The Final Review of My Ultimate Reset Cleanse!

Wow, it has taken me way too long to write this post! I did the Ultimate Reset 21 day cleanse by Beachbody back in April y’all. It’s July now. I know, I’m the worst. To be really real with you, I didn’t even finish the cleanse which is why it’s taken me forever to even figure out what to say. I was sort of let down and embarrassed, which is stupid because I quit because I got sick AF, but I still felt weird about it. Truly, this post is more about why I stopped and my experience rather than a true “review.” I still think the UR is a great program and would recommend it, it just didn’t happen to agree with me.

Before I dive into this whole thing too much, let me make sure you actually know what the heck I’m talking about. Check out my post here about what the Ultimate Reset is and why I decided to try it. I also did an end of week 1 review, which you can read here. Spoiler alert: week 1 review was written before I started vomiting like the exorcist every time I tried to get food close to my mouth.

Starting Strong

Overall, week one of the cleanse went well. I experienced some headaches, some achey muscles and fatigue, all of which is super normal when doing an intense detox cleanse like the Ultimate Reset. By the end of the week the caffeine headaches were mostly gone, I felt like I had more energy, and I had really enjoyed what I was eating.

Week Two – Hanging in there

Week two started out well too. It was more challenging because in week two you are eating a completely vegan diet. I didn’t love the food options as much and I could tell I was missing protein, but I was still on board. Around day 3 or 4 of week two I started feeling really nauseous. Like, constant all the time trying to decide whether I should just go puke. I kept on with the foods that were in the plan and took most of the supplements, although there was a time or two when there was no way some of the supplements that are mixed in water were making it down (looking at you, power greens).

I got home from work on night 5 of the second week, ate dinner, felt okay, then got nauseous out of nowhere and spent the entire night puking. Not cute. The next day I didn’t eat much and I skipped the supplements that were new for week two thinking that maybe they were upsetting my stomach. I stayed on plan with what I did eat and I felt okay. I got back on track and finished up week two, but still had some lingering nausea.

Week 3 – Hell Week

Week three came around and I still felt yucky. At this point I was just tired of cooking and the foods I was eating, and I was tired of feeling sick all the time. Despite all of that, I didn’t want to give up with only one week to go, so I pushed on. I made it about one day into week three before I got sick again, and literally could not keep anything down. I missed a day of work because I felt so sick and couldn’t keep my head out of the toilet even if I wasn’t eating. It was miserable.

That was the point at which I decided I was done. When I finally started to feel well enough to try some food, there was no way in hell I was reaching for a salad. You know when you’re sick and then you can finally eat again and toast just seems like a 5 star restaurant meal? Yeah, that was me. I basically crawled out of bed to the kitchen, sat there feeling defeated, and then said, “fuck it, I’m eating bread.” I just needed to ingest something that I wasn’t going to throw up, and that’s what it was in that moment.

That was pretty much my diet for the next 24 hours until my stomach finally decided we could try real food again. There was part of me that wanted to finish, but there was a bigger part of me that couldn’t imagine being sick anymore. I have no idea if it was the detox/supplements/cleanse that wasn’t agreeing with me, or if I had some nasty GI bug. Either way, I wasn’t risking it. I was done.

My Takeaways

Even though I ended up cutting the cleanse short because of my uncooperative digestive system, I do still feel like I got a lot out of it. I learned some things about myself and challenged myself to do things I wasn’t sure if I could.

The first thing I learned (which I discuss in more detail in my week 1 review post), was how much I was eating out of habit. Sticking to the cleanse forced me to say no to the snacks and food that is always sitting around the nurses station. I thought this would be tough for me, but it actually wasn’t too bad. It became easy to walk away and forced me to realize how much I was eating just because it was there in front of me.

The second takeaway was that I can actually be a functional human without caffeine. I was the person who would wake up, make a pot of coffee, and drink it throughout the day. I became extremely dependent and couldn’t wake up and do life without coffee. When I started the Reset, I quit caffeine cold turkey. There were a few days I actually thought I would die, but by the end of week one I actually felt great. It was nice to not have to have coffee to get out of bed and get on with my day. It was lovely to feel awake without being dependent on something else for it. I have gone back to drinking coffee now, but nowhere near as much as I did before.

Finally, I learned that while I am about the whole “go big or go home” idea, I think I set myself up for failure by doing a program that was so restrictive. I totally get (and love) that the point of the Ultimate Reset is to cleanse your body and reset your nutrition. I think it’s a great program. However, it was difficult for me to give up wine, coffee, meat, dairy, all things processed, etc. all at once. I also went from almost never cooking to having to cook every day, which was difficult as well. I think it’s important to remember that you can have structure that you need to keep you on track without having to give up EVERYTHING you love all at once. More to come on that in a later post (;

So, there you have it – the sad ending of my Ultimate Reset journey. Have you ever done the Ultimate Reset? Have you done other cleanses? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments!