This post was originally written in 2011 when I changed my life with P90X but I am still a Beachbody Coach! I host challenge groups monthly and am growing my team – please reach out if you’d like to join an accountability group or learn more about this incredible career opportunity. www.beachbodycoach.com/nicoledobransky or email me at fitnessfataleblog at gmail.com. 

I survived the Shakeology Cleanse! As I mentioned in a recent post, I gained a few pounds after we finished our first round of P90X. It
wasn’t due to inactivity – I was running 4x/week and training for a marathon.
It was from eating too much! Anyway, this Monday we started P90X Round 2
(intermixed with triathlon and half marathon training) and I wanted to
jumpstart my phase 1 nutrition plan with the Shakeology Cleanse.

I’ve done a cleanse before – the infamous and downright miserable
Master Cleanse. After researching fasting and flushing cleanses such as this
one, I told myself I’d never cleanse like that again. The Shakeology Cleanse is
a healthy cleanse because it not only is very nutritious, it only lasts three
days, which isn’t harmful to your body.

Shakeology Cleanse Instructions

Here’s what you eat each day for three consecutive days:

• 3 Shakeology Shakes – any flavor, mixed with water (and ice
  if you prefer).
• No milk of any kind is allowed – dairy or not.
• 1 vegetable salad with 4 oz of protein (recommended for
  dinner but you can eat at lunch if you’d like) and 2 tbsp of a non-fat or low fat dressing
• Plenty of water
• 2 cups of green tea (I don’t like tea so I didn’t have any)
• Optional: 2 pieces of fruit
• Total calories: ~600-850
• Repeat these meals for three days.
• Heavy exercise is not recommended. Light exercise (stretch,
  Yoga, walking) is preferred

Day 1 of Shakeology Cleanse

I set out on Day 1 with the intentions of following the
cleanse to a tee for at least this day. I was ready to shed all the nastiness that I put in my body
for the last three weeks and I wanted to put my will power to the test. I
started out the morning with Shakeology blended with ½ banana and ice. It
tasted pretty good! I wasn’t even hungry to start, still full from Mexican food
at cake that I ate at Mike’s graduation party the night before. But, by 11 a.m.
I was pretty ravenous. This is typical – I usually eat a very large breakfast
and a recovery shake (if I worked out) and then I have a mid-morning snack. If
I don’t have a snack, I’m more than ready for lunch at noon.

I must admit it was hard for me to get down the shake at
lunch. My stomach just wasn’t feeling great. I had it with a nectarine which
helped. I was busy at work so I didn’t think about food and I wasn’t tempted by
any treats at work mostly because I was so sick of junk food from the prior
weeks. By mid-afternoon, I was hungry again and had 1 cup of grapes. At about
five p.m. I had my third shake of the day, knowing that I needed energy for
Yoga X (we started our 2^nd round of P90X on Monday with yoga first
due to our triathlon and running schedules but plan to do the rest of the
workouts in the correct order). Right before Yoga, I had a kiwi as well.

That evening Mike and I did Yoga X and I had
plenty of energy, although the workout was very hard! I forgot how difficult
yoga can be especially when you haven’t been working at it for a while. I knew
I’d be sore the next day. After Yoga, I made a big salad with 4 ounces of
chicken that I seasoned with Italian seasoning and a bit of salt. The salad had
red bell peppers, onion, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms and 2 tbsp of Trader
Joe’s Cilantro dressing (which afterward I realized has a bit of dairy which is
a no-no). A salad has never tasted as good as this one did! I had one
strawberry for dessert. I felt totally satisfied right afterward; however about
45 minutes later I was pretty hungry, but I pushed past it and went to bed.

Total calories: ~980

Day 2 of Shakeology Cleanse

I woke up on Tuesday feeling much lighter. Monday morning
was definitely a heavy weigh in for me (I was 6 lbs more than my P90X Round 1
final weigh in which is 2 lbs more than I’d seen on the scale for months), so I
was definitely expecting a different number on the scale on Tuesday. Sometimes
I weigh myself on Monday and then Tuesday I’ll have dropped 2 lbs – I think I
retain water on Mondays from all the carbs I eat over the weekend! Anyway, the scale dropped four pounds! Four pounds
in one day! I was pretty happy. I definitely felt lighter and smaller. My pants
even felt looser (my boss tried the cleanse last week and also reported her pants fitting looser on the 2^nd day).

My big weight loss gave me extra motivation to work hard on
Day 2. However, I knew that Day 2 would be harder because I had P90X Chest and
Back scheduled for the morning and also planned to learn to ride my bike after
work. I knew I’d need a little more energy. Chest and Back and Ab Ripper were
very hard that morning, but I didn’t lack energy – just strength. I can
definitely tell a difference in my strength level from when we finished P90X at
the end of April. I definitely think I’ve still retained a lot of my strength,
but by no means all of it. Ab Ripper was pretty brutal – I couldn’t’ even
finish the Mason Twists! My stomach felt like it was on fire.

On Tuesday I had Shakeology with half banana and ice again
for breakfast. Mid-morning I couldn’t handle it any longer and I had to eat the
two boiled egg whites that I brought (big splurge – 40 calories! Haha). By noon
I was ready for my second Shakeology. I mixed it with water since I was at work
and paired it with about six fresh strawberries. I swear the strawberries
almost tasted like they were chocolate covered! I wish!  In the afternoon I had about a cup of
cantaloupe and also some carrots. At 5 p.m. I had my last Shakeology mixed with
water. At about 7:30 p.m. I had a big asian chicken salad made with red
peppers, cucumbers, tomato, onion, carrots, 4 oz of chicken coated with yellow
curry powder, and 2 tablespoons of Trader Joe’s spicy Asian salad dressing (70
calories). It was delicious!!! However, within 20 minutes of the meal I was
really hungry so I had a few strawberries and a nectarine.

Total Calories: ~1195

Day 3 of Shakeology Cleanse 

I was excited to get back on the scale Wednesday morning and
was pleased with another pound lost for a total of five pounds lost in two days. My stomach felt flatter and I felt
lighter overall. We started the morning with the mother of all P90X workouts,
Plyometrics. My energy level was fairly good, but definitely not 100%. I think
the workout was also difficult because it had been about six weeks since we’d
done it. Mike and I were both dripping with more sweat than usual afterward.
Surprise surprise, for breakfast I had Shakeology blended with half a banana,
ice and water. For some reason, this was the tastiest shake yet.

I was pretty hungry by mid-morning and had a kiwi. I decided
to have my salad for lunch because I knew I’d be starving from a hard interval
workout that morning. Additionally, Wednesday night was my first TriClub swim
workout. I knew that I’d need to eat a real meal before a workout like that. I
made a tuna salad with a little more protein than recommended. I mixed 1 can of
tuna (150 calories) with some low-fat mayonnaise and added it to greens with
cucumber, red pepper, onion and tomato. I mixed it all up with standard, calorie-free
yellow mustard. This is one of my go-to salads for Phase1 of P90X as well. I
absolutely love tuna (and mustard) so it actually tastes really good to me! At
about 2 p.m. the hunger hit again and I went for my final fruit of the day, a
cup of grapes. Then it hit again – and luckily I had packed some extra snacks.
I had two boiled egg whites and some carrots. At 4 p.m. I have my second
Shakeology of the day because I was really hungry. I had hoped to hold out til
6 p.m. since I had a 7:30 swim scheduled. Since I was still hungry a 6 p.m. and
knew I had a workout to get to, I ate a Kashi protein bar to help keep me from
fainting in the pool (especially since it was my first group swim and I had no
idea what to expect). The workout ended up being mostly instruction and not as
much swimming (although still at least 1,000 meters), and by the time I got
home and showered it was 9 p.m. I happily made my last Shakeology with ice and
half a banana and went to bed.

Total Calories: ~1270

Final Results of Shakeology Cleanse

On Thursday I weighed in at 5.8 pounds lighter than Monday.
Success!

Although I know that I didn’t lose 5.8 pounds of fat in
three days, the cleanse was a success in that it made me feel refreshed,
lighter, and better overall. My stomach is back to being perfectly flat as
well. I wish I had taken measurements to see how many inches I lost, because I
can guarantee that I lost a bit. I was feeling very bloated, heavy and bogged
down from all the heavy meals I had been eating, and the cleanse rid me of all
of this! I now feel great about where I am – back at my P90X final results
weight. I’m ready to work hard to build up some of the muscle that I lost
during our nearly seven weeks off of P90X and get ready to film my infomercial
video!

Now, would I do it again? Yes. Although some of the shakes
were harder to get down than others, this cleanse was nothing like the nasty
Master Cleanse (I lost 5 lbs in 5 days on that one and that was a digestive
cleanse as well – i.e. you drink salt water to flush everything from your colon
– gross). This cleanse was only three days and although I was pretty hungry at
times, overall I didn’t feel famished. I got to eat real food (fruit and salad)
so I didn’t feel like a freak mixing lemons with water, maple syrup and cayenne
pepper in the office kitchen. My energy levels weren’t bad – definitely not
100% but I was able to complete four workouts while cleansing.

Try the Cleanse!

If you’d like to order Shakeology and try this cleanse for
yourself, you can order a month’s supply from my Beachbody site (if you want free
shipping, sign up for Home Direct – you can later cancel it before the second
shipment comes) here: http://myshakeology.com/esuite/home/nicoledobransky

My website also contains all the information you need to know about the nutrition content of Shakeology. Take a look here.

This post was originally written in 2011 when I changed my life with P90X but I am still a Beachbody Coach! I host challenge groups monthly and am growing my team – please reach out if you’d like to join an accountability group or learn more about this incredible career opportunity. www.beachbodycoach.com/nicoledobransky or email me at fitnessfataleblog at gmail.com.