cleanse #2 done! my experience doing medical medium simplified 3:6:9 cleanse

i did it! another cleanse in the books (different from the last one) and i’m here to share the whole experience with you!

Hey, hey! I can’t believe that I’m here today to not only tell you about my second cleanse experience, but one that lasted for NINE days vs. the previous one which was five days! (You can read about the first one here.)

I decided to do this one a few weeks following my first because of the initial reasons I needed to detox, and not seeing the complete results that I was hoping for. This also meant, to me, that my body needed deeper healing. Plus, I’ve been wanting to do one of the Medical Medium cleanses from his latest book Cleanse to Heal for a while now, so it felt like the perfect opportunity.

There are 3 cleanse options in the book. I chose the easiest one, referred to as the simplified version, for two reasons—1) I felt that my issues aren’t big enough (thankfully) to require one of the more intense cleanses & 2) I’ve only done a few cleanses, so this felt like the best intro into doing it. Although there are two other cleanse level options, this post is specific to the simplified version (see the book to learn more).

The cleanse (all 3 versions) is referred to as 3:6:9 because the nine days are broken down into 3s. The first 3 are prepping your body for the work (and not to be skipped!), the next 3 are really gearing the body up to remove toxins, and then the final 3 are part of the purging process.

I’m going to get right into the post and how my experience was, but I’ve also left you with a ton of info at the bottom to help out. Especially if you’re looking to do the cleanse and want some help from someone that’s been through it.

I’ll also answer the question you’re probably dying to know… did it help my health concern?! All this and more coming right up!😉

I’ve organized this post into the following headings, so if there’s an area you’re interested in more, then jump below! I hope you enjoy this post & happy cleansing to those ready to dive in!

CONTENTS OF THIS POST:

my cleanse summary
helpful products/tools
some of the recipes I made + brief thoughts on them
tips for success
my outcome!

MY CLEANSE SUMMARY

I have to start by saying that going into this, nine days felt very intimidating. I think the most helpful thing was to break it down into the 3 day chunks… and that’s what I’ll do for this summary.

Days 1-3:

These first few days you’re allowed breakfasts other than fruit and I took advantage of it (with oatmeal). I would tell you to do the same just so when you get to the remaining six mornings, you know you got more than fruit in while you could. This made the mornings really easy. I also suggest you create the ritual around water intake + celery juice + breakfast because this will be your routine for nine days (and more if you continue on after the cleanse is done).

In these first few days, eating big salads for lunch was ok and I welcomed them. The only hard part was adjusting to blander foods than I’m used to (without salt). I’m used to cooking with a ton of flavour and salt, so this was the hardest transition into the cleanse (but don’t worry, your tastebuds adjust majorly soon!).

Days 4-6:

Now you’re upping the amount of celery juice in the morning + no longer can eat anything other than fruits. The morning routine was and is the easiest for me as I loosely follow Medical Medium morning protocol in everyday life anyway. The morning adjustment is the ONLY thing that really changes during this cleanse, so getting prepared for these 3 day increments is the most crucial part for the morning part, but the afternoons don’t require any major changes!

Finally got into a good flow with salads for lunch (+ a soup, potato salad, or leftovers to accompany) and then scanned a recipe for dinner that spoke to me (I like to plan a bit but also leave some room for the moment). I also wasn’t afraid to have smoothies in the evening if I was hungry following dinner. The cleanse says to have apples, but I totally downed smoothies.

NOTE: Day 6 was the hardest day for me. I think it had to do with the body getting ready to purge the toxins, but no matter how hard I tried today, everything didn’t feel good and I struggled a lot today.

Days 7-8:

Finally in the last three days and it’s time to UP the celery juice even more. Again, this wasn’t a big change for me although it was the most celery juice I’ve drank in the morning ever, so it just meant a little extra time to drink (and also plenty of trips to go pee)!

Salads were getting harder by this point, so I gaged whether I would eat one at lunch or wait for dinner to get a ton of greens in (I think one morning I even put a ton of spinach in my smoothie to do it that way!). By now, my tastebuds were well adapted to no salt, but I still tried to pick recipes that had herbs and seasonings in them. It also got a little bit harder towards the end knowing the end was in sight and also really missing some of the things I had to give up while on the cleanse (like eating the same dinners as my family, my Sakara bars, and drinking my coffee alternative), but I powered through!

Day 9:

I left this one by itself because although it’s part of the final three days, it deserved its own because this is your ALL liquid day. Today started off fine, but while I was out with my son, I didn’t bring enough smoothie along, so I got super shaky. Once we were home and I was able to whip up another smoothie, I was fine again. Both soups I prepared for lunch and dinner were delicious. I didn’t feel overly hungry because the one good thing about this cleanse is that you can eat to your satiety, which makes it super helpful. I ended the day knowing I DID IT! and that was such a great feeling!

HELPFUL TOOLS + PRODUCTS

Since this cleanse is nine days, and if you have a family to also manage, it can be A LOT—especially if you’re the main one who’s preparing it all. So here are some of the tools that helped me out!

A high-speed blender is a MUST. This gets so much use for not just smoothies + smoothie bowls, but even juice making and some of the lunch/dinner recipes (because you can totally use it in place of a food processor).
A juicer for your daily celery juice + anything else you want to juice. Although my blender takes a tad bit more priority, this juicer has slowly been creeping up the ‘highly used’ list!
This blend is useful to get if you’re going to be making the heavy metal detox smoothie (which I hope you are). I purchased it right before I started the cleanse to have the 3 powders in one package. It’s brilliant!
A steaming basket will be a hot ticket item in this cleanse since you do a lot of steaming. I tried to pick more recipes that steamed veggies vs. baked because it’s better for the detox process, so make sure you invest in one of these!
Silicon oven baking mats come in handy for baked recipes to make clean up afterwards easy. Especially since no oil/fats are used in this cleanse, so this will help them from not sticking to your pans.
A citrus press because you will be juicing all the lemons and/or limes. I don’t think mine ever stayed put away long. It was always out ready to be used in lunch, dinner, and even some breakfast recipes! (You could also consider a manual citrus press—especially for juicing oranges on day 9).
And of course, you’ll want to have the Cleanse to Heal book to make it ALL come together.

RECIPES MADE + BRIEF SUMMARIES

(To see all that I ate during the cleanse in order, check out the highlight I saved on Insta!)

There are 60+ recipes in the recipe section for this cleanse. Now at first that felt overwhelming for me, but once I was cleansing (and had my plan tentatively mapped out prior to), it felt a lot more manageable. Hopefully my summaries of some of the recipes I made and thoughts on them help guide you in the right direction + remember you can always check out this highlight I saved on Insta to see what days I ate them on!

I’m not including them all, especially breakfast recipes because I think those are pretty straightforward, but the ones that I hope will help the most in your experience.

A note: My ‘go to’ was making sure I always had a big salad for lunch and then making a side to go with it (whether it was leftovers, a soup, or potato salad) so that I spent little time in the kitchen for lunch and focused more time there in the evening for dinner.

Roasted red pepper & tomato soup: I prepped this one the day before I started the cleanse, and perhaps because it was the start of the cleanse (and adapting to no salt + blander meals than I’m used to), but this soup was just alright. I didn’t end up finishing it all, but it makes a big batch, which is helpful for having it for a few days (and reduce the time cooking).
Curried cauliflower & peas: This was nice because it had a ton of spices in it. It ended up being very spicy, but thankfully I had paired it with a stew.
Potato salad: This was my ‘go to’. I made it a few times because it was easy & allowed me to eat to feeling full 😂. I would recommend adding dulse flakes to it to give it a “salty” taste!
Sweet potato & zucchini stew: This was good + provided leftovers so it made the next day lunch a breeze!
Carrot, zucchini & potato patties: These were worth more trouble to make than they were to enjoy them. They didn’t come together as well as the recipe made them seem & ok in flavour. I’d probably skip them next time.
Stuffed butternut squash: This was a relatively easy one to make, but was a little bland (I also made this on my first cleanse day, so it would have been attributed to my use of seasonings and getting used to the lack of). I had some leftover so I used it the next day on my salad.
Potato pizza boats: This was one of my faves and would totally make again. They were simple and just fun to make + had leftovers for the next day!
Chunky sweet potato fries with spinach pesto: This was good and easy to make. I did a mix of sweet potato and regular fries (baked in wedge form). The pesto is a bit runny, but definitely adds a nice touch to the fries. I used the leftover pesto on my salad the next day.

Butternut squash falafels: These turned out awesome! I was surprised with these. The spices definitely make the recipe + I had enough to go on my salad for dinner and then another salad for lunch the next day. PS- it says to make them in a food processor, but I totally did them in my blender.

Zucchini basil soup: This is one of the dinner recipe options for Day 9 of the cleanse and I enjoyed it a lot. I was pleasantly surprised seeing as I made it with water (vs. broth), but the flavour was there. Definitely don’t skimp on the basil! I had some leftover and just enjoyed for lunch today (2 days later)!
Spinach soup: This is Day 9 lunch recipe and it was super good! Gobbled this all up!

I also ended up making a recipe not in the book, but of my own creation! It was on Saturday night when we had just spent time with our friends and then my fam got Chipotle for dinner, so I created my own burrito bowl, cleanse style.

Burrito bowl: cilantro-lime cauli-rice + sautéed peppers, onions, and mushrooms + steamed sweet potatoes + arugula + cherry tomatoes

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Write down a rough outline of the nine days. I did this on a plain piece of paper so I could reference it easily & know what I needed to be doing on that day at that time + always have the book close by. I probably used that thing 10x throughout the day!

Instead of framing it as being on a cleanse and all the things removed, think of it as a plethora of fruits and vegetables you get to eat. This lit me up knowing I could load up on them for nine straight days.

Don’t be afraid to eat. Because fruits and vegetables are naturally lower in calories, you will need to eat A TON more to accomplish what grains would otherwise do. So although your plates might look like you’ve gone crazy at a buffet, DO IT! Because there is no limit to how much you can eat on this cleanse, so use this to your advantage. I loved every second of this part of the cleanse naturally because I love to eat and feel satiated!
Buy tons of bananas to freeze for smoothies (and more if you like to freeze your own fruit) + get a ton of frozen fruit. You don’t even want to know how many bags of frozen wild blueberries, mango, strawberries, watermelon, and dragonfruit I got for this!
Find a few smoothies you love to make, so they can be your ‘go to’s (for me this was: heavy metal detox smoothie, mango parfait, watermelon aloe slushy [not in book but on Medical Medium’s website], and my dragonfruit smoothie that I always make).

Although I LOVE supporting my local farmers’ market and getting local produce, I knew I needed to buy the big tubs of pre-washed lettuces for this. It made life SO much easier + helped me eat way more greens than I would have otherwise. So if you’re like me, then this might be worth it!

Use lunch and dinner recipes for easy meals the next day. Leftovers were totally my best friend in this process. Falafels made for dinner… throw them on a salad the next day! I honestly used up all & anything I could!
This next tip is a BIG one if you have a family and you’re the main cook in the home… try and either prepare some of your food in advance of the cleanse AND/OR prepare meals for your family. This one sucked the most because most nights I was making TWO dinners (one for them, one for me), just exhausted in the kitchen, and not loving being in there. So if your family won’t be eating the same meals as you, make sure you’re not killing yourself trying to feed them because you need to focus on your healing! I would definitely prioritize more meal prep next time.
Don’t forget to still live life. When I was on Day 5 of my cleanse, it was on a Saturday and we went over to our friends’ house. I didn’t say ‘no’ to hanging out with people just because I was cleansing. But did I bring an apple to their house as my snack? Why yes I did!😂

MY OUTCOME

As I sit here on the other side of this cleanse now, it’s CRAZY to reflect back and acknowledge that I did this. I DID THIS! Once upon a time, I opened up the Cleanse to Heal book thought, “the cleanse looks good but I don't know if I could do that.”, and now here I am having completed it. You can do things you once thought were crazy!

Before I get to an overall summary of how the cleanse made me feel, let’s jump to the most important part:

The real question is… Did it help heal my acne???

I’m happy to say that it definitely helped it in a tremendous way!! The crazy part is, it only took THREE days into the cleanse for me to start noticing the differences. It’s still not 100%, but it’s WAY better than it was, and I KNOW it’s because of this.

It might look like it’s still not the best, but if you were to see it in person and FEEL it, you would know how much it’s improved. Right before I started the cleanse, I had 2 very deep bumps appear that were super sore to even touch (this is pretty common for my face these days), but as soon as I started the cleanse, no new ones appeared. I have a lot of healing superficially on the skin to do, and although no new big bumps have appeared, they take forever to go away & I’m still having flare ups of smaller pimples (a good sign that the body is getting rid of toxins!), which is way better than my skin was doing pre-cleanse. So I’ll take that!

Since it’s not 100% gone, I’m going to stick to a modified version of the simplified cleanse and potential do another round of the full cleanse in a few weeks time (mentally I just need a break right now before diving in again).

And now, overall how the cleanse made me feel:

✨majorly cleared my skin (that even my last cleanse didn’t manage to do)
✨made me feel lighter
✨less bloating
✨helped regulate my elimination (it definitely gets the pipes cleared🤣)
✨more natural energy (didn’t miss coffee once)
✨changed how I view what I eat moving forward (in the best, glowing ways possible)

So if you’re wondering if it’s worth doing the cleanse—you tell me?? Does it feel like it’d be a good fit for you?

I know as someone who eats 90% clean + a real foods plant-based diet, this wasn’t a huge stretch for me, so please factor that in. Maybe your diet looks a bit different and it still feels daunting, then I’d say work up to it. Make tiny changes each day to prep you for it. Because there is NOTHING more powerful than the healing power of foods. Remember it only took three days for me to start seeing results. So if you’re deeply needing the work, then it’s probably worth it to do, regardless of where your current eating habits stand!

YOU CAN DO INCREDIBLE THINGS!

In closing out this long post (sorry!), I just want to acknowledge you for reading this and say thank you. If you’re reading it because you’re in need of healing, I am sending you all the encouragement and good vibes! If you were curious to just hear about my experience, I hope you gained some good insight into how it went!

I wish nothing more than for ALL of us to live the Glow Life. We deserve nothing less and it’s totally within all of our reaches.

If after reading this you’d like to work together from a nutrition standpoint (as that is my specialty), then please head here to learn more!

Thanks again & we’ll talk real soon!