My Experience With Kathy Freston’s ‘Quantum Wellness‘ Cleanse

The rules for this cleanse are relatively simple. For 21 days, there are five things to abstain from.

1. all animal products
2. gluten
3. alcohol
4. caffeine
5. refined sugar

These are all things that, before the cleanse, I was consuming in abundance. For a very long time I’d had the feeling that my body was polluted. Hardly a meal went by without the nagging thought ‘there’s something in this food/drink that I shouldn’t be having’. I also felt powerless to resist unhealthy food when my flatmate brought it into the house. I was really craving a break from this state of affairs, and for a while I thought I would do a fast. But then something happened that made me realise that this cleanse (which is not a fast at all) was the perfect thing to do.

My flatmate told me he was going out of town for three weeks. I thought I might take the opportunity to fast part of the time. In an unrelated conversation, a vegan friend of mine said she liked a vegan wellness expert called Kathy Freston, and when I googled her I saw that she advocated a cleanse which lasts 21 days, almost the exact number of days that my flatmate was going to be gone! It was quite a magical coincidence.

I got Freston’s cleanse book, which really supported me and made the experience interesting. I suppose it has to do with my human desire to follow authority, but I really felt very secure and content following this diet that she had made and so many others, including Oprah Winfrey, had followed. The book has a few pages of instructive and informative text for every day of the cleanse. I really looked forward to reading every day’s text.

Below are the experiences and benefits I drew from the cleanse, listed in the approximate order in which they occurred.

Less stress about eating

Without those five foods/un-foods in my diet, my guilty conscience finally had a rest. Not once did I have the nagging thought ‘I shouldn’t be eating this’ that I had lived with for so long. That’s what makes this cleanse so perfect. Freston really found exactly the right things to remove from the diet.

Other people want to do the cleanse too!

On day 1 I posted on Facebook that I was doing this cleanse and right away two friends said they were ordering the book and going to do it too! One of them did it with her husband. They live as foreigners in Japan and did the cleanse without being able to read food packaging! Hat off to them! Then a third friend said she was going to do it as well. So I had four people doing it with me! They’re finishing up their last days as I write and have all had good experiences with it.

Fatigue during days 1-4

If there were any doubts that I was addicted to caffeine, they were completely dashed on day 1. I was immediately very tired and needed much more sleep than usual.

Sore muscles during days 2-5

This was something I wasn’t expecting at all. In fact, at first I didn’t even realise that it was happening because of the cleanse. I went jogging on the morning of day two. I was really tired, as I said, but Freston recommends exercise as a way to get some energy without caffeine. So I manage to jog for 15 minutes, that’s all. Then at work I notice that I’m not only tired but I’m intensely aware of my whole body. I’m really conscious of how the chair feels—it feels good!—and the sensations in my legs. I was enjoying the awareness. By the end of the day it was clear that I had sore muscles, and I thought it was from 15 minutes of jogging without stretching enough before and after. I thought, oh man, I must be really out of shape, haha! Later on I read on various websites that sore muscles are a side effect of detoxification! Well, let me tell you, I must have had major toxins to get rid of because one night I was so sore I had to take a paracetamol just to sleep!

Weight loss

I think I lost about one and a half kilos altogether. I wanted to lose more, but just didn’t have time to exercise enough, plus I ate lots of agave syrup (Freston recommends it, I swear!) and quite large portions of everything. I was never hungry, that’s for sure.

Brighter eyes

One day I glanced at a mirror and did a double take because my eyes looked so much better.

Muscle mass not adversely effected

I got the same pumped-up muscles as always when I worked out with weights.

Better meditation

I had heard that meditation was better without animal energy in the body and now I believe it’s true. I didn’t experience this as a vegetarian but as a vegan my meditation is of a higher quality. The difference is subtle, but I think it’s real. I also have more of a desire to meditate. Freston talks a bit about meditation in her book. She recommends beginners just take 10 conscious breaths. I think that’s very good advice to get people started.

Clearer thoughts

More peace. Less background noise. Fewer distractions. It’s really great.

Whiter teeth

I should have expected that not drinking coffee or red wine would do this, but it came as a surprise.

I need less sleep!

This was a huge surprise and It still seems too good to be true. Before the cleanse I needed at least nine hours of sleep, which is more than most people need and always seemed so unfair. Now I only need eight, like a normal person, maybe even less than that. Just think of all the hours of living I would have won for myself if I’d done the cleanse sooner! Obviously this has to do with physical toxins not disturbing my sleep, but Freston says that what is good for the body is also good for the earth and the spirit, and my friend Jens says that the more conscious you become, the less sleep you need.

Consciousness

This may sound a bit pretentious, but I know that I am more conscious in several ways for having done the cleanse. Freston talks about this in the book, mostly about being conscious of what’s in your food and where it comes from. I was already pretty aware in that area, but ate things I knew I shouldn’t anyway. Now I’m more aware of the effects they have on my body—I mean, just look at this list of effects I experienced! I think the deepest awareness I achieved was the surety that veganism is the ideal way. I was vegetarian (ate milk and eggs) for seven years when I was younger, and then when I was about 24 I started eating meat again. I think of this return to meat eating as a kind of ‘falling asleep’ to what I knew to be right and true. I put my own lusts and pleasures above the welfare of animals, the earth, and the food supply of people who don’t have enough to eat. Actually, I think an even deeper awareness that has come is the knowledge of who I really am and who I really want to be, that I don’t want to eat meat and unhealthy foods just because so many other people do. Other people are not my standard anymore, and I’m not going to look around me when I decide what to eat. It doesn’t matter if people call me a health-food nut or a health fascist or whatever. Just because they don’t eat as consciously and as intelligently as I do doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t. I have to allow myself to be the best I can in whatever ways I’m able and not act dumb like a schoolkid who’s been condemned by his peers for being smart.

Is the cleanse something you might like to do?

So obviously I can highly recommend this cleanse and this book to anyone who’s interested in it. Just remember to get lots of sleep and drink lots of water in the first days. Doing the cleanse really wasn’t difficult at all for me. In fact, it’s harder now that the cleanse is over because nothing is ‘officially’ verboten anymore and I’m faced with choices that make me feel insecure. Once you’ve had the experience of the toxins leaving your body and the muscle pain and then the improvements, you don’t really feel like re-toxing, and a simple cup of coffee becomes a major decision.

Some big advantages I had during the cleanse was that I was able to prepare all three meals every day at home, there are lots of health food stores in my area, and no one was home at the time to tempt me or get frustrated with me. Anyone who does it under more challenging circumstances can be even more proud of themselves.