HEALTH: Review "Happy Cleansing" Detox Diet by Rens Kroes

Hi guys! Last week I did for the first time a three-day Juice Cleanse. That means I haven’t eaten anything for three days (from Monday to Wednesday) and have lived on juices and smoothies. In this post I wanted to share the recipes I’ve used, my experience with the detox diet, and the final result. Enjoy!

                                     

First of all, why would people do a detox? Well, it’s actually very simple: by drinking only juices from fruits and vegetables for three whole days, your body can rest, reset and recharge. So a detox is actually a kind of reset period for your metabolic system.

Many people think a juice cleanse is solely about losing weight, but that is not the case. Because you’re not eating anything for three days, it’s inevitable that you lose some weight (within one or two kilos), but that’s surely not the main goal.

The idea

For a while I had thoughts about doing a detox diet. I was curious and I wanted to experience myself what it would be like to only eat foods in liquid form for three days, if I would feel healthier afterwards and if my face was really going to get a nice glow as many sources claim.

When I recently saw on YouTube a Detox Vlog from Annemerelcom my curiosity only increased. As soon as my test week was over and I nearly had an empty schedule, I decided to cut the knot and do a hardcore three-day Juice Cleanse!

Cleanse recipes

I have gone on to find recipes to produce the juices completely myself. I didn’t want to order a complete ready-made detox programme to save money (such detox programme is pricey). But also just because making the juices myself seemed quite fun to me.

After some research I finally end up with a juice cleanse from Rens Kroes (link) via renskroes.com. Rens Kroes (whose surname might sound familiar, because yes, she is the sister of top model Doutzen Kroes, but that aside) is a Dutch nutritionist and author. On her blog renskroes.com she shares for example lots of healthy recipes and tips for a healthy lifestyle. Also, on writing area beside her blog she published a month ago her second cookbook! Shortly, Rens Kroes is following the path of success!

Anyway, because of her healthy spirit I decided to follow her detox programme. One day out of her programme consists of six different juices and smoothies that you have to drink one by one every two hours. In between, you have to drink a lot of water and at the end of the day you have to drink chamomile tea with ginger. You repeat this for three days so in total you consume eighteen juices/smoothies. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Preparation

Because I didn’t want to engage with the blender during my detox, I started the weekend in advance with the preparations. With a very long shopping list I went on my bike to greengrocer and came back home with two large bags filled with fruit and vegetables. Apart from that I needed some spices and six one-liter water bottles that I bought at the regular supermarket. The water bottles I used to store the juices in, for lack of small juice bottles. In total, all the supplies together cost me around 25 euros.

After I stocked all the supplies, I got to work with my blender. Saturday I made the first three juices/smoothies and Sunday the last three.

For the rest, I used as regards kitchen devices only a blender. Beside a blender, a slow juicer is recommended by many sources, but I managed just fine with my beloved blender.

Experience

Thank God, I managed to succeed the three-day Juice Cleanse! I’m very proud of myself that I didn’t give up! Not without difficulties though, but I’ll come to that later. Below I will give my opinion of the juices, how I experienced the non-eating part and the results that you can see with the naked eye.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like most of the juices. That’s because I 1) was during the making process sometimes a little too enthusiastic with certain ingredients, like parsley and fennel bulbs, so the taste of these products became very dominant and made the juices not really tasty and 2) beet and red cabbage (the cabbage as a replacement for the parsnip, which they don’t sell during this time of the year) I’ll probably never like. Before it sounds like I run the entire Juice Cleanse down, I want to say that the fact that I didn’t like the juices have nothing to do with her Juice Cleanse, but it depends just really on your taste if you like it or not…

Anyway, because I wasn’t too happy with the juices, I often drank them only half way because I couldn’t get them through my throat. Therefore I had on the last day so little energy that I thought it was wiser to eat something. Of course something healthy!

Luckily, there were two juices I did like! Those were Shot of Joy and Happy Belly. I even think I’m going to make Shot of Joy more often, because it’s such a healthy and refreshing start of the day!

The non-eating part was contrary to my expectation not that difficult. The first and second day I had no problem with it. Of course, it’s tempting to see and smell food, but I could easily resist. The third day was as I explained above, an exception. But in general I wouldn’t worry about the non-eating part because it’s really not that hard (if you drink just all of your juice).

I was actually the most curious about the result. Do you actually lose weight and obtain a healthy skin? And would you feel cleaned afterwards and completely zen? Well, let’s see if detoxing is really as good as they say…

I was very thrilled to see that I really lost two kilos. Of course, when you start to eat again you gain some weight, but it’s still a pretty good feeling.

In regards to my skin, I didn’t notice a visible healthier skin. But I think that it might have to do with the condition of my skin before the detox, which was already pretty good.

After the detox, I felt the following days very fit and healthy. Also, a simple salad has never tasted so good before.

In short, this juice cleanse has given my healthy spirit a boost and motivated me to really appreciate healthy food. But I must say I’m very relieved that I can eat again J

Finally, would I do it again? I say resounding yes to that! The result that a juice cleanse gives you, gives you such a good feeling and I’d like to experience that again! I do think I probably would follow a different programme that suits me better.

This post ended up very long but there was just so much I wanted to tell you guys! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and that you mind get something out of it. If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll be happy to answer them! Also, I’d really like to discover new juices so maybe I can assemble my own juice cleanse in a while. So if you have any tips, feel free to share them down below! For now, thanks for reading and I hope I’ll talk to you guys soon!

Have you ever done a detox? If so, what did you think of it?

Love,

Roos