I Tried Dr. Oz's Health Cleanse Program, But The Only Thing I Cleaned Out Was My Fridge

This past weekend, I tried Dr. Oz's three-day cleanse, which consists of eating four healthy shakes a day. This detox program is supposed to clean out your system, but the only thing I cleaned out was my fridge, eating everything in sight. Here's why:  

This cleanse basically amounts to going on a liquid diet for three days, drinking homemade shakes consisting of fruits, vegetables and items found in the health food section of the grocery store like coconut oil and flaxseeds. Instead of three days, I decided to do just two, which sounds fairly easy, right?

The problem is that any liquid diet requires an enormous amount of discipline and self-control. It's not exactly exciting to wake up in the morning and realize, "Instead of bacon and eggs, I get to have a shake made out of celery, kale and cucumbers!"

Rather than follow Dr. Oz's detox program to the tee, I "cheated" and ate more than I would have otherwise. The reason I ended up overeating on this detox program is the same reason why some people end up gaining weight when they switch to a vegetarian diet: you overeat to compensate for feeling deprived of "real" food.

The health shakes on Dr. Oz's detox program actually taste pretty good and are surprisingly filling, since they contain a lot of whole foods - a whole banana, a whole cucumber, four big celery stalks, et cetera. But in order to prevent feeling hungry while on the program, in addition to the shakes, I also ate several slices of bread slathered with almond butter and a whole carton of hummus, with chips for dipping. And that was just on Saturday.

Sunday was the day when I really went off the rails. It probably wasn't a good idea to go on this detox program while working on a big writing project (read my most recent post about the book-in-progress on the legendary All Jokes Aside comedy club by clicking this link: http://chrisbournea.blogspot.com/2014/09/all-jokes-journal-avoiding-predictable.html). I justified going off the detox program and eating a lot of bread, a protein bar, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and black bean soup because I was expending so much energy throughout the writing process.  

So, basically, instead of the liquid diet that Dr. Oz's detox program outlines, I just went vegetarian for two days, supplementing the health shakes with extra snacks and meatless meals.

In addition to self-control, Dr. Oz's detox program also takes a lot of planning. In order to stick to the program, you have to either decline lunch or dinner invitations or have your health shake before or after you meet up with friends and family. Or, you could take your shake with you to the restaurant where you're meeting up and explain that you can't eat solid food because you're cleansing your body - and hopefully your mind and spirit along with it.

Would I do Dr. Oz's detox program again? Yes and no. I'll take parts of the program and adjust them to a more sensible way of eating. Maybe I'll set aside a day to go vegetarian and use one or two of the shakes as a healthy snack or as meal replacements for breakfast or lunch. 

Unless you're going to move to a Buddhist monastery or check yourself into a remote resort where everyone is "detoxing" and doing yoga, sticking to a liquid diet is about as realistic as deciding to live off a feeding tube.