A couple of weeks ago, I wasn't feeling quite myself in terms of my health, so I decided to do a reboot and a no-pain, quick detox. I did a quick Google search and found Dr. Oz's 48-Hour Weekend Cleanse, which looked fairly balanced -- not a juice or starvation detox. The cleanse is meant to release toxins from three critical organs: the liver, kidneys and colon.

Dr. Oz's cleanse consists of the same menu for both days of the cleanse -- a bowl of quinoa for breakfast, a smoothie for lunch, a vegetable broth for dinner, and several juice recipes for snacks. The meals include healthy ingredients such as fennel, parsley, rice milk, almond milk, prunes, flaxseed, flaxseed oil, mushrooms, etc. You're allowed to snack on celery, peas, cucumbers or radishes all throughout the day, and it's advised that you stop eating by 7pm (something I forgot for certain on Sunday).

These are the recipes I used:

Breakfast: Quinoa with Chopped Prunes
Makes 1 serving

Ingredients
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 cup water
1 pinch nutmeg
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tbsp flax seed oil
1/3 cup chopped prunes
1/4 cup rice milk

Directions
In a small pot, stir 1/2 cup quinoa, a pinch of nutmeg and 1 tsp of grated ginger into a cup of water.
Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pot and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the prunes and rice milk. Cover again and cook another 5 minutes.
Before serving, stir in 1 tbsp of flaxseed oil.

Lunch: Fruit Smoothie
Makes 1 serving

Ingredients
1/2 cup almond or hemp milk (plain/unsweetened)
1 tbsp ground flaxseed or chia
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 banana
1/2 cup ice

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until smooth.


Dinner: Vegetable Broth Soup
Makes 5 servings

Ingredients
2 red onions, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
1 fennel bulb, fronds and stalks included, roughly chopped
2 tsp caraway seeds
2 tsp sea salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup sliced shitake caps
4 large cloves garlic, chopped
1 cabbage, roughly chopped
2 quarts water
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
8 sprigs parsley, chopped stems and leaves
1/2 cup parsley, chopped

Directions
Combine all ingredients, except for the chopped parsley, in a pot. Add 2 quarts of water.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat. Simmer covered for about 1 hour. Adjust seasoning.
Remove whole parsley sprigs and serve topped with some freshly chopped parsley.
Serve with a side of traditionally fermented sauerkraut and chopped apples (warm or room temperature).

What did I think of the cleanse? Well, let me just start off by saying that I really wasn't able to tell whether it was "working" or not. I didn't feel noticeably better than usual, but I certainly didn't feel worse. I was a little sleepier than usual on the second day, likely from not drinking any caffeine like I normally do. Both on Sunday and Monday mornings when I woke up, my body felt as if it'd been run over by a bus. Very, very strange. I did feel as if my skin was softer than usual on Sunday, but again, I doubt that had much to do with the cleanse, as I don't think skin can regenerate that quickly. On Monday, I felt pretty good, but not noticeably ... and I slept more during the cleanse because I was caffeine-deprived, so that's a hefty factor. On the weight side, I'm sure I lost a couple of pounds, but I didn't weigh myself beforehand.

My biggest problem with the cleanse was that it wasn't explained very well. Why are we adding caraway seeds to our vegetable broth? What are the health benefits of caraway seeds? Sure, I could look it up, but you're the doctor, Dr. Oz. As a result, I skimped on some seasonings I thought were just for flavor when it came to the veggie broth. I skipped the sauerkraut side dish at dinner time because I don't love sauerkraut. I'm sure there are a lot of vitamins in sauerkraut.

I also thought that lunch was incredibly sparse, while breakfast was overly filling. A entire bowl of quinoa, for me, is more than I can eat for breakfast. What I ended up doing was noshing on it all throughout the morning until it was finished, about an hour or so before my regular lunchtime.
This wasn't a cleanse in the sense that I had to stay near a toilet. I felt a little more bloated than usual, but nothing too invasive. I had some of the ingredients at home, and I went out and bought a lot of the liquid components, along with some of the less common vegetables, all of which cost me close to $20. If you were to start from scratch, you'd probably be spending double that amount ... it's not a cheap cleanse.

Was it worth it? Not really. If I had been able to convince someone else to join me in the cleanse, then maybe my answer would've been closer to a "yes." I had a ton of vegetable soup/broth left over after the cleanse, a whole lot of rice and almond milk left over.

I'm not sure how much you'd be able to tell that your liver, kidneys and colon have rebooted after a two-day diet, really. But the headaches that plagued me the week leading up to the cleanse have ceased to bother me, and I'm not nearly as tired as I was that week. I'm not going to write this cleanse off, but then again, I probably wouldn't choose to try it again.

If you've tried this cleanse, what did you think of it? Did you notice any results or benefits? Have you returned to this particular cleanse?

Check out my real-time vlog of this cleanse: