What Is the Clean Program?

Junger believes his program will: help improve digestion by eliminating possible food allergen and irritants from your diet; balance intestinal flora (aka increase the good bacteria in your gut); support the liver, your body's in-house detox organ; and enhance elimination.

Who Should and Shouldn't Do Clean

The Clean Program is not for everyone. If any of the following conditions apply to you at the moment you should not proceed with the cleanse.

• Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
• People who are spent: constantly exhausted, have low blood pressure, and other symptoms that attribute to the depletion of the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal axis (the body's stress-regulating system)
• People who have type 1 diabetes
• People with advanced cancer
• People taking medication that needs a stable blood concentration (medicine that prevent blood clots, antiarrhythmics, or anticonvulsants)
• You have a disease that needs to be closely monitored

How to Prepare For the Program

Preparation for the program is done in three steps.

• Preparing your mind: easing into the program
• Preparing your life: schedule and home
• Preparing your body: eliminating irritants

Instead of just ditching your current eating habits and going cold-turkey, Dr. Junger wrote that you should begin with the elimination diet for three to four days if you currently follow a whole-food diet with minimal meat, dairy, and wheat products. If you typically eat packaged foods, red meat, baked goods, dairy products, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol, you should follow the elimination diet for one week before starting the Clean Program. If you consume a lot of fast foods, packaged foods, soda, and junk food you should follow the elimination diet for two weeks before starting the program.

In order to get the maximum benefits of the program Dr. Junger also wrote that you should plan for the program in advance. Note when you'll start the elimination diet phase, and mark out week one, two, and three of the program. Next, you'll need to set up your kitchen in order to prepare the food you'll be eating during the program. Look at the foods you currently have, read the ingredients, and then get rid of the stuff that will tempt you to stray from the program. Be sure to have a blender on hand to make the shakes and soups, a juicer is optional, and a pure water source. Finally, eliminate and reduce the toxins in your environment such as dry-cleaning products, cleaning supplies, gardening and lawn chemicals, lead paint, and Teflon pots and pans.

How Clean Works

It's ideal to complete three full weeks on the program, but it's absolutely OK to follow the program for one or two weeks. Every day you will have one solid meal and two liquid meals. The liquid meals will be for breakfast and dinner, and the solid meal will be had at lunch. "Eating the food meal at night will be less effective, because the 12-hour 'fast' [9] that your body will experience overnight is most effective after a liquid dinner, as this frees up the most energy and extends the window of time for detoxification," Dr. Junger wrote in his book.

If you have plans that cannot be rearranged, it's fine to have your solid meal for dinner. Be sure to return to the having the solid meal at lunch the following day. It's imperative you follow the 12-hour detoxification window, meaning if you ate your liquid meal for dinner at 8:00 p.m., you should not have your next liquid meal until 8:00 a.m. the following day.

The liquid meal can be a soup, juice, or smoothie, and should be made by you; this ensures you're only consuming foods that are are the include list. You can also opt to purchase the Clean Program 21-day kit [10] ($475) which includes shake packets, supplement packets, the cleanse guide, recipes, and a probiotic. The liquid meals will provide your body with nutrients in a "fuel-injected way" since they require less energy to break down and the ingredients can be easily absorbed into the bloodstream. Once you have your final liquid meal do not eat anything else after. You can have other liquids, but do not have solid foods in the middle of the 12-hour window.

Important Things to Know While Following the Clean Program

It is best to get the bulk of your calories in during your three meals [11] (here's how to calculate how many calories you need per day [12]) instead of grazing all day. Be sure that your meals are full of fat and protein to prevent grazing and to keep your blood levels stable. This will also help your body go into fat-burning mode easier. Be sure to drink plenty of water to enhance the detoxification.

Snacking is allowed on the program, but it's advised to first determine whether your urge to snack is habitual or the desire to eat to distract/comfort. First, drink water and move around to see if the desire goes away, but ultimately listen to your body. If you do snack, snack on whole, fresh foods such as vegetables, juice, and celery or apples with almond butter.

In his book, Dr. Junger wrote that if you're having trouble with bowel movements [13] you should engage in more movement and exercise like jumping rope [14]. He also recommends colonic hydrotherapy [15], sweating via saunas (infrared saunas [16] are the most effective), dry brushing [16], and hot-cold plunges. Although Dr. Junger supports these practices, most have not been backed by Western medicine and we recommend you speak to your doctor first to make sure these methods are safe and effective for you.

Foods to Exclude on Clean

While the Clean Program isn't as strict as other elimination diets and cleanses you'll want to avoid consuming the following foods while on the 21-day program.

• Dairy: milk, whey and butter substitutes, butter, mayonnaise, and ghee
• Grains: white rice, wheat, corn, barley, spelt, kamut, rye, triticale, oats, and gluten-free oats
• Fruits: oranges, orange juice, grapefruit, bananas, and strawberries
• Vegetables: corn, creamed vegetables, and nightshades like tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, and potatoes
• Animal protein: eggs, pork, bacon, beef, veal, sausage, cold cuts, canned meats, hot dogs, shellfish, raw meats, and raw fish
• Vegetable protein: Soy bean products, soy sauce, soybean oil, tempeh, tofu, soy milk, soy yoghurt, and textured vegetable protein
• Nuts and seeds: peanuts and peanut butter
• Oils: shortening, processed oils, rapeseed oil, most salad dressings, and spreads
• Drinks: alcohol, fruit juices (unless fresh-pressed), caffeinated beverages, soft drinks
• Sweeteners: white and brown refined sugars, honey, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, agave, evaporated cane juice, and brown rice syrup
• Condiments: regular chocolate, ketchup, relish, chutney, jams and jellies made with sugar, barbecue sauce, teriyaki sauce, gum, and breath mints

For a complete list of foods to avoid utilize the Clean Program excluded foods list [17].

Foods to Include on Clean

This following list is not comprehensive, and should be referenced when preparing your two liquid meals and one solid meal a day. As long as an item is not on the exclude list, it's OK to eat. If in doubt, reach out to someone at Clean. Fruits are preferred to be fresh, organic, and local as well as seasonal whenever possible. Dried fruits are OK in moderation.

• Dairy Substitutes: hemp milk, rice milk, nut milks (almond, cashew, hazelnut), coconut milk, coconut oil, and coconut butter
• Non-gluten grains: brown rice, red rice, black rice, wild rice, millet, amaranth, teff, tapioca, buckwheat, and quinoa
• Fruits: apples, melon, papayas, plums, figs, coconut, mango, kiwi, peaches, pineapple, blueberries, raspberries, peaches, unsweetened fresh or frozen fruits, unsweetened water-packed canned fruits, and avocados
• Vegetables: spinach, kale, celery, courgette, artichoke, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cucumber, sprouts, sweet potatoes, beans, and lentils
• Flesh foods: Free-range chicken, free-range lamb, free-range turkey, wild pacific salmon, ocean char, cod, halibut, haddock, sole, pollack, tuna, stripped bass, water-packed canned tuna, sardines, anchovies, buffalo, venison, quail, and rabbit
• Oils (unrefined, extra virgin, cold-pressed, non-gmo): almond, flax seed, coconut, olive, pumpkin, safflower, sesame, sunflower, walnut, hazelnut, and truffle
• Nuts and seeds: almonds, cashews, flax seeds, hazelnuts, pecans, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and hemp seeds
• Beverages: herbal tea, white tea, rooibos tea, green tea, yerba mate, kombucha, mineral water, spring water, and fresh squeezed fruit and vegetable juice made with approved fruits and vegetables
• Sweeteners: dates, stevia, coconut nectar or sugar, yacon syrup, and lucuma powder

For a more extensive list, utilize the Clean Program shopping list [18].

What to Expect During the Clean Program

The first week on the program may be challenging due to all the changes you're making. This week is typically when people experience withdrawal symptoms from sugars, caffeine, and chemicals found in foods.

The second week is when adaption happens inside, according to Dr. Junger. Some patterns like sleeping, bowel movements, and appetite may be disturbed. On this plan it typically takes 10 to 14 days to repair the average intestinal flora, and it's completely normal if you aren't you aren't feeling your best. You may also experience bad dreams and headaches, and it's advised to not take nonprescription medicine to help manage headaches. Energy surges and weight loss are also common, and it's advised to not cut calories too much because the body will hold on to fat because it thinks it's entering starvation mode. The USDA dietary guidelines recommend that adult women consume 1,600 to 2,400 calories a day and adult men consume 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day [19]. Dr. Junger advises eating plenty of healthy fats and proteins in order to form lean muscle mass and maintain a proper metabolism.

During the third and final week of Clean is when you should start feeling great. According to Dr. Junger, you may notice that your skin is glowing, your clothes are fitting looser, and pesky symptoms you may have been dealing with in the past are going away.

What to Expect After You've Completed the Clean Program

After the cleanse, it's important you don't suddenly revisit the previous way you were eating. Instead, transition to one liquid and two solid meals a day, still eating foods on the approved list. After a few days you can return to eating three solid meals a day, still adhering to the elimination diet rules. Once you transitioned to three solid meals a day, introduce one type of food from the exclude list into your daily meals. Take note of how your body responds for a full day after eating the food. Repeat this process with all the foods on the exclude list.

Junger advises to do the Clean Program on annual or biannual basis. Before getting starting, always consult your physician.