What kind of cleanse was it?
How long was it?
How did you feel during while doing it?
Was it worth it?
Did you lose any weight or see/feel a difference after?

I've been interested on doing one for a while but reading up about them online there's so many myths and lies that it's hard to trust what people say. So what better way to find out than to ask you ladies (and gentlemen) who have done/tried one. Now I am NOT asking if you think if they're good or bad, just for your experience if you've done one

I did one. It was a fresh fruit and veggie cleanse. I think it was supposed to last for 4-5 days. I lasted about 1.5. I felt horrible.

Over this long weekend I've been eating lighter meals and getting green juices from our local juice bar (kale, celery, parsley, ginger, apple, etc). It feels better to eat less, have more veggies (but in juice form, the whole veggie wrecks my guts).

I used to really like the idea of cleanses and a friend of mine guinea pigged a couple (I was going to do them if she found they worked, I am a bit of a scaredy cat with those things). She did a salt water colon cleanse which she loved, but having suffered from chronic diarrhoea for 7 years I did not think that sounded too appealing. It was basically drinking many litres of salt water and just having a lot of diarrhoea to cleanse her guts, then in the very end she would drink a last bit and vomit it up to clean her oesophagus. I believe our GI tract is self cleansing and I would just not want to do that. Then again before my colonoscopies I have to cleanse my guts and I always feel a lot better for a few weeks afterwards, but that may be because I have coeliac disease and I clean out all the bits of gluten that I consume unknowingly.

Another cleanse she did was a "liver" cleanse, where you drink lots of apple juice for like 2 days (and nothing else), then drink a glass of olive oil and a chaser of lemon juice and then you should poo some kind of green balls, that according to myth are gunk from your liver. I do not believe that they really are. Anyhow she got really sick from it, spent a day vomiting nonstop, so I would not recommend that one.

So I have gone off the idea of a cleanse as such, but every now and then I do a little water cleanse, I try to drink a lot more water than usual (up to 5 litres in water and herbal teas), have diuretic foods (asparagus, artichokes), have fruit and veg that is very watery (cucumber, watermelon) and just let my body get rid of all this retained water. Warning, do this on a day when you do not need to go out much, because the constant need for a bathroom is unpleasant. I always feel a little better after doing it, it may just be psychological (probably), but whatever makes you feel good, right?

I think that cleansing the body on occasion can be very beneficial to your health and can definitely aid in weight loss. I'm not a fan of those extreme cleanses that take weeks or even a month, but I do occasionally do a water or vegetable and fruit fast. I typically do it for about 1-2 days and make sure to drink a ton of water with lemon, green tea, and some fruits and veggies. It always helps to move everything through my system. I lose about 1-2 pounds on those days and usually keep it off if I phase in the food slowly and make sure that it's not greasy, heavy food.

I don't believe in cleanses as a health measure, though I'm sure they can kickstart weight loss if you're consuming very few calories. I don't think the digestive system needs a break from processing food any more than the lungs need a break from breathing or the heart from beating.

F.

I tried juicing after watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Lasted 2.5 days and I lost 8 pounds. I didn't feel bad, weak or great, I pretty much felt the same. I stopped because it got boring.

This is a cleanse for gallstones and those green balls are they. This is a dangerous and unwise thing to do.

Cleanses of any sort are going to upset the natural balance of things and unless a qualified dietician or medical practitioner suggests a special diet or foods then they should be avoided at all costs.

Your body is balanced, barring special conditions or illness, and should not be messed with. A healthy, balanced diet is all you need.

When I was young and stupid, I did several cleanses, and I even thought at the time that they did some good, because I felt "great" during or after them.

However, in graduate school (developmental psychology, which required and involved quite a bit of physiology), I learned that the euphoric feelings were actually a result of endorphins released in response to physical damage that the cleanses did.

The damage wasn't severe (thankfully) but most cleanses cause diarrhea, and in response to the diarrhea, the body releases endorphins, the body's painkillers.

The endorphins give the illusion of better health, when the opposite is actually true. The cleanse agents (whether large amounts of fruit/veggies or juice or harsher herbal laxatives) cause irritation and inflammation. The body releases endorphins in response to the irritation and inflammation. The endorphins mask the pain and make you feel better and the euphoric effects make you feel like the cleanse did something good for your body, when the exact opposite is true.

The damage is usually mild and short lived, so there's no permanent damage done (usually) but there's also no benefit. There's tons of research that has examined the effectiveness of cleanses, and in double-blind studies, no positive results have been found (no difference was found in "toxin" levels between those who cleanse and those who do not).

Frequent cleanses can cause chronic damage (because toxins aren't removed, but vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes often are). Some cleanses (especially stimulants such as coffee enemas) are even dangerous in themselves.

I'm so glad you posted this, I started to say that I seriously think people who claim to "feel" clean after a cleanse are psyching themselves out, but I didn't really have proof, so I kept it to myself. The only positive thing I've experienced from not eating/cleansing is weight loss. Sure when you cleanse you feel "clean" because you're empty, but as soon as you eat again, you feel awful... how is the fact that you can't handle solid food as well, supposed to mean that your digestive system is healthy?

But they're awesome for weight loss or jump starts, if you can keep most of it off.

Wow thanks to everyone and sorry that this was posted on the wrong thread. I'll think about it some more, eating water dense fruits and veggies fr a few days sounds very appealing to me and like it would be the healthiest for ones body.

I've done several... I did the Master Cleanse a few years back when it was kind of trendy here in my neck of the woods... All it did for me was prove that I could stick with something that ultimately didn't really do anything useful for me...

I've also done some raw juice type "cleanses" which I actually enjoyed, but in retrospect I don't think I was doing anything that was going to be some sort of miracle for me... from either a health perspective or to a jumpstart to weight loss...