It’s become popular to do a cleanse, where you change your diet for a short period of time to eliminate toxins and reset your body, bringing you to a place of good health to jump off from and start treating yourself right. Most cleanses that you hear of are juice cleanses, and typically you have to ONLY drink juice for several days in a row. That to me sounds more like fasting, something I can’t do because I am fairly hypoglycemic, and would feel so lightheaded and sick after not eating for even more than a few hours in a row.

On the other hand, the 7-day cleanse included in the Arbonne 30 Days to Healthy Living kit (which can also be purchased separately from the kit), is MUCH more gentle on your body than the typical cleanse, and allows you to continue eating food during it! Yay!

All you do is fill a 32-oz pitcher or water bottle with the one ounce packet of supplement, and drink throughout the day, alternating with pure water to help your colon wash out all the toxins that the cleanse is pulling out. There are other ways to do the cleanse, but the easiest for me to remember is just to do it for seven days in a row. It’s great to be aware of what else you’re putting in your body at this time, as you do not want to add extra toxins* that your body will have to eliminate. I make sure to not have dairy, gluten, alcohol, or other food items my body finds it hard to process. It’s also helpful to drink Detox Tea and Digestion Plus, but I’ve done without them as well.

The last time I did the cleanse (a year or two ago), I was already eliminating dairy and other culprits from my diet and eating well overall, so I didn’t notice too much of a change, other than feeling extra great at the end of it. This time I know my body had some toxins to eliminate (umm, too much candy over the holidays, eating gluten here and there, lots of fries and dairy).

So how did I feel? Pretty good! My stomach felt a little rumbly, almost like I had eaten too much ice cream, and at times it felt a little weak, like I was getting sick. The thing is, I actually was getting sick towards the end of it. The last day of my cleanse week I started coming down with a cold that Whit was getting too. You aren’t supposed to do the cleanse while you’re sick or on your period (great, both happened to me the last day), and that wasn’t an awesome combination so I ended up splitting the last day into two days to make it a little easier for my body to process. That said, it was definitely worth it, and not too bad compared to what you would probably feel during a typical cleanse. To me, feeling a little less than perfect just meant that it was working, and I was able to see results.

The results? You are supposed to have good bowel movements (let’s not elaborate on that too much), which I would say I did. As in, I could tell that there was stuff my body needed to get rid of. Okay, moving on. I did end up losing some weight! Ironically, right at the beginning of the week I weighed my scale and complained to Whit, “Will I EVER lose any weight??” And it just took a little extra push, from the cleanse, to do just that. I lost 2-3 pounds just from the cleanse that week, which made me feel great, because I hadn’t been seeing much weight loss at all prior to that.

The only difficulty I had was trying to drink SO MANY THINGS while doing the cleanse. The 30 Days to Healthy Living encourages drinking a smoothie once or twice a day (for meal replacement), digestion plus (for probiotics), detox tea, fizzy, and you are supposed to alternate 32 oz of regular water with the cleanse. I do not know how anyone could drink that much, period! So I did have a little trouble getting all the pure water in between, and maybe I would have had even better results if I had skipped some of the other drinks and just focused on doing that.

Either way, I highly recommend this if you are looking for a gentle way to eliminate toxins from your body!

*One other word of advice is if you are trying to do a detox, you HAVE to be aware of every other thing you’re putting on or in your body that might contain toxins – i.e. skincare and cosmetic products! Use Arbonne or other products free from phlalates, parabens, mineral oil, animal by-products, artificial colors/flavors, preservatives, etc.

Happy Detoxing!