinking
Boosted self-esteem
The cleanse was actually quite easy, and the smoothies all tasted good (the lunch one just needed a few tiny adjustments, which I will talk about in the tips below)
Decreased stress, anxiety, and depression
Aided with eating disorder recovery
No bloating
No stomachaches or heartburn

Tips:

Buy as many organic ingredients as possible. The idea of this detox is to cleanse your body of toxins, which you consume in the chemicals sprayed on and injected into non-organic foods. It isn’t cheap, but it is worth it!
Remember that the one-sheet on the Dr. Oz website does not account for the snack smoothies.
Freeze all of your fruits ahead of time. For the breakfast smoothie, I froze the raspberries and bananas. For the lunch smoothie, I froze the pineapple and green apple. For the dinner smoothie, I froze the blueberries and mango. When your smoothie is ice cold, it tastes much better.
Add a handful of ice to your smoothies and scale back the liquid a bit.
To make the lunch smoothie taste better: use a small cucumber (if it is large, just use half). Instead of using a whole lime, use pure organic lime juice (2-4 tsp worked for me). Instead of using 4 stalks of celery, try 2 or 3. Scale back the kale as well (do not pack it into your measuring cup). Be sure to chop up your vegetables (especially the celery and cucumber) into small pieces and wash your kale thoroughly. As I mentioned above, freeze the pineapple and apples for this smoothie.
If you are vegan or vegetarian and having trouble finding fish-free omega-3 supplements, try Udo’s Oil. I just put a few teaspoons of this in my lunch smoothie each day.
When the recipes call for flaxseed, use flaxseed meal (ground up flaxseed; you can make your own by simply adding flaxseed to a blender or coffee grinder and blending to a fine meal). This eliminates the crunchiness of the smoothie and helps disguise the flaxy taste.
If you can’t stand the cayenne pepper in the dinner smoothie (which I actually enjoyed!) I heard some people say they poured a shot of the smoothie into a cup and mixed in all the cayenne pepper into that shot and took it that way, so that they could enjoy the rest of their smoothie cayenne-free.
Drink A LOT of water. This will help your body eliminate toxins!
Drink your dinner smoothie late in the evening, around 7 or 8 PM. This helps fight the midnight munchies. It is hard to sleep when you are hungry, and you want the dinner smoothie to be your last meal of the day. Also, do not skip the snack smoothie!
Do not skip the supplements, vitamins, bath, or tea. These are essential parts of the detox!
Buy your epsom salts in bulk (I got 10 pounds for $12!)
Try to do this detox when you have 3 days off. It’s easiest if you’re at home!
Do your best not to cheat! I did it and you can too!
The smoothies take a while (10-25 minutes) to prepare. Ensure you have enough time to prepare each smoothie. If you will be in a rush, prepare the smoothies ahead of time and store them in the refrigerator in airtight containers or jars. It is best to keep them fresh, so try not to prepare them more than one day in advance.
Stay distracted so you will not be thinking too much about food. Avoid cooking/baking for others while cleansing.
Soak in the epsom salt bath for at least 10 minutes, otherwise your body will not release the toxins.
Do the detox with a friend or family member. It makes it much easier and more fun to share the experience and your thoughts with someone.
Day 2 is the hardest. Just keep going!
Eat healthy for a couple weeks prior to doing the cleanse. I pretty much always eat healthy, so that may have been why I found this cleanse quite easy and didn’t really have cravings. If you generally don’t eat healthy, this may be a bit more of a challenge.
Save yourself time by rinsing out and filling your blender with hot water and dish soap to soak after each use.