I recently stumbled upon a book: 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse by JJ Smith while surfing the net. 
The site owner was reviewing the book and only had praises for it.
Interested by this, I went to Amazon to search for it. It has always been a habit of mine to look at the reviews in Amazon for any particular product as I can gain much information by reading the reviews there.
Amazon also has the “All Critical” review feature where we can sort through the worst reviews of the product which is very very helpful in my decision making process.
Returning to the book, I was surprised to see that it is a bestseller in Amazon’s Health and Fitness book section. It was also a New York Times bestseller!
I never thought it would be so popular. A quick glance a its review shows that it has a huge amount of satisfied customers. I was smitten by this and placed my order of the book.
My book arrived a few days later and quickly went through it. Having some self-researched knowledge on smoothies and diet, I was really glad that I found this book.
It taught me a lot of things that I never knew. Here, I will try to dissect the information in the book to the readers here as well as the main principles that JJ Smith preached.
What Is A Cleanse? Why Do We Need To Do It?
This is the first thing that JJ Smith highlight in her book. Apparently, most of us a heavily infested with toxins that accumulate in our fat cells.
We are gathering toxins through harmful smoke and fumes in the atmosphere, cigarette smokes (either by smoking it or exposed to it directly aka secondhand smoker), oily foods, sweetened food, etc.
The presence of these toxins caused a myriad of problems: bloating, constipation, indigestion, low energy level (a huge problem with me currently…), headaches, digestion problems, and so on.
JJ Smith present a sort of questionnaire and asked the reader to rate themselves. The questionnaire has all the problems related to toxin presences in one’s body.
Having a high score means you have many problems due to toxins and is highly recommended to undergo cleansing and detoxification. I scored somewhere in the middle (Yay!).
The Detox Formula
The detox formula that JJ Smith teaches is basically to restrict our food intake to green sm
oothies only. A green smoothie is a smoothie with 50% or more green leafy vegetable content.
There are recipes provided in the book. Supposedly we are to make the smoothie in the morning, and then drink it along the day (the recipes will amount to around 72 ounces of smoothie).
No other solid foods are allowed with the exception of some nuts, hard boiled eggs, and whole fruits. No caffeine (coffee, tea) and alcohol is permitted.
This program plan is to devoid your body of any possible toxin accumulation from foods and drinks. Thus, anything that is not natural and processed are to be avoided completely.
Above is the full cleanse formula. But should you are afraid with it, you can start slowly with the modified cleanse program.
For the first 5 days, your breakfast and lunch are to be in the form of smoothies. Only for dinner you are allowed to solid food (in the form of healthy cooked chicken, fish, etc. No carbohydrates are allowed).
Once you getting the hang of it, you are to embark on the full cleanse for the last 5 days (smoothies only all day long. No solid food). The book states that if you follow the guideline exactly, you can see a 10-15 pounds of weight loss in 10 days.
JJ Smith states that the cleanse and detox program should not last more than 2 weeks, for good reasons.
During the cleanse program, we are feeding our body less than 1000 kcal per day, which is a very low amount for anyone.
By feeding the body with such a low amount of calorie for a prolonged duration, the body will get adapted to it and any further fat loss opportunity will be gone. A thing she advocates is to cycle the cleanse with real food cycle for 3 to 4 weeks before starting the cleanse again.
Blender Recommendation
In her book, she also recommends the use of blender in excess of 1000 watts of power. This is because her recipe uses a lot of ingredient to make a day worth of smoothie.
In order to blend the huge amount of fruits and vegetables, a high powered blender is required to make a smooth consistency of smoothies.
She recommends Vitamix, Blendtec and Nutribullet for this. For the Nutribullet, a few sessions of blending need to be done because of its small pitcher size.
(For those who aren’t that excited to spend 400$ or more for a Vitamix, you can also buy the 1000-watts Ninja Professional Blender NJ600. I’ve also made a review of it here).
Can I Do Exercise?
Nope. Please don’t. During the detox program, you are restricting your calorie intake to a bare minimum. You will feel starved, out of energy, fatigue and other common symptoms of detox.
The last thing you would do is to spend your energy in the gym or doing a marathon while already in a low energy state. That is a recipe for disaster.
A detox program is akin to fasting, we should reduce our physical activities. For those trying to build muscle and scared that their muscles will “lost” due to lack of gym actions, stop being so scared. It’s only a 10-days program.
Not much muscle can be lost in such a short period. You can start going back to the gym after that (and feeling much better).
My Verdict
There are my comments in Amazon saying the book is a ripoff, that due to the low amount of calorie we are feeding our body, for sure weight loss will happen.
I tend to agree on this point. But again, JJ Smith does not really promote her book to be about weight loss. She is promoting a cleansing program. The whole objective of the book is to detox our body of harmful toxins, and the only way to do that is to consume only fruits and vegetables and stop eating harmful things (sugar, processed foods, caffeine alcohol, etc.).
The weight loss in my opinion is an after effect of the low calorie diet. Thus, anyone buying this book should keep in mind that your main objective should be to detox yourself and having a more healthy body overall. The weight loss will come naturally afterwards.
One thing that I need to highlight is this program is not for people with some medical complications. Please consult your doctor before embarking on this program.
I believe this detox should work fine because of the huge benefits of fruits and vegetables, but we can never be too sure. Have your doctor look at this program first before doing it.
I’m On It!
Throughout the years, I have successfully removed sugar, processed foods and caffein from by life. These are the things that JJ Smith equals to primary toxin originator in our foods.
And I also have been taking at least once smoothie serving daily. But still, I feel like I do not have enough energy. Right after lunch (around 2-3 pm), my energy level quickly diminished.
It quite hard to continue working or going to gym later. This is the main problem that I have right now and I wish to correct using JJ Smith’s cleanse program. I will keep track of myself doing this program and keep you guys updated here. Wish me luck guys!
Conclusion
The book is quite easy to read with recipes for readers. The cleanse program looks okay and beneficial for detoxifying our body.
But please take caution if you have some medical complications as this program is a bit too radical. For most people, the modified cleanse is the most appropriate approach (it’s also the one I’m undertaking).
Lastly, should you are interested in the book and would like to try the cleanse program, you can buy the book at Amazon right now.
==> Click Here To Buy 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse Book <==
Hope you enjoy this review. Please drop any question or feedback down below. You can also email me at isaac@everythingsmoothie.com.