Urban Remedy Detox Review: Day 1

This is how I started yesterday's Day 1 of my Urban Remedy cleanse. It's the 3-day, Level 3 cleanse (yes, no food at all, y'all).


8.30am: Hot Water with juice from half a lemon

9.10am: Detox drink #1. Label says: Apple, Lemon, Cos Lettuce, Celery, Silverbeet, Parsley, Cucumber.


It's an unappetizing pond-scum green after shaking it up, but it has a pleasant flavour. I HATE PARSLEY, but even though you can definitely taste the parsley in it, it's not too bad at all. I think the apple and lemon probably help give the flavour a bit of a boost.

I'm such a sucker that I actually re-filled the Juice #1 bottle with water after finishing the juice and drank it too... y'know... to get every single last drop of goodness out of it (besides, I need to drink lots of water during this cleanse too, right?)

While walking to get Juice #2 out the fridge, I notice an after-taste of celery in my mouth.

11.23am: Detox drink #2. Label says: Carrot, Mint, Cucumber, Cos Lettuce, Silverbeet, Celery, Parsley.


This one looks like brown pond-scum after shaking it up (coz of the carrot juice), and tastes more like carrot juice than anything else. Don't think this one was sealed properly coz the cap-seal didn't break when I opened it. And coz this one was filled to the top - I got splotches of it on my work desk!

I'm getting weird looks from the work colleagues now. But people are interested and curious in my drink that looks like a sewer but smells like vegetable soup. :)

I'm drinking the juice but also feeling hungry at the same time. It's probably psychological hunger. I feel like I need to chew something (I'm chewing on nuts usually by this time of day)...

11.59am: I'm feeling a little antsy that I haven't had anything to chew on. Briefly considered chewing gum, but that's just dumb since it'll stimulate the digestive juices which isn't what I want to be doing! Still have an inch left of my #2 detox drink. I'm chewing it as I'm drinking.

1.25pm: Detox drink #3. Label says: Apple, Lemon, Cos Lettuce, Celery, Silverbeet, Spinach, Cucumber, Celery, Parsley.


Hey! This is suspiciously sounding like Drink #1! OK, so it's got additional spinach, and because the ingredients are shuffled around from Drink #1, I'm thinking maybe they've played around with with the ingredient composition. Whatever. I'm hungry.

1.30pm: THE ENTIRE OFFICE SMELLS OF LUNCHTIME!! ie. FOOOOOOOD!

So I had to leave and go sit out in the sun and drink my Incredible Hulk drink. It was either that, or watch people eating toasted ham & cheese and pasta in the office. I don't even eat ham & cheese (go vegan, y'all!) so why did I have food envy? As a little treat, I snuck in a few sips of Drink #6 since the guys at Urban Remedy say it's OK to do this (it's the drink with the most good fat & protein, good for sustenance). Mmm... nice and coconut-y, cinnamon-y... I can't wait to get to it at "dinner time".

It's a psychological game this... coz the more I think about it, the "hungrier" I get. When I've been busy with work and absorbed in it, I forget that I'm actually hungry. So... am I really hungry?

Now I'm glad I stuck to the 3-day cleanse. At one point I was considering going the full 5 days! Yeah right! HA!

2.15pm: At this point, I'm a little forgetful. If I don't write down what I've got to do, I spend 5 minutes trying to remember what I was gonna do next. I had to call a colleague back to ask her about a little detail we had just discussed 2 minutes earlier. I suspect this has got to do with my lack of coffee, rather than the lack of food though.

2.42pm: I have never peed as much as I have today. I'm like an old lady, peeing every half an hour!

3.03pm: IT guy behind me is munching on WASABI PEAS!!! Arghhhhhhh!!

*Keep focus on the end goal*

*My body is a... or will be a temple*

3.40pm: Detox Drink #4. Label says: Lemon, Water, Agave Nectar, Cayenne Pepper.


Woah. I'm late for my next drink. So busy I wasn't even hungry. On the way to the office kitchen, I was even thinking "I'm not hungry or thirsty, do I even need another drink?"

So I was glad to find that this was a nice, light, refreshing lemon juice! (Liz, Lew & Mel: MYSTERY SOLVED!) ;p And er... come to think of it, it sounds like The Master Cleanse! ...Of course this substitutes maple syrup for agave nectar instead. All low-GI, natural goodness.
(Side note to Liz: you can use agave nectar instead of stevia as your sugar substitute too! None of that funky bitter aftertaste)

Mmmmmmm. This is extremely yummy. I don't even taste the pepper... just seems like the lemon has a bit of of a bite. While taking Drink #4 out of the cooler bag, I had a few sips of Drink #6 again, coz I absolutely love the rich, thick flavour (plus, it's sweet and I think that's what this sweet tooth of mine is after). OOOOOOH. The "dinner" drink is gonna be such a nice treat!!

5.29pm: Detox Drink #5. Label reads: Carrot, Mint, Cucumber, Cos Lettuce, Silverbeet, Celery, Parsley.


OK, this is EXACTLY like Drink #2 then. Not bad, tastes like carrot & celery juice (imagine V8 drink minus the tomato?)

I can't believe how many drinks there are by now. I really don't feel hungry or thirsty and don't really want to ingest anything... so I suppose that's a good thing?

I feel a really slight headache creeping up from the back of my head too, but I wonder if this might just be referring from my shoulder knots. I'm off to see the Osteopath in half an hour, so whoopee, I get to sort it out.

Even if it's a side-effect from the cleanse, that's a good sign coz that means my body's kicking into detox mode now. Apparently it takes anywhere from 24 - 36hrs after starting a fast before your body starts cleaning itself up internally. The theory is once your body stops having to digest food and process other kinds of chemicals, it turns its attention to breaking down the toxins and chemicals that are already present within your organs. Pretty clever huh?

6.05: Osteopath appointment. He looks at my elbow (jammed from those dropbacks) and says "Of course it stems from the pelvic rotation". Apparently my left shoulder isn't as open because of the misalignment, which then affects the way I dropback and land. Just have to bring more awareness to opening the shoulders! (Yeah right, sounds so easy).

My L1 vertabra in the middle of my back has also been twanging, and it's probably also because of the dropbacks. What's cool about this Osteo is he says that with any new activity, it takes the muscles some time to learn what to do/ what not to do. "Keep dropping back for another week and see how you go." Then he proceeded to advise me which muscles and where my focus on alignment should be to prevent the L1 twang. Pretty cool when you've got an Osteo who's done yoga and understands not just the body, but how which muscles are working in which pose too!

7pm: Detox Drink #6. Label reads: Raw Cashews, cinnamon, Coconut Milk, Agave Nectar, Vanilla Bean, Water.


It's full of MM-MM YUMMY GOODNESS!!! No wonder I've been stealing sips from it all day, it's like a delicious smoothie!

7.35pm: Visit the Steam Room.

I had half of what was left of Drink #6, then decided to go visit the steam room downstairs (yes lucky us, we have one in the apartment building!)

What I remember from reading previous detox literature is that the 3 major ways the body dumps out these toxins is through the skin (sweating), the large intestines (er, your poo), and through your pee. (which is why the other detox I went on also included the colonic treatments)

I'd been peeing one heckuva lot already, but er... haven't been "eliminating" as they say (weird coz I'm pretty regular. OK... Sorry, TOO MUCH INFORMATION. But you ARE reading about a detox, what did you expect would surface?!) (or in my case, not surface. Yet. HAHA!)

So since the steam room's great for opening up the pores and getting toxins out, I sat in there for about 20 minutes (alternating the steam room with cold showers).

8.05pm: Finish the rest of Drink #6

At the end of Day 1 of this cleanse, I'm feeling absolutely FINE. NORMAL. Not hungry, not grumpy... not even a headache (the little one that was threatening to come on earlier has now disappeared). I'm just tanking up with more water coz I'll need it for practice the next day! (ie. today)

I'll give a report on how today's practice went tomorrow, since that technically belongs to Day 2 of the detox.

At the end of Day 1, I'm going to bed with thoughts of my body slowly starting its detoxification process (it's been more than 24hrs since my last meal now!) ...And I'm giving myself a pat on the back for a Day 1 well-handled. :)