3-Day Cleanse

A fellow coach and teammate shared some of the most impressive news about her 3 Day Shakeology Cleanse! In her words: " I started it Monday after a couple weeks of not so great choices and I officially lost 11.6 LBS!! I feel so good, and it wasn't hard at all :D"

The Sci­ence Behind the Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse

by Steve Edwards, Direc­tor of Results

I like to call the Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse a “per­for­mance cleanse.” This is because it was designed to be done with a work­out pro­gram. Let’s take a look at how this dif­fers from other cleanses, how to tai­lor it to your needs, and what to expect if you decide to try it.

First of all, it’s not a true cleanse. It’s a calorie-restricted and nutrient-dense diet plan. Tra­di­tional cleanses con­tain very few calo­ries and nutri­ents. Com­pared to the much more pop­u­lar Mas­ter Cleanse, it’s like an all-you-can-eat buf­fet. Tra­di­tional cleans­ing diets are done to rid your sys­tem of tox­ins and bring it into home­osta­sis. They also con­tain a spir­i­tual aspect. This process can take a long time, which is why you may have seen cowork­ers walk­ing around the office in a zombie-like state for weeks on end—swilling a strange con­coc­tion of lemons and maple syrup.

The Shake­ol­ogy cleanse is noth­ing like that. Depend­ing on how you decide to do it, you’ll be eat­ing fre­quently and con­sum­ing between 800 and 1,200 calo­ries per day, and it could be even more should you feel the need. The point of this cleanse is not calo­rie restric­tion, per se—it’s nutri­ent effi­ciency. The aim is to get the most nutri­ents pos­si­ble into the fewest num­ber of calo­ries. The goal is to put all of these calo­ries to use as a part of your exer­cise pro­gram, to rid your body of undi­gested foods and tox­ins, and to bring your hydra­tion lev­els into home­osta­sis. The result you’re after is not weight loss—though it will likely occur—but for your body to be run­ning more effi­ciently. This should make you feel lighter and more ener­getic, even though you’re doing an exer­cise program.

How It Works
Your eat­ing struc­ture doesn’t change. You still eat every few hours while you’re awake. Each meal should have a bal­ance of pro­teins, car­bo­hy­drates, fats, and fiber. And while you’re not eat­ing as much food as you’d nor­mally eat, your calorie-to-nutrient ratio is extremely high. This means that you shouldn’t restrict the actual nutri­ents you’re get­ting by too much, so activ­ity can con­tinue as normal.

We rec­om­mend you try to keep your shakes to just Shake­ol­ogy. Adding fruits of any kind, or seeds (for fat and fiber), or the Shake­ol­ogy Fiber sup­ple­ment, can and should be done as you see fit.

Ditto for your one solid meal—a salad. As we all know from any salad bar, the def­i­n­i­tion of salad can be var­ied. The goal of the salad in the plan is to keep your calo­ries com­ing from nat­ural sources (no arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents should be added, includ­ing arti­fi­cial salad dress­ing). Aside from that, you can add ingre­di­ents as nec­es­sary. Keep your meat intake to four ounces or less, but add veg­gies, seeds, nuts, fruits, and legumes in quan­ti­ties to sati­ate you.

The goal of the Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse is to opti­mize your per­for­mance. You want to eat enough to fuel your day AND your work­out. The foods you’re eat­ing are so high in fiber and nutri­ents that it’s vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble to overeat. You’ll be con­sum­ing so much fiber, along with enzymes and diges­tive aids, that your body’s abil­ity to flush excess foods quickly will be at its peak.

What to Drink
Water, of course, is rec­om­mended in quan­tity. This is vital to any cleanse, because one of your goals is to bring your hydra­tion into home­osta­sis. When your elec­trolytes are out of balance—the main prob­lem we have is salt—you often retain water out­side of your cells. This sit­u­a­tion, which we refer to as retain­ing water, is cured by drink­ing more water. As the excess salts are dif­fused, your body begins to hydrate your cells (using sodium as it should be used) and flush the water held out­side the cells. So, oddly enough, you drink water to elim­i­nate water retention.

Sodas, juices, etc., should be elim­i­nated entirely dur­ing a cleanse. Cof­fee and tea, which are diuret­ics, should be min­i­mized at the very least and elim­i­nated if pos­si­ble. Again, per­for­mance is the key, so if you need a cup of Joe as a pick-me-up, go ahead. Just use only as needed, and don’t use addi­tives. Elim­i­nat­ing sugar and chem­i­cals is vital. How­ever, do not use energy drinks or soda for this pur­pose, includ­ing the ones with arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers. Cof­fee drinkers may find that switch­ing to black tea dur­ing a cleanse will give you the energy you’re look­ing for with less upset. Coffee’s acidic nature can heighten the effects in a neg­a­tive way dur­ing your cleanse.

Why You Won’t Lose Weight
I should say why you might not lose weight, but I wanted to get your atten­tion. Most peo­ple will lose some weight dur­ing a cleanse, but that is not the goal. Those with a lot of undi­gested gunk in their sys­tems will lose weight as it’s flushed out. Those of you who are prop­erly hydrated and already eat well are less likely to lose. For those of you who need to lose weight, take heart: you are set­ting up your sys­tem to use nutri­ents more effi­ciently and improv­ing your abil­ity to lose weight through struc­tured diet and exer­cise. So while you may not lose much on the cleanse, you’ll be more pre­pared to lose weight later.

Another rea­son why we don’t always lose weight on cleanses is due to a stress hor­mone called cor­ti­sol. Restrict­ing calo­ries is stress­ful to the body, and it reacts by releas­ing cor­ti­sol. Cor­ti­sol is performance-enhancing in the short term, but if you some­how keep your body stressed for long peri­ods, it cre­ates havoc in your sys­tem and can cause you to doggedly hang onto weight in a type of sur­vival mode. We don’t want this to occur, which is one rea­son the Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse is short. It’s impor­tant not to remain in a highly calorie-deficient state for long peri­ods of time, espe­cially when you are try­ing to exer­cise hard.

The Shake­ol­ogy® 3-Day Cleanse — Full Plan 
The key is to fol­low the same reg­i­men all three days.

Essen­tials:
3 Shake­ol­ogy shakes per day
2 cups of green tea per day
1 or 2 pieces of fruit per day (optional)
1 salad for dinner—can include fish or poul­try
No dairy or extra sug­ars (this includes almond and soy milk)!
Drink 2 to 4 liters of water every day
Only use low-fat dress­ings, and go easy on the salt and/or pep­per to taste
2 snacks before/after any of the major meals (break­fast, lunch, and din­ner)
Fruit is optional, and it is dis­cour­aged (how­ever, some of you will need the calo­ries while oth­ers may not)
Power-workout par­tic­i­pants (those who are already super con­di­tioned) are rec­om­mended the higher num­bers of calories

For max­i­mum results, do NOT use addi­tives.
Din­ner salad may include WHITE GRILLED PROTEIN—poultry or fish only.

Daily Reg­i­men:
1 cup of green tea to start the day

Break­fast:
1 scoop Shake­ol­ogy (140 calo­ries)
1/2 cup of fruit (60 to 90 calo­ries) — optional
Ice to taste
8 to 10 oz. of water

Snack 1 (85 calo­ries):
1 piece of fruit (apple, pear, orange, banana, mango, etc.)

Lunch:
1 scoop Shake­ol­ogy (140 calo­ries)
Ice to taste
8 to 10 oz. of water
1 cup of green tea or a detox tea

Snack 2: (you can have the sec­ond snack before or after dinner)

1 scoop Shake­ol­ogy (140 calo­ries)
Ice to taste
8 to10 oz. of water

Din­ner: Salad with grilled white fish or poul­try (roughly 340 calo­ries)
Greens—3 serv­ings of veg­eta­bles, plus 4 oz. of grilled white meat (fish or poul­try)
2 table­spoons of dressing—no more!

Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse FAQ

1. How many calo­ries per day?
800 to 1,100 calo­ries per day if you fol­low the plan as strictly as possible…but if you are work­ing out, make sure you add the snacks of fruit and nuts to keep you from drop­ping too low on your calories.

2. How often can I do the Shake­ol­ogy 3-Day Cleanse?

Ide­ally, you should do it once per quar­ter. It’s also a great way to kick-start a new work­out pro­gram or to help you break through a plateau.

3. Should/Can I still do my work­outs dur­ing the Cleanse?

Yes, but be rea­son­able. If you’re train­ing for a marathon, don’t pick your 20-mile run day as your first day of the cleanse. You can be active on the cleanse, espe­cially if you are hav­ing the snacks, but don’t push it.

4. Can I do a 1-day or a 2-day cleanse instead of a 3-day?

Yes! Some peo­ple will see results with one or two days. But DO NOT do the cleanse for more than three days.

The Shake­ol­ogy Cleanse Sys­tem includes 9 serv­ings of Shake­ol­ogy, 6 packets of green tea, and printed instruc­tions. Choose from the two fla­vor options below, and click the but­ton to pur­chase. (You can also buy a 30-serving bulk bag of Shake­ol­ogy here if you would like to incor­po­rate it to replace one meal a day after com­plet­ing the 3-day cleanse.)

I currently only ship within the United States.

Choose your flavor

9 Chocolate Packets $50.00 USD 9 Greenberry Packets $50.00 USD 4 Chocolate Packets, 5 Greenberry Packets $50.00 USD 5 Chocolate Packets, 4 Greenberry Packets $50.00 USD