Spring Cleaning Part 2: A Post Cleanse Wrap

The most impressive thing about BluePrint Cleanse is this: You honestly do not feel like you are fasting for three days. And overall, I’m thrilled with the results. I’m definitely thinner, especially in my waist. In fact, I'm not sure it's ever been this chiseled. On the less vain front, I feel less run-down, and a nagging cold/allergies I’ve had most of the year are completely gone.

That said, as I wrote three days ago, I came in with high expectations given my friends who’d raved about BluePrint, and I didn’t share all of their experiences.

I’d gotten the impression from everyone, including the company’s Web site, that day one would be the hardest, day two would be easier and day three would even better. Julia Allison swore day three was absolutely euphoric. So I was pretty happy when I felt great on day one. I didn’t have a headache, didn’t feel hungry and didn’t even seem to miss the caffeine.

And, to my surprise most of the juices were delicious. The only shock was the green juice—which is half of the daily intake. At first taste Mr. Lacy declared it “the most disgusting thing he’d ever tasted.” (To be fair, he hates cucumbers and it’s very cucumbery. But I love cucumbers, and I could barely drink the first bottle.) But it got better for both of us with each bottle, and we barely minded it towards the end.I remember having the same reaction the first time I drank tomato juice, and I adore bloody mary's now.

But that was the only thing that got better! I felt great in the morning and afternoon of day two but as the day wore on I was hungry and irritable. The cravings for food were so bad by the evening, if I’d been at a party or a dinner it might have been too much to take. For sure, I wouldn’t have been pleasant to be around. (Just ask Olivia who for some reason picked this moment to cook the most fragrant meal she’s ever made, eat it in front of us, then leave the bowl on the table when she left the room. I felt like Stains.)

Day three got worse. I spent the entire day with a blistering headache and because I had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for a Yahoo shoot, I had to space the juices out longer, making me feel hungry and out of sorts most of the day. Finally by late afternoon I got a few bursts of euphoria, but the headache kept coming back, putting a pretty big damper on it. And Geoff, sorry, I mean, "Mr. Lacy," felt really ill that night. And be forewarned, what you think is a three-day commitment is really more like a six or seven day commitment because there are huge restrictions on what your system can digest when you break the cleanse. A big disappointment as I really wanted a goodbye slice of Arinell's pizza before I left for Israel. :(

All-in-all, I would definitely give BluePrint another shot. One-and-a-half days of feeling “meh” is worth slimming down and bolstering my immune system, and the company does a fantastic job of coddling you through the process. Also the packaging is great. They clearly label your bottles and send you a little cooler to carry them with you so you don’t have to be tethered to a fridge. This was, after all, my first cleanse, and no doubt a bit of a shock to my system, as much as BluePrint tries to mitigate that with different levels and instructions to prepare for it. I'm sure it'd go smoother next time.

When will that next time be? The site recommends you do it monthly for best results, and that’s probably too much for me. But I plan to try it again in May. As for Mr. Lacy, he’s very prone to headaches and has a wickedly fast metabolism, so the fact that he could function during a fast is nothing short of amazing. He usually flips out if he skips a meal. He ultimately saw it as a good way to kick caffeine, but too much of a sacrifice to do more than a few times per year. Especially since you have to eat salads and steamed vegetables for several days after the fast. As Homer Simpson once said, "You don't win friends with salad."

I can’t say it’s changed my life the way Julia promised it would, but I recommend it to anyone wanting a quick and relatively pain-free way to feel thin and healthy.