By Sasha Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 25, 2015
There is something very comforting about someone telling you exactly what and when to eat to be healthy. They appear to have all the answers, and it’s so tempting to believe them — and Dr. Oz, who promotes rapid weight loss and miracle cures like some kind of snake-oil salesman, has tapped into that part of human nature.
His three-day detox cleanse is structured to a tee. You basically have four smoothies per day — for breakfast, lunch, snack (which is just a repeat of your favourite smoothie), and dinner — peppered with multivitamins and green tea. While I am not a fan of Dr. Oz, I wanted to try this detox for a couple of reasons.
First, the smoothie ingredients looked legit. I wouldn’t do a weird swamp-water diet with unnatural ingredients, or starve myself in any way, shape, or form. These smoothies were loaded with fruits, veggies, almond milk, coconut water, flaxseed, almond butter, and coconut oil. Power smoothies give you such a great kick to your day. So what’s wrong with a three-day power smoothie binge? Secondly, at the end of every day, you get to take a detox bath — complete with Epsom salt and lavender oil.
On top of it all, the website claims it’s only $16 a day for those ingredients. Not having a lot to lose, I gave it a try.
Shopping and expecting to only spend $48 was my first mistake. Lucky for me, my parents had the probiotics, omega-3s and multivitamins, or I’d already be spending way more than $16 a day. Even still, what market is Dr. Oz shopping at? Fresh mangos and pineapples, almond butter, coconut water, and lavender oil, under $16 per day? Nuh-uh. On the upside, spending so much made me really want to stick to the diet.
Commence three days of smoothies! Each smoothie was a different colour: the breakfast was pink, the lunch green, and the dinner a dark purple-blue. I was pleased at how palatable they all were, especially the breakfast smoothie (raspberry, banana, spinach, lemon, almond butter, and water). The blender I was using wasn’t the best, so the lunch smoothie had a weird texture — there were four stalks of celery in that thing! The dinner had a bit of a kick, because cayenne pepper was an ingredient.
I expected the usual symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, and they appeared in the afternoon of day one. Sugar withdrawal came soon after and I nursed a headache. Because all the smoothies were loaded with nutrition, I didn’t expect to be so hungry. But even after drinking a full smoothie, the hunger didn’t leave. By day two, I was dying to chew something. I eventually just ate the ingredients of my lunch smoothie, just to be able to chew!
I never felt a rush of energy, just the slow, dull desire for coffee to sharpen the world around me. And, after my eighth smoothie in two days, I was heartily sick of smoothies. There was no weight loss, nor any feeling of refreshment. It was disappointing, even though I didn’t go in with high expectations. At the end of three days, I didn’t feel any different, besides hungry for a big plate of pasta. At least that filled me up!
