I was deep into caffeine withdrawal without my tea—black in the morning, iced in the afternoon—and I was achy, spacey, and irritable. Robb, on the other hand, was crowing about how good he felt despite giving up his coffee habit. Things got worse when he read me a note from the woman who was orchestrating our cleanse: “She says, ‘Sometimes the worse it feels, the more you needed this cleanse.’” I was lying on our bed like a corpse, my tongue lolling. “Man, you must have really needed this,” he said. When my friend Kim, who had recently gotten into fabulous shape, asked me if I wanted to do a cleanse, my first reaction was absolutely not. All I knew about so-called detoxes was that they were a craze I kept hearing about and that they sounded like exercises in extreme deprivation. One woman I know went 4 days on nothing but molasses, cayenne pepper, and water and ended up hallucinating and dry-heaving over the side of her bed. “No, no,” Kim insisted, “this isn’t a cleanse like that. It’s really a nutritional reboot. You take a lot of things out of your diet, but the emphasis is on all the good things you can still eat. You learn how satisfied you can be with healthy food.” Robb and I are 52 and 50, respectively, and over the years, we’ve become more careful about our diets, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, not too much meat, and very little junk food—but I knew we could do better. My evidence of this: the pudge that stubbornly remained around my midsection even though I swam and biked regularly. When we finally agreed to take Kim up on her idea, I imagined the two of us bonding over the 3-week program, sharing our hardships and triumphs. Now it seemed we were in for something else: competitive cleansing. Week 1Bye-Bye, No-No’s Sacha Jones, a certified holistic wellness counselor, runs three cleanses a year through the Web site for her practice, Stiggly Holistics, in New York City (She currently charges on a sliding scale from $59 to $200, depending on options chosen and ability to pay.) While quick-fix juice cleanses are all the buzz, her approach focuses on whole foods, nourishment, and our emotional relationship with food. For our detox, 57 people from 9 nations—including Australia, France, and Ireland—joined a Facebook support group and received Jones’s daily e-mails with recipes, encouragement, and rules of thumb. “Excess stress, alcohol, environmental toxins, greasy food, dairy, gluten, and so forth can actually tax the body so much that it clogs up and inhibits the natural detoxification system,” Jones says. “That’s why it’s important to take time out periodically to look at what we are eating and drinking—to give our bodies a rest from hard-to-digest foods. While short, dive-in cleanses can be great, I believe that easing in and taking note of what’s happening on a holistic level is best.” The first week was a warm-up phase of getting used to new rituals and doing without a long list of no-no’s, particularly caffeine and sugar. We started the day with “firewater,” following Jones’s recipe for hot water with lemon juice, turmeric, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. It’s a warming pick-me-up in place of caffeine. I’d thought that because I didn’t drink coffee, it wouldn’t be difficult to give up caffeine, but it turned out that my daily three cups of hot tea and two glasses of iced had turned me into a hard-core addict. The Facebook group offered good advice for my throbbing headache and disorientation, such as hot baths, temple massages with lavender oil, and lots of water. By day 4, my withdrawal subsided and I began experimenting with Jones’s recipes. I found a smoothie combo I liked—peaches, spinach, and bananas. To the fruit and veggies, I added probiotics, energy-boosting maca powder (which is, according to the package, an Incan superfood), chia seeds (an Aztec superfood), and vitamin-rich cacao powder (a Mayan superfood). Robb looked at the labels and shrugged: “If these were such superfoods, why were all these people defeated by the gluten-eating Spaniards?”

I was surprised and relieved once I realized how many different recipes fit within the program. I ate plenty of green salads, of course. I also prepared a Mexican bean salad, miso soup, a curry-spiced vegetable stew, roasted butternut squash, and a quinoa-and-cucumber salad. I found that being satisfied without meat was basically a matter of reframing the dinner plate. I began to think of my vegetable dishes as a trio of star acts, instead of as two sides acting as bridesmaids to meat. During that time, I did a lot of extra cooking, because our sons weren’t on the cleanse. Usually, for them, I just added some chicken or meatballs to whatever we were having. Standing over a piece of juicy chicken on the grill when I couldn’t indulge required a lot of self-control. Don’t do it; don’t do it, I told myself when I was tempted to cut off a slice. You can’t let Robb win. Some competition is good, I decided. Even harder was giving up the glass (or two) of wine that Robb and I usually had in the evening and doing without cheese, which I adore. When my boys asked for quesadillas that first week, I could barely resist taking a bite, but with help from the Facebook group, I learned that I could stave off cravings with distraction—brushing my teeth before preparing meals so I didn’t nosh as I cooked and sipping water when the urge to snack hit. I was also inspired by the discipline of other cleansers, one of whom reported icing a chocolate cake without licking a single finger. Week 2Going Raw By the end of the first week, my head was clear and I had more consistent energy, even though I was keeping to my regular 5-day-a-week workout schedule. I realized that my energy wasn’t going through ups and downs brought on by caffeine highs (and then lows) or sugar rushes (and then crashes). Plus, I had no morning fogginess, which even one glass of wine the night before can cause. On the first weekend, I had a planned getaway to a friend’s ranch with two other moms, neither of whom were on the cleanse. Though I packed hummus, fruit, fresh-ground peanut butter, and gluten-free crackers, I was half prepared to cheat. (I’d already decided I wouldn’t tell Robb if I did.) How could I get together with my friends without drinking wine like we always did? But my friends were supportive—one had gone 4 years without alcohol—and packed only healthy foods and drank very little. I was so happy sitting around the campfire—proud of myself for staying with the program and thankful for friends who didn’t lead me astray—that I didn’t miss my wine. The second week’s goal was more ambitious: to eliminate even the limited whole grains and gluten-free breads and pasta and eat only raw foods. Jones believes that raw foods provide live enzymes and can be more nutritious because they’re uncooked. Smoothies for breakfast and salads for lunch were still in, but this new constraint complicated dinner. Fortunately, Jones provided a wonderful recipe for nut tacos (ground pecans with spices and leafy greens as a substitute for tortillas). Other good raw recipes: watermelon-based gazpacho and a pad Thai in which peeled zucchini shavings replace the noodles. Even our boys liked that one. Raw food requires plenty of chopping, so Robb and I spent lots of time in the kitchen together. Then, after dinner, we relaxed with glasses of mineral water and lime instead of wine, talking about the new flavors, our progress, and how others on the cleanse were managing. I began to feel any competitiveness, even the playful kind, giving way to the bonding I had imagined when we started. I was feeling light and sharp by the end of the second week. And I wasn’t hungry. Walking the talk of her “Nourish your body, nourish your soul” mantra, Jones allows you to eat as much as you want of the right foods. She believes that because whole foods are more nourishing, you’re more easily satiated. My body felt unburdened. No bloat. No extra baggage. I had the distinct sense that my blood was running cleaner, as if it had been filtered. The second weekend is when Jones’s cleansers can opt for an actual fast, 24 to 48 hours of consuming only juice or vegetable broth. Robb and I chose not to do that. However, we did decide to make that Saturday a smoothie-only day. We found a smoothie bar in Austin with an overwhelming number of options. Robb picked a kale, raspberry, and banana combo, and I tried one with cherries, beets, and carrots. Mine was certainly colorful—a deep fuchsia—but the beets were a bit too earthy. Then we headed off to a movie. We still refer to this as our “smoovie” date. Week 3Almost Normal Over the third week, Jones advised us to slowly and mindfully add cooked food and grains back into our diet, and I made a barley-and-saffron risotto. I also continued with some of the raw recipes we liked so much. As we wound down, we found ourselves beyond noncompetitive. We were elated that we’d managed this endeavor together.

During dinner with friends on our first noncleanse weekend, we both ordered wine, but we agreed it tasted strange—slightly medicinal. Neither of us finished a glass. Over the next week, we added other foods back in. One son made a presentation in his French class about French cheeses, and I was thrilled that this event came after the cleanse. My small slice of Brie tasted like heaven on a stick. In general, we’ve carried many of the principles of the cleanse into our normal life, acting not as purists but as more purposeful eaters. I haven’t eaten meat since, though occasionally I’ll have fish and eggs. Robb, however, eventually went back to eating meat. What can I say? He’s Texan. I now mostly stick to herbal and decaffeinated teas and still love the regimen of a smoothie breakfast and salad lunch. I add a lot less of my beloved cheese to dishes and have become much more sensitive to sugar; too much of it actually gives me a hangover. In many of my recipes—from Key lime pie to chocolate-chip cookies—I’ve reduced the sugar. Bananas, avocados (especially mashed, as a substitute for butter on toast), and spinach are my own personal superfoods; as long as I have them in the kitchen, I know I’ll be eating well. “My goal is to get people well forever,” says Jones. “I hope the cleanse will be a springboard to health awareness.” She insists that losing weight is not the purpose of the cleanse, but after a few months of continuing the program basics, I noticed that my pants were loose. When I went for my yearly checkup in the fall, I’d shed 16 pounds since the year before—to 135, a weight I hadn’t seen since my mid-20s. Plus, my cholesterol—which had always hovered around 210, thanks to genetics—was at 194. Many people—like my friend Kim, who first told me about Jones—regularly take part in these cleanses. I signed on for another last winter (without Robb), mainly to reinforce the lessons. During those 3 weeks, Robb caught a severe case of the flu, but I got a very light version. I’m convinced that I was able to better withstand the virus because I was cleansing and my cells were getting the best nourishment possible. As I took care of him, I couldn’t resist payback for another occasion when I was the one stretched out on the bed and he was the one feeling fine. “I told you,” I said, for a brief moment actually savoring the competition. “You should have done the cleanse with me this time.” And the science says… The cleanse trend shows no sign of slowing, but scientists’ views stay the same: Our colons remove toxins just fine on their own, thank you very much; the euphoric “cleanse energy” is a temporary high; and caloric restriction will, of course, help you lose weight in the short term. That’s not to say all detoxes are duds. Even skeptics acknowledge that a few days on a cleanse that isn’t patently stupid—read: one in which lemon juice isn’t the heartiest ingredient—might help. It won’t help you by “flushing toxins” per se but in other ways: by helping you spruce up your eating habits with techniques you can stick with long-term. If you want to try your own sane cleanse, follow these three guidelines from Kristin Kirkpatrick, a nutritionist and wellness manager at Cleveland Clinic.

  1. Forgo refined grains and refined sugar. It’ll help reverse a blood sugar roller coaster and calm inflammation, giving you that pure surge in energy so beloved by detoxers.
  2. Add more plants. Don’t just eliminate—heap on a variety of the good guys, like veggies, beans, lentils, brown rice, and whole grains.
  3. Drink. Say it with us: More water, less booze. H2O is the original detoxifier.

Still not convinced? Consider these delicious detox dishes from Ralston and Jones. Raw Pad Thai (pictured above) 2 zucchinis, sliced into strips with peeler 2 lg handfuls of bean sprouts (about 2 cups) ¾ c chopped nuts (almonds, peanuts, or cashews) 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips 4 green onions, diced ½ c fresh chopped cilantro 1 Tbsp cold-pressed olive oil ¼ tsp sea salt juice of one lime Combine ingredient in a bowl with Raw Thai Peanut Sauce (recipe below) until well coated and enjoy. Raw Thai Peanut Sauce ¾ c fresh ground natural peanut butter juice of 2 lemons or limes 1 Tbsp fresh minced ginger 1 tsp raw honey ¼ tsp red pepper flakes (optional) salt to taste Combine all ingredients in a bowl until mixture forms a sauce-like consistency. Stiggly Holistics Fire Water “This recipe is a great replacement for coffee.  It’s cleansing, it’s ritualistic, it picks you up, and gets you going without the ‘crash’ of coffee,” says Jones. Boiled water, enough for your mug Juice of ½-1 lemon Cayenne pepper (to taste) ¼ tsp each of cinnamon, ginger powder, and turmeric A pinch each of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper 1 tsp virgin coconut oil Pour lemon juice and boiling water into your favorite mug. Add all spices, salt and pepper, and top with coconut oil. Stir, sit down, and enjoy. More from Prevention: 25 Clean Detox Dishes