If you’ve been on the ‘gram, you’ve seen EVERYONE posting their cleanse meals. I own a few cookbooks by Maria Emmerich, but the 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse wasn’t one of them.
When I was thinking about this book, pronounced influenced, I went to good ole Amazon to check the reviews. The book description on Amazon states:
The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse is a guidebook for healing the body from the inside out. Most people attempting a keto diet do it completely wrong. Maria Emmerich, on the other hand, bases this cleanse on a true, well-formulated ketogenic diet, helping readers reset their metabolism, regain health, lose weight, and tap into increased energy levels
The reviews were mixed, but mostly because I feel people weren’t prepared to REALLY cook. Have I mentioned I made my own Mayo yet?
The Recipes
The meals looked delicious, but I held off buying the book because the hubs wasn’t up for committing to the 30 days. After seeing the Ramen dish in my feed for days, I decided to buy the book.
We paged through the book and we (I) decided we would eat a week of meals from the 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse (without actually doing the cleanse). If you follow the cleanse, it’s recommended to say buh-bye to coffee, dairy and nuts.
Although we had planned to eat from the book for 1 week, we ended up doing it for 3 weeks. I did NOT stop my coffee, but I did give up the dairy and nuts. Our goal with this was to clean up our eating and to mix it up a bit.
What I did not expect, was losing 6 pounds and breaking a year-long stall!
The recipes are great, but you have to know some things going in. This is essentially a detox. You need to do your research, read through the plan first, then do your shopping.
This is what I would consider a more advanced cookbook. If you don’t cook, I could see this being overwhelming as most recipes have multiple ingredients and steps. That being said, once you make it, the next time is easier.
We also decided that some dishes didn’t work for us, either because we didn’t have the ingredients or perhaps the prep time for that particular dish, in which case we would sub something with similar macros. That’s where the planning comes in.
Meal Plans
There are weekly meal plans with corresponding shopping lists. I will say I tried things I wouldn’t normally try and liked it!. The plan made me think about the way we had been eating. I definitely will be having more dairy free meals. The macros are already calculated, but remember this is for an average woman. If you are hungry, eat more protein.
Some of my favorite dishes were egg pudding, breakfast chili, The breakfast salad, Ramen, Dill salmon, spicy tuna stacks and lemon curd just to name a few.
This is a great book if you like structure and having things planned out for you. Know going in there is a LOT of work with some of these recipes compared to some other keto cookbooks. Again, I looked at everything ahead of time and knew this, so I made it work for me. I am still working from home, but if I wasn’t my meal plan might look different based on what I could warm in the microwave.
If you are looking for a reset, this is an awesome book. I personally like it for some of the recipes alone. I have made several (after our 3 weeks) and the hubs has liked most of them too.
Overall, Maria Emmerich’s 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse is a very helpful book with creative dishes and beautiful presentation that will make you feel like a chef. I really think that trying meals out was very helpful for us and I do plan to do the full 30 days at some point.
Keep an open mind and know there’s some work involved but I totally feel like it was worth it!