The Blonde Vegan 5-Day Cleanse: Final Recap

The Blonde Vegan 5-Day Cleanse was a completely plant based, vegan cleanse developed by blogger The Blonde Vegan. I'm incredibly grateful to her for putting forth so much effort to make this cleanse possible, and provide all the cleansers with motivation and tools for success. I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend Jeff, and my good friend Lauren of Lauren Lives Healthy participating in the cleanse with me. We were all involved in a group email thread and got to speak with the other cleansers about their experience with the program. It was really interesting to read other people's reactions, setbacks and successes they had with the cleanse. I definitely felt a sense of community, and it was great to have that extra support from people going through the exact same thing I was experiencing.

I wanted to do a cleanse, especially after the holidays, because it seemed like the perfect thing to do to get rid of the holiday bloat and give our bodies and digestive systems a healthy reboot. We chose this cleanse above all the others out there because neither of us have done a cleanse before, and this one in particular involved solid foods instead of only liquids. (Plus, I'm a huge fan of The Blonde Vegan!)  I am a very new vegan myself, and I'm still getting used to incorporating fresh vegetables into my diet. This cleanse had PLENTY of vegetables, some I had never tried before, so it was a great way for me to get introduced to different ways of cooking veggies that I could enjoy on a regular basis. I tend to get weighed down by food because I overeat at times, or I don't eat the right things for my body. This cleanse had perfect portions (for me, anyway, Jeff disagrees)  and I was consistently satisfied with the food. Jeff recommended that for a bigger guy interested in doing the cleanse, he should consider upping the portion sizes a bit, or incorporating nuts and berries as a snack between meals to help hold him over. There were a couple of recipes we substituted with recipes from other days due to preference, but we both still felt we got the results we were looking for.

The hardest part was all of the prep work involved. Each night after I made dinner, Jeff and I chopped, blended, juiced and prepared all of our meals for the next day. This is very time consuming. By the time  we were done, it was close to bed time and I went straight to sleep. Now that I know what to expect,  next time I do the cleanse I will spend the Sunday before doing the preparation for all 5 days. This way, the only thing I need to do in the evenings is juice or blend everything together and be done.

The results were better than I was expecting! Even though the purpose for doing this wasn't about weight loss, I still weighed myself on the morning of Day 1, and again the day after the cleanse ended.  I lost about 4 lbs and noticed all of my bloat was gone.  Jeff said he was back to his pre-holiday weight, and felt his clothes were fitting better. Both of us felt amazing and energized!

Now that I have one cleanse under my belt, I am definitely open to trying others to compare. If you've done a cleanse before, or have any advice, let me know in the comments below!