Review: Blueprint Cleanse

Around the holidays, I was a little let's say lax with my diet and overall health. A new schedule has wreaked havoc on my eating schedule and has made packing my own lunches and working out drop on the list of priorities. Obviously that needed to change ASAP - the longer you let yourself slide, the harder it is to pick yourself back up. So I wanted the BluePrint Cleanse to be a swift kick in the butt to get me into gear for the last month before my trip to St. Thomas (hello, bikini body) and the last few months before I commit to buying a wedding dress!

I ordered my cleanse back in December. I had a coupon code, and I thought it would be a great way to kick of the new year. Well, then things kept springing up - friends in town, last week at work (which means parties!)... So after changing my cleanse date around three times, I finally decided on the week after Valentine's Day.

Mistake. Who knew I'd be working late (and I mean LATE) surrounded by delicious, free take out every single night

Blue Print Cleanse offers three levels of cleanse: Renovation (Beginner), Foundation (Intermediate) and Excavation (Advanced, and honestly, it sounds baddd... Excavation? ew). My fiance, who fortunately decided to do the Cleanse with me, and I went with Foundation cleanse both times, because I like to challenge myself, ya know?

The cleanse consists of six juices a day: three green juices made with romaine, celery, cucumber, kale and green apple (plus other assorted goodies) interspersed with three other liquid concoctions (a pineapple mint juice, a spicy lemonade a la Master Cleanse and a delicious cinnamony cashew milk). You can order one, two or three days, but I think you can go longer if you'd like.

They tell you to ease your body into and out of the cleanse - avoid dairy products, meat, alcohol, etc. in the days before and after the cleanse. Considering the Fiance and I enjoyed a delicious prix fixe meal for deux at Wolfgang Puck's the Source for Valentine's Day, I had one day to get my body ready. So I paid (way too much) for some fruit from the cafeteria for breakfast and for salad bar (lettuce, cucumber, portobello mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots) for lunch, and I had some mushrooms, asparagus, lettuce w/ salsa and air-popped popcorn (corn is a vegetable... right? I know... I couldn't resist). And then T and I shared some of the Wolfgang Puck truffles we'd been gifted upon leaving. That I really couldn't resist.

So I didn't exactly abide by the rules - they are hard! But I have to say, I didn't go into the cleanse with a sense of dread that I felt the first time. I felt excited and ready to clean my body of some of my worse transgressions (RBVLs anyone?), and hopeful of the beneficial results.

Day 1
The green juices (of which I will drink three today) do not taste as bad as my first experience with Blue Print Cleanse. I read somewhere that it tastes better when you're healthier, so I guess that's brownie points for me. Actually, I'm mostly feeling good, until the office decides to order Thai food for dinner. It smells amazing, and as I watch a woman munch on some pad thai, my stomach starts to rumble. Get me out of here.

Luckily, I'm able to leave soon. I go home and polish off my cashew milk in maybe just a few minutes and chase it with water and herbal tea. Both the fiance and I are like, yeah let's go to bed early tonight. My stomach was rumbling as I got into bed, and I pondered the setback of eating a piece of roasted asparagus. Full of willpower, I abstain.

Day 2

I wake up feeling not hungry and somewhat refreshed. I start with a mug of hot water with lemon, straighten my hair and head to work. I wasn't in a rush to start my juices today. But then 2 pm hits me like a ton of bricks. I'm feeling a little laggard, my freezing office feelslike it would never get warm, and my head is hurting. Keeping myself busy is the only way to pull through (luckily, there is a LOT to do). Then we get an email that we are being treated to BARBEQUE tonight. I want to throw myself off a cliff.

Day 3
I'm feeling good, but I'm filled with dread knowing it's increasingly likely I'm going to be at work very late. I make it to dinnertime - I actually feel OK - but I finally eat some salad and a little chicken. At work until the wee hours of the morning (literally... I crawled into bed at 6:00 am), it was just not realistic for me to work 18 hour days on juice only. Coffee at midnight was a necessity.

Overall
I felt much more prepared to do this the second time around. I know my general health habits have vastly improved from the last time I did this. I wish I could say I had the energy to work out like they promise but I didn't. I totally slacked on my training for the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler.

I'm frustrated that I sort of wasted my cleanse (and, in turn, the money) and I couldn't commit to three days of no food, but it just did NOT work into my schedule this time around.

So my final say on the Blueprint Cleanse is this: Do it if you have a week to commit to avoiding temptation. Honestly, I can't say that I have a week anytime in the near future where I don't have post-work commitments of happy hours and dinners. I don't think I can say there isn't a chance of me working late and being surrounded by both temptation and high-stress, high-energy situations that require more energy than juice can give me.

I would love to give BPC another go. And when I have 14 days (ha!), I'd love try the Remove Cleanse, which got great reviews on FitSugar.