/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46434880/FullSizeRender__6_.0.0.jpg)
Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Beaming is home to our first cleanse review for two reasons: 1) impeccably fit actress/wellness guru Gwyneth Paltrow is a huge fan of this stylish superfood café, and 2) the three-day Lifestyle Cleanse is great for beginners since it includes both gourmet juice and plant-based food, promoting a more balanced, less grueling game plan.
After ordering the Lifestyle Cleanse ($245; 1200-1400 calories) online and selecting a start date, Beaming invites you to pick up your cleanse package the night before it begins. (Home delivery coming soon.) You're then given three heavy (like, get-some-help-to-your-car heavy), carefully labeled cooler bags dedicated to each of the three days. Let's do this!
DAY ONE
We're already hungry and the cleanse hasn't even started. Luckily, the Day One bag already looks promising, offering four juices, one soup in a bottle, one fresh salad, and one little treat that we're addicted to (more on that later):
Just like LA's most stylish health foodies, Beaming recommends starting every day with a glass of warm lemon water. After that morning ritual, you should have one of their six cleanse items every two-three hours, roughly at the times indicated on the provided instructional card: 7:30am is a cold-pressed green juice, 10:30am is a superfood protein smoothie, 12pm is a soup (can be eaten raw or "gently cooked"), 2pm is another cold-pressed juice, 5pm is a superfood elixir, and 6pm is a salad.
We like that each bottle/package features a label that includes the exact ingredients and why they're good for you. That way we're not all "IDK" when someone suddenly asks us why we're drinking it. Bottle #1 was a serious juice with cucumber, spinach, parsley, fennel and fuji apple, lemon, and mint that kicked our asses, in a good way. Bottle #2 was a delicious concoction called Lisa's Lean & Green, named after Beaming's founder Lisa Odenweller:
Although there is a bottled soup at lunch time (a fancy pineapple gazpacho, no less), we're definitely looking forward to dinner. Nobody tells you this, but when you're on a cleanse, you become slightly obsessed with real-world food. You think about it, you talk about it (a lot), you silently salivate over food images on Instagram, and you find yourself watching cooking shows to deliberately torture yourself. It's a mindfuck, for sure.
Beaming clearly understands the human condition, because every night on this cleanse, they offer a blissful reward in the form of an ingredients-rich salad. Day One's salad was the Harvest, filled with arugula, apples, grapes, hazelnuts, lemon quinoa, and even edible flowers:
The fun doesn't stop there. Dinner is followed by the addictive superfood protein bite we mentioned earlier. Sadly, this is the only day that you get this treat. (Pro tip: once you're off the cleanse, head to any of Beaming's locations to buy 'em individually.)
Here's what the bite looks like unwrapped. It's tiny but SO GOOD:
DAY TWO
We're very hungry at this point and spent the night dreaming of pizza. We've also been peeing a whole lot, but that means it's working, right? The second day is pretty tough, but it's also when you'll feel the most alert. Something about cleansing your system with Beaming's super low-glycemic recipes vs. other more sugary juices/smoothies results in a really clear head and superhero energy, perfect for getting shit done. We definitely feel like we've lost some water weight, too, because dem jeans fit a tad bit looser than they did yesterday. It's all happening!
Shout-out to bottle #5 for punching us in the face with some major detoxifying ingredients, like ginger and cayenne. We definitely felt this one go through our system:
It's important to note that by the afternoon of each day so far, we're kind of over drinking juice, which is why bottles #4 and #5 are a little hard to finish. But we're doing our best and before we know it, it's time for dinner. This asian-inspired salad was crunchy and satisfying. Although Beaming's instructional card notes that we can top our salads with a little avocado if we're really starving, we decided to stick to the challenge. This is what the salad looks like tossed, since our hunger made us forget to take a before shot:
DAY THREE
We made it! To ease us into the final stretch, Beaming's last day of bottles are particularly delightful, especially this smoothie that we'd individually order at their café in a heartbeat:
This carrot ginger soup is also memorable and worthy of purchasing solo (or replicating at home):
Like some kind of rad finale, the last meal in Beaming's three-day Lifestyle Cleanse is this beautiful Thai-inspired salad. It features a nice, creamy dressing and these yummy nut crumbles that we want to put on every salad moving forward:
BOTTOM LINE
If you've never done a cleanse before (or haven't done one in a long time) and don't want to be traumatized forever, give Beaming's Lifestyle Cleanse a try. It's easy to follow (we'd be down to do this monthly), reasonably priced ($245 isn't too bad for all the stuff you get here), gentle on the digestive system (you know what we mean), and although it's more low-glycemic than other cleanses, it's somehow more flavorful. We didn't drop any major lbs or anything, but we definitely felt more lean and bloat-free, resulting in us falling back in love with everything in our closets.
If you're really trying to go hard before a bikini-worthy getaway, try the more restrictive Lean Cleanse. If you're a serious gym rat and need the extra fuel, try the Active Cleanse (dudes love this one). There's even a Beaming Bride cleanse option, just in time for Weddings Week.