For those of you not familiar with it, the 3 Day Refresh is sort of a "cleanse" - made to help you get back on track with eating healthy if you've had a binge weekend, conquer cravings, get a flatter belly and feel more energized!! You do get to eat fruits, veggies, and a variety of shakes on this program, so you're not starving!
I decided to give this a try a couple weeks ago when I just felt out of whack. I was indulging my cravings for sweets and junk food more than I should have been, and I couldn't seem to snap myself out of it. I felt tired all the time, had a hard time getting a good night's sleep, my face was breaking out a bit (thanks carbs!) and I just had a general feeling of YUCKINESS. lol I don't really know how else to describe it. I remembered that Beachbody had the Ultimate Reset, which is 21 days (too long for me! I love eating meat WAY too much to be able to do that one haha) so as I was reading a bit of info about that one, I came across their 3 Day Refresh! I was like, well 3 days isn't so bad, I can do anything for 3 days! I was ready to give my body a jump start back into my good eating habits, and if I lost a couple pounds on the way, then that would be the cherry on top!
My box arrived late last week, and I decided to start it this Monday. I read a ton of other reviews about doing this program and it seemed that they all recommended doing your 3 days during the work week - days that you have kind of the same schedule, and things to occupy your time so you wouldn't just be sitting around thinking about food! That makes total sense to me, I could just imagine myself trying to do this over a weekend, and since I spend most of my fall Saturdays watching football, I immediately knew I would get the TV munchies and end up raiding my kitchen!
The excellent program guide spells out EVERYTHING for you, including lists of approved fruits, veggies, fats and sample meals for dinner! I was really surprised at how much I would be eating on this program - when I think of programs like this, the first thing that comes to mind is The Master Cleanse - yuck!!
The schedule looks like this:
First thing in the AM: drink water
Breakfast: Shakeology + 1 serving fruit
Mid-Morning: Fiber Sweep
Lunch: Vanilla Fresh + 1 serving fruit, veggies + fat
Mid-Afternoon snack: 1 serving veggies + fat
Dinner: Vanilla Fresh + 1 dinner meal (from the guide book)
*The program is offered either WITH or WITHOUT Shakeology packets - I already get Shakeology delivered, so I opted for the package without Shakeology. This would also be a good way for someone who is interested in trying Shakeology to take it for a spin and see how they like it! My morning chocolate Shakeology was BY FAR the best daily shake out of the 3 you have to drink for this program haha :)
So as you can see, you're getting 2 servings of fruit each day, plus 3 servings of veggies and fat each day! I say 3 servings of veggies and fat because for your dinner meal, you're getting in about 1 more serving each of veggies and fat in addition to the 2 you already ate for lunch & afternoon snack. With this plan, I felt like I was ALWAYS eating or drinking something haha! One of the hard parts though, at least for me, was that there are time limits between some of the meals. For example, once you have the Fiber Sweep in the morning, you are supposed to wait at least an hour to have your lunch meal. For some reason, once I was on the clock waiting for that hour to end, I was IMMEDIATELY hungry. It seemed to make it so much harder to focus on work and to NOT think about food when I knew I had to wait lol.
Here are my thoughts throughout the 3 days, along with my weight each morning!
Day 1: 169 lbs.
-breakfast shakeology (choc + strawberries/raspberries) good!
-a little grumpy from no coffee, no caffeine headache yet
-Fiber Sweep: bad texture, citrus flavor ok
-Vanilla fresh: hard to mix, tastes ok
-feel full, not hungry
-headache at bedtime, caffeine?
Day 2: 168.6 lbs.
-didn't sleep well
-headache gone
-same breakfast shakeology (choc + raspberries)
-slight headache at bedtime
Day 3: 167.8
-feel good!
-could not drink all of the Fiber Sweep
-felt full after each meal even though not eating a lot
-could not finish Vanilla Fresh for lunch or dinner, texture an issue
Day 4: 167.2
-feel good! mostly happy to get coffee + real food today
-tummy is pretty flat this morning :)
-skin looks AMAZING
Overall, I lost 1.8 lbs! To be honest, this was less than I was expecting. I didn't go into this 3 Day Refresh program with the goal of losing a ton of weight, but most of the reviews I read ahead of time said they lost 3, 5, 9 lbs - so I was expecting with the decrease in daily calories, I would lose something comparable. But I think maybe my reason for not losing very much was that I was eating fairly healthy before I started. I mean yes, I was eating chocolate and candy and soda more than I wanted to, but it wasn't like my entire diet was chips and pasta and bread - so I didn't have to cut out quite as much crap as some people might, so my weight loss make sense! I'm THRILLED with what I did lose, don't get me wrong! Especially since weight loss wasn't my primary goal, I think 1.8 lbs gone is pretty good :)
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| Before |
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| After |
Here are my before/after pics! *Apologies for the poor quality, I've only just realized how poor the lighting in my bedroom is :/ It may not look like it, but this is 1.8 lbs lost! I think the shadows make my tummy look larger in the second picture, but you can see that my love-handle area looks smaller! My clothes fit much looser now as well. I didn't take any actual measurements, which I'm kicking myself for, but I was running late to work the morning I took my "before" and didn't have time! I would say I've maybe lost 2 inches from my waist over the 3 days, judging by how my jeans are fitting me. That's a definitely win in my book!
Some honest thoughts on the program:
Fiber Sweep is NOT GOOD. Fiber Sweep is a high-fiber formula that is supposed to help gently clean out your digestive system and can help lower cholesterol and the risk of heart disease! Flavor wise, it's slightly citrus-y, which is sort of refreshing. The texture really got me - you're supposed to mix it into water and drink it RIGHT away because it contains psyllium husk and will thicken up super fast. It was grainy but chunky at the same time, and I really struggled with choking it down each day.
Vanilla Fresh was NOT GOOD. Vanilla Fresh is a high-protein formula that is full of ingredients to help curb hunger and satisfy your appetite. The vanilla flavor was sort of diluted, I think if it was a little stronger that would have helped. Again, it was a texture issue for me. I had a really hard time getting the Vanilla Fresh to fully mix into the water. I used a shaker bottle to mix the Vanilla Fresh each day since I was at work with no blender. The first day, I mixed up the Vanilla Fresh, drank it all down, and only when I went to wash out my shaker bottle did I realize that maybe 50% of the shake mix was stuck to the lid! Then the rest of the times I needed to mix up the Vanilla Fresh, I stirred it first (before shaking) with a fork/spoon but there were still lots of chunks that I couldn't get dissolved. And by the time I had my last Vanilla Fresh shake last night, I was just totally over the slightly grainy texture and weak flavor and I couldn't bring myself to finish it :/
Aside from my texture issues with the 2 drink mixes, everything else was good! Yes, I was a bit hungry at times, but I didn't cheat. The hunger wasn't anything I couldn't handle. It was hard when my boyfriend snacked on M&Ms and chips, because I REALLY wanted some, but I held out!!
So overall, it was a worthwhile experience. No, I was not a fan of the 2 drink mixes provided in the program, but I wouldn't say they were deal-breakers. I would still do this 3 Day Refresh again in the future if I needed to maybe lose a couple pounds before a vacation, or a special occasion, or to detox my body after a vacation or an over-indulgent weekend!
I do want to add that by the end, I did feel refreshed, energized and my cravings for junk had mostly gone away! My skin has looked AMAZING thanks to this as well :)
So have any of you tried the 3 Day Refresh? I'd love to hear about some other experiences! Did you love it, hate it, would you do it again?
I'd love to also hear if anyone is interested in trying it out for themselves! Or if you have any questions about a part of the program that I didn't talk about, please leave me a comment and ask!
If you've decided to give the 3 Day Refresh a shot, you can order it here!
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