I hear Oprah did a 21-day cleanse diet. I am a little late to the party because I had our satellite TV service turned off over four months ago. I heard about this on dooce.com. Heather was trying out the cleanse. She lasted about a week before she caved to the detox sickies. Her friend, Carol, had the same experience.
I had a similar experience a few years ago when I did a 37-day juice fast with my husband. I lost about 30 lbs. and I felt like crap the entire time. I eventually gained all the weight back, and more, because I didn't change one single thing about my habits. I have tried about once a year since then to either do another juice fast or switch to a raw food diet, with little success each time.
Still, I would recommend an extended juice fast to anyone. Why? I have been sick only three times since that juice fast. I didn't escape two of the flu seasons and I caught a cold a couple months ago that the baby brought home from daycare. Even the subsequent failed attempts were each long enough to be considered an annual maintenance fast.*
I didn't have an exceptionally strong immune system before the juice fast, but I do now. Even that cold I caught from the baby was because I was tempting fate. She had it for four weeks before I finally caught it, because I wouldn't stop kissing her on the mouth.
Compared to the juice fasts and the raw food diets we have done in the past, Oprah's cleanse, which eliminates caffeine, sugar, alcohol, gluten and animal products from your diet for up to 21 days, is child's play. You get cooked food! You can have sweet potato fries! After reading through Oprah's blog about it and my own blog about my past attempts, I think I am going to give a mostly raw diet another chance. The version of a raw food diet we tried in 2005 actually sounds pretty good again.
*A full detox fast is your age plus 17 days long. Each year after that, you should do a 1-2 week fast.
