Being healthy and staying healthy should be the goal for each of us, which you already know if you’re reading this, but we all need a bit of help now and again. Beachbody has been one of the guys offering a helping hand in many ways. Exercise programs, nutrition support, and most recently cleansing programs such as the Ultimate Reset and the 3-Day Refresh. What are these cleanses about?
Ultimate Reset is a three-stage (3 weeks) cleansing and weight loss regimen that helps eliminate harmful toxins and elements from your system and gradually introduce a healthier eating and daily living routine. 3-Day Refresh is a quicker cleanse regimen that helps jumpstart your weight loss journey.
Aside from the drastic difference in the lengths of these two programs, the two programs work in various ways to help achieve the objectives they promise. The question that comes up is – which one should you go for, and why? We’ll be getting into the nuts and bolts of these two approaches to health, wellness, and weight loss, hoping you’ll figure just what will work best for you.
Understanding the Science Behind Detoxifying and Cleanses
If you’ve been reading up on detox programs and cleanses online, you’ll definitely have noticed that the two terms are used practically interchangeably in the health and wellness industry. The fact that there are countless such programs, products, and regimes out there trying to fill this highly popular niche doesn’t help make things any clearer.
Just how much do the two terms share in meaning? They share plenty of overlapping aspects, however there’s definitely not enough similarity between the two terms to allow the use of one term in place of the other. Let’s make it simple.
Toxin
Refers to any compound that works to disrupt the health and function of cells. Human-made examples include pesticides, additives in processed foods, drug deposits, heavy metals, and various other elements found in our food, water, and even the air that we breathe.
Note that anything, even water, can be toxic to you when taken in excessive amounts (massive quantities), so we generally mean those substances that have a negative effect even in small quantities when talking of toxins.
Detox Dieting
Refers to the system of strict dieting that allows our bodies to naturally eliminate the toxins that we ingest in the course of our daily lives. Unhealthy foods will be eliminated from your diet. Still, you will also have to go through a very restrictive eating regimen, very often to the point where your body will not be getting the nutrients it needs to perform optimally.
Cleanse
Cleansing refers to the process of cutting unhealthy foods from your diet and replacing them with healthy, nutritious options that will help your toxin elimination systems work at optimal levels. Rather than shock the system with an abrupt stoppage or severe cut-back of nutrition (good or bad), cleansing focuses more on fueling the body with the right fuel type in optimal quantities.
Note: It’s important to understand, before starting any detox or cleanse program, that there are no foods you can take to flush out your system and get rid of all unwanted elements. Only your organs are responsible for carrying out this waste and toxin elimination.
That’s the major driver behind these measures – eating healthy, staying hydrated, and being active will help organs such as your liver, kidneys, and skin perform their duties more efficiently, and unhealthy eating will even hamper these processes, leading to even more problems.
Ultimate Reset Explained
This is a 21-day (3-week) detox and cleansing program formulated by Beachbody to help users lose weight, cleanse their system, and develop better eating and lifestyle habits. What makes it stand out when compared to most cleansers out there is the level of detail it goes into and the fact that it relies on plenty more than simply cutting out the calories to make its effect felt.
This regimen seeks to not only help you get rid of the weight but keep it off for the long term – something most weight loss programs fail to do. It is completely vegan in nature, meaning no animal products go into its supplements, although there are white meats and some animal products introduced later on, these are optional. You can keep things entirely vegan, should you prefer.
To get an idea of how this vegan cleanse works and what it involves in detail would take much more time than we have here, but we can get a quick overview of what the Ultimate Reset is all about, just to help you figure out whether it will be the right fit for you.
The Ultimate Reset Has Gone Through Clinical Studies (i.e Proven to Work).
The clinical study and the results were published on March 2013 in Journal of Chiropractic Medicine (a peer-reviewed medical journal). (Full text here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1556370713000047)
Research was conducted at the New York College of Chiropractic Medicine, led by key investigator Dr. Mary Balliett. She had the following to say about the Ultimate Reset results:
“These results are statistically significant at p<0.05…. What does that mean?… That means you can be assured with 95% confidence that if you were to do this study, if you were to do this product, Ultimate Reset, that there’s a 95% chance that you would get the same results or very similar results.”
Here are the Clinical Study Results, the 21 Day Beachbody Ultimate Reset Cleanse is Effective for:
- Reducing Weight (average weight loss of 8.75 pounds)
- Decreasing fat mass
- Increasing percent lean tissue
- Reducing inches in waist and hip (over an inch on average)
- Reducing cholesterol (both Total and LDL)
- Reducing triglycerides
- Increasing testosterone in male (female levels stayed consistent, only a slight decrease)
During this study, they also noted the following side effects during the 3 weeks:
- Week 1 (Reclaim) – 55% No Symptoms; 23% Headache; 7% Fatigue
- Week 2 (Release) – 66% No Symptoms; 9% Headache; 4% Fatigue
- Week 3 (Restore) – 77% No Symptoms; 4% Headache; 13% Fatigue
The headaches were mainly due to caffeine withdrawals. However, you can see that those who reported the Headache side effects decreased over time.
Additionally, you can see that the majority of people had no side effects to report.
ORDER THE BEACHBODY ULTIMATE RESET HERE
What’s Included With The Ultimate Reset
To speed you on your way to your health and weight loss objectives, you will receive separate packs of various supplements formulated to help you along each stage of the Reset in various ways.
Power Greens
This is a powerful combination of various green nutrient sources such as matcha green tea, celery, chlorella, kale, spinach, and cucumber, all considered superfoods. Their major role is to help us restore our bodies’ optimal acidic balance, which is thrown out of whack by our unhealthy diets and habits. You’ll be taking this once a day.
Detox
This carries most of the ingredients responsible for helping our bodies eliminate the accumulated toxins that slow us down and pose a potential health risk to us. These ingredients include turmeric, flaxseed, ginger, milk thistle, and chia seed. They work together to effect gentle yet comprehensive detoxification of our digestive tract to enable optimal function. You’ll be taking one of these three times a day.
Revitalize
This is formulated using a combination of probiotics and prebiotics, which are basically the healthy bacteria living in our guts that help us carry out digestion processes. We interfere with the balance of this internal environment through unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles and as a result of taking antibiotics, which clear out useful bacteria.
Taking this supplement three times each day will help restore the balance and optimal operating condition in our gastrointestinal system.
Mineralize
Minerals are important for various reasons in the human body, including preventing muscle cramps, facilitating fluid absorption, and generally allowing us to function at optimal levels.
Most people imagine table salt is enough to take care of this need, but it isn’t, as it is highly processed, which strips it of many elements we are unaware of. What you get here will be Pink Himalayan Salt, minimally processed to preserve all the beneficial trace elements that it naturally comes with.
Taking this supplement will be dependent on how much water you take in a day, as the program goes on to layout.
Optimize
Each capsule of this particular supplement will contain a combination of various enzymes, including lipase, protease, bromelain, amylase, and more. Over time, our natural enzyme production slows down, which is why many body processes decline with age.
These specifically support the digestive system work with greater efficiency to extract the maximum nutritional value from the food we ingest. These are taken 3 times each day, at least 30 minutes before mealtimes.
Soothe
Any detox or cleanse you undertake will involve some strain on your digestive and overall physical systems. This supplement aims to help alleviate the discomfort of your Reset as we get our bodies used to different eating patterns and habits. It contains effective ingredients towards this end, including curcumin (a turmeric derivative) and aloe vera. You are instructed to take 2 capsules of this supplement each day before you have your dinner.
What To Expect During Your Ultimate Reset Detox
When starting out a program like this, it is to be expected that the first steps will be the hardest, just as it is with most endeavors in this life. This is why we are advised to start the Ultimate Reset when we have minimal professional or social stress in our lives and can properly focus on what the program calls for.
Each week has its own area of focus, which is what separates the various stages of your Reset, with each week having its own meal plan and supplement schedule. Let’s check them out.
Week 1: Reclamation
This stage will involve getting rid of processed foods and animal products from your diet in favor of healthy greens. There are vegan options available in the meal plans, and you will have some flexibility as long as the foods you select will fall into the same nutritional bracket and serving sizes.
You will be using the Optimize, Power Greens, Soothe, and Mineralize supplements here.
Week 2: Release
Here you will be stepping up your diet-cleansing efforts by getting rid of all animal products, including dairy, meat, and eggs, in favor of whole foods, grains, vegetables, and fruits. We are encouraged to incorporate only organic foods for maximum nutritional benefits and avoid the risk of ingesting pesticides and chemicals.
You’ll be taking the Mineralize, Power Greens, Soothe, and Detox supplements during this week.
Week 3: Restoration
This week will be all about getting your system back to its most efficient state by eliminating grains and legumes from the menu as well. What you will have remaining are plain vegetables and fruits, which make up the most effective cleansing program possible.
Don’t worry, due to the light nature of these food items, you will be allowed to prepare bigger servings at each meal so that you don’t starve yourself unintentionally, although you will have to be careful not to take in too much sugar from your fruit servings.
You will be taking the Mineralize, Power Greens, Soothe, Optimize, and Revitalize supplements at this stage of your Ultimate Reset.
Transition
After the 3 weeks of your Reset, Beachbody offers you some advice on how to get back to your normal life without undoing the work you’ve done over the past weeks. It involves helpful suggestions with regard to the safest and most efficient ways to re-introduce certain foods into your life, with suggestions not to go back to drinking alcohol, soda, or processed foods, at least in the first couple of weeks of your transition.
Advice for Healthy Living
The Ultimate Reset aims to be a whole body and mind detoxifying cleanse, which is why, as part of the program, they give us pointers and guides that will help us not only get our bodies in better shape but our minds and emotional states as well.
Let’s touch on them very briefly:
- Exercise: Don’t exercise too heavily during your Reset. Your body will be going through the strain of adjusting to a new diet regimen, and strenuous exercise might be too much to add to that.
- Sleep: Adequate sleep should be a priority during your Reset. Sleep allows your body to refresh, repair, and rejuvenate itself in preparation for the coming day.
- Breathe: Proper breathing is an underappreciated practice. Learn to take deep breaths, going deep down into your lungs, and you will experience greater energy levels, less stress, improved digestion, improved circulation, and more.
- Drink water: Water is life, as the well-known saying goes, but few understand just how many biological processes depend on it. Temperature regulation, muscle, and joint lubrication, internal organ cleansing, and waste elimination are processes where water plays a vital role.
- Eat consciously: You will be asked to pay better attention to what you put into your body and learn to make it a habit even after the Reset weeks. When we understand our relationship with food and the habits we’ve formed with regard to eating, then managing our weight becomes much easier.
It becomes clear that the Ultimate Reset is a very detailed and involving health and wellness endeavor – one that requires a good level of commitment to undertake successfully. The upside of this is that the effects of this program are geared to last you a long time afterward, as you not only have shed weight over your three-week Reset but will have had the chance to eliminate some bad habits and pick up some new good ones.
3-Day Refresh Explained
The 3 Day Refresh is a cleansing program designed to only last of three days (72 hours), during which you are promised to experience fat burning, weight loss, and body cleansing or detoxing benefits. With each pack containing the program, you will receive three supplementary products to see you through the 3-day process, namely:
Vanilla Fresh
This is a shake that is formulated to give you a nutritional boost during the course of your refresh. Although it can be said to be a protein shake, since it is majorly composed of protein-rich ingredients, you will have a supply of various other vitamins and nutrients from its other ingredients.
What goes into the shake is oat protein, pea protein, potato protein extract, maize fiber, natural flavoring, monk fruit, agave, Stevia, Bacillus coagulans, medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), and a blended vitamin and mineral combination.
These are ingredients sourced from natural, organic sources, meaning that you will be getting the best out of them. As per the instructions from its creators, the shake should be taken twice on each day of your refresh – once with your lunch and one again with your dinner.
The importance of protein in our bodies is that it serves as the building block for our muscles and is vital for optimal health, muscle development, bodily functions. Plant-based proteins are especially beneficial to us in that they lack the often harmful fat levels you might find in animal protein.
As our goal here is to lose weight as we cleanse and detoxify our bodies, this type of protein will also serve the function of keeping us full even as we reduce the amount of food we would regularly eat. Protein consumption will increase satiety (decreased hunger), allowing us to comfortably decrease our energy and food intake, which ultimately enables us to shed weight.
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are a type of saturated fat derived from palm kernels and coconut, which are a great addition to any diet. Prominent studies have gone to show that taking these fats can benefit us in our efforts to lose weight, which might not be said of many animal fats.
Fiber Sweep
This is the second shake included in the 3-Day Refresh package. The main ingredient here is fiber, as the name suggests, as the shake is formulated to give us all the fiber we need, especially since the restricted diet during your Refresh might not provide you with optimal fiber content for healthy bodily functions.
Its specific ingredients are flax, chia, Stevia, natural lemon flavoring, and psyllium husk. The program guide directs users to take fiber sweep once each day, in the mid-morning hours at least one hour before taking lunch.
The value of Fiber Sweep for us here lies in the functions of fiber in our bodies. Fiber is a great, non-fattening way to make us feel full, thus helping us minimize the food we feel the need to consume and thus helps us shed weight.
It is a form of carbohydrate that our bodies are not capable of digesting, meaning that it will go through your system intact, helping make bowel movements easier and working to de-bloat your insides. It is known to work as a mild laxative in the large intestine while improving our metabolic health in the small intestines by means of lowering levels of unwanted cholesterol and regulating blood sugar levels.
Shakeology Supplement Shake
Shakeology is another one of Beachbody’s popular shakes and shares elements in common with Fiber Sweep and Vanilla Fresh in that it contains proteins as well as fiber in its formulation. Specifically, it is made from various blends with differing benefits, including a Super-Fruit Antioxidant blend, Pre-digestive enzyme blend, Super-green phytonutrient Adaptogen blend, Probiotic digestive enzyme blend, and a Proprietary protein blend.
Shakeology is meant to be taken once each morning of the 3-Day Refresh program as part of your breakfast. Each of these blends has a useful role to play as we aim for our weight loss and health goals, so let’s take a look at a few of them in detail.
- Probiotics: You will see these referred to as a person’s gut flora. They are microorganisms that live in our digestive tracts and make themselves beneficial to us by helping in the digestive processes and enhancing optimal gastrointestinal health.
- Digestive enzymes: Enzymes are natural compounds, many of which we produce ourselves, that play significant roles in helping us break down the food we eat so that it may be readily absorbed by our bodies in nutrient form. When these enzymes are not functioning optimally or are at low levels of supply, we will not get the maximum nutrition from our food, meaning we would be eating more but not getting its full benefits.
- Protein and fiber blends: As we mentioned earlier, these two ingredients share a common beneficial trait in that they help keep us feeling full for longer periods as compared to other foods, helping us cut back on our food intake and thus lose weight with greater ease.
What To Expect During Your 3-Day Refresh
The program comes not only with the supplements we’ve gone over but a detailed schedule that will lay out a structured meal plan, recipes, shopping lists, and everything else you might need to know in order to successfully complete the program and achieve your targets.
A typical lunch during your Refresh might comprise your Vanilla Fresh shake in combination with 12 strawberries, five roasted asparagus spears drizzled over with a teaspoon of olive oil. All the meals are free of meat or animal products, with a heavy focus on salads, fruits, and vegetables. You do have snacks scheduled for the afternoon, such as two stalks of celery coupled with two tablespoon-size portions of hummus.
The eating plan is strictly laid out to make it easier for you to plan ahead and stick to the plan, as leaving the meal selection to users might see them overshoot their maximum calorie targets or simply make things too complicated to effectively undertake – the goal is to make things as straightforward and easy to follow as possible.
Possible 3 Day Refresh Side-Effects
Considering the relatively strict nature of the 3-Day Refresh program and the seemingly radical departure from what might be your normal eating habits, it isn’t surprising to see user reviews that list a number of side-effects.
Of course, not everyone will experience these effects, and their degree of intensity will vary depending on the person, but it’s always better to know the possibilities.
Reported side effects include fatigue, stomach pains, poor focus, bloating, gas, diarrhea, headaches, and, most commonly, increased hunger pangs.
While these may not seem so severe, they can be expected to slow you down somewhat or at least make your daily routine a bit more challenging throughout the cleanse.
Expected 3 Day Refresh Results
Following the 3 Day Refresh program as instructed, will result in the loss of anywhere between 3 to 5 pounds (1.36 to 2.27 kilograms) for the average user, according to the testimonials and reviews I’ve seen. Still, we don’t expect the results to be consistent across the board. Factors such as initial physical condition, activity levels, and personal body chemistry might see users experience higher or lower weight loss results.
Looking at the 3-Day Refresh as a whole, there are some Pros and Cons that are readily visible. The positives are its variety of meal options, program simplicity, 30-day money-back guarantee, and the fact that it presents a healthy alternative to all-liquid cleanses.
On the other hand, many users complain of the uncomfortable side-effects, the low-calorie nature of the program, and the fact that for many users, the weight lost during the cleansing quickly returns once they get back to eating, similar to the way they did before embarking on the program.
Ultimate Reset or 3 Day Refresh: Which is Best for You?
It might be difficult to figure out exactly what the best solution for you might be, with all the options and different variables out there to consider. When it comes to the Ultimate Reset in comparison with the 3-Day Refresh, there are a few easy questions you could ask yourself to help you figure out what will suit you best.
Take the following survey to find out, keep a count of the number of 1’s and 2’s that you pick:
- How would you rate your current stress levels?
- Just the normal daily issues, but nothing major or exceptional going on
- Going through some major troubles – either at work or in my relationships (job switches, breakups, etc.)
- What are your health and fitness goals right now?
- Looking for a quick solution before a function I want to attend
- Hoping to make a long-term change to my lifestyle
- How did you do with your last major project?
- I started out well but flagged as time went on.
- Got it done!
- Do you have a particularly strong sweet tooth?
- Not really, birthdays and big dinners, maybe.
- The struggle is real for me – and a daily one at that.
- At functions I attend, my habit is usually to:
- Indulge and make up for it later at the gym
- Keep myself in check when it comes to the food and drink.
- How healthy would you say you feel at the moment?
- I feel fine, though I know there’s more I could be doing and need an extra push to get me going
- Kind of out of it, to be honest, I’m all out of pep.
Now, take a look at what the survey says:
Mostly 1s: Try the 3-Day Refresh
This is designed just for you if you’re simply looking to make up for a weekend of excess or hoping to shed a couple of pounds so that you can just squeeze into that swimsuit you want to wear this weekend. These are basically short-term weight loss objectives, but you can also take your 3-Day refresh to be a sort of ‘Tune-up,’ which you undertake once in a while.
Consider it a few short days where you will have the chance to sit back and evaluate your relationship with food and your body in the hopes that you will not only receive the short-term benefits you’re looking for but perhaps be inspired to make longer-term changes.
Mostly 2s: Try the Ultimate Reset
The Ultimate Reset is for those looking to make significant, long-lasting changes to their daily lives, habits, and eating behaviors. It is thus designed for those who are willing to make serious changes and sacrifices to attain their health and wellness objectives.
Don’t be afraid. Beachbody, of course, makes the whole process as easy on you as they possibly can. They do this by providing you with all the information and guidance you could possibly need to make a successful go at their program.
Their three-week program will work to cleanse and lose weight not just in the short term but set you up for consistent weight management success in the long run.
Don’t let yourself be intimidated by the challenge – by reading this, you’ve already made the first step, so just go ahead and make the next one – and the next!
