When I hear the word cleanse, I generally want to run the other direction. It makes me think not eating or eating only one thing. I've done a couple of juice cleanses (which weren't awful), and I've heard of some bizarre cleanses like eating only apples. But the fact of the matter is, I like food...a lot. I'm not really cool with eating only apples or drinking all of my meals for multiple days. And I'm REALLLLYY not cool with starving myself which I will admit I have kind of felt on some juice cleanses I've done.
So when I first heard about Newport Beach Cleanse, my initial reaction was NOPE. But I kept reading..."eating plan", okay, so there's food..."organic, non-gmo, gluten, soy, and dairy free", you have my attention..."healthy not hungry" SOLD! I was super intrigued now. I haven't really heard of a "cleanse" that emphasizes eating, so I wanted to know more.
A little side note. If I'm being completely open and honest, I have definitely been a little more off than usual this summer. But at the same time, it's summer! It's a time where you can do things outside, spend time with friends, and sometimes that might mean indulging a bit with food or drinking. A couple of my best friends also moved into a new apartment in Philly, so there has been celebrating. And summer concerts are pretty much my favorite thing, which generally also means beer and not so healthy food sometimes. And that's okay. That is LIFE. It's not realistic to be like I'm never going to indulge, especially in times of celebration or with friends.
So the idea of this cleanse came at the perfect time. It seems like the perfect way to kind of reshape the last few weeks of summer and get things back on track. Plus the real idea behind a (good) cleanse is to get rid of toxins, reduce inflammation, and reset the body a bit, all things that I can definitely get behind.
After learning a little bit more about the cleanse over at their website, for instance, that it was created by a holistic nutritionist who believes in healing through food and all of the goals and benefits of this cleanse, I was in. Without going into too much detail, you can eat whenever you want. If you're hungry, eat! This cleanse just really aims to get rid of the obvious negative things you might be putting into your body and also removes anything that might be causing inflammation. You still eat (tons of) vegetables, fruit, protein (animal and/or plant), certain oils, spices. The list of food you can each is MUCH longer than the list of things you can't. You can also exercise, something I have found difficult during other cleanses due to lack of energy. It's actually an important part of the cleanse. So overall this cleanse seems helpful and most importantly practical.
I received the Newport Beach Cleanse Kit which includes all of the necessary supplements for the cleanse, the Newport Beach Cleanse manual, and a shaker bottle. The manual includes the guidelines of the cleanse among a number of other useful tools like a measurement chart and lots of recipes. I used it to meal plan so that I'd be fully prepared at the start of the cleanse. I also took my measurements yesterday so that I can compare them at the end. The main goal of this cleanse for me isn't weight loss (although it does help with that). It's really about resetting my body, resetting my cravings, ridding my body of toxins, and reducing inflammation. I am, however, still interested to see how it does affect my body overall in a measurable way.
So here we go. I'm going to be sharing my experience throughout the cleanse over on Instagram (@allroadsleadtohealthy) and Snapchat (allroadshealthy). I hope to share some basic and still delicious recipes along the way. There will be a fair amount of smoothies/shakes involved, so I will try to mix content up as much as possible. But most importantly I want to be real and transparent throughout this. I'll do another blog post recapping my experience at the end and share any measurable changes just to give you an idea.
If you're interested in giving the cleanse a try yourself, you can learn more about it here. They've also been kind enough to give me a coupon code to offer you for $30 off the cleanse kit. The code is: 13813, and you just enter it at checkout. Definitely feel free to leave me a comment here or on Instagram if you decide to give it a try because I'm very interested in hearing about your experience!
