On Day Two I ran into a friend who had tried the Purium Cleanse. Naturally, I grilled her about her experience, which sounded pretty brutal. She warned me that the CleansR pills do what the name suggests: They clean out your system. They cleaned her out so well she had to stay home from work for two days so she could be near her toilet. I was covering Fashion Week, and many backstage areas have Porta-Pottys (surprisingly unglamorous, I know). Spending 10 days running from portable toilet to portable toilet sounded horrendous. I made my first conscious decision to cheat and only take two of the tablets each day instead of four.

After sticking to the cleanse (almost) for the first two and a half days, I had my first real cleanse challenge: dinner with a group of my girlfriends on Day Three. At this point I was starting to get hungry. I decided I would order an undressed salad for dinner. Naturally, my friends -- one of whom happens to be a cardiologist -- wanted to hear all about the cleanse once they realized I was abstaining from sushi. I handed the pill bottles over to the doctor, and she began scrutinizing the labels.

"Do you realize these 'Super Lyte' pills are pure salt?" she asked, horrified. And sure enough, right there on the label it says that three pills contain 2,730 milligrams of Himalayan sea salt. "No wonder I'm so thirsty," I replied. And right then, I decided I would stop taking the salt pills.

By Day Four, I really started cheating. I added a little oatmeal to my fruit in the morning; I had more than a cup of sautéed vegetables for lunch and dinner. My shake intake dropped to one a day by the end -- and I was mixing it with fruit (including banana -- the horror) and almond milk to make a smoothie. (It tasted almost great!)

Even though my Purium cleansing petered out, I avoided gluten, sugar, dairy, meat, alcohol and caffeine (well, that's not entirely true -- I had some green tea) for 10 days. And that's a major cleanse in itself.

No, I did not complete the Purium 10 Day Transformation. In fact, I barely completed three days of the cleanse. However, at the end of 10 days of "cleansing" I'd lost the five pounds I'd hoped to lose, and I felt good. Hungry but good.

I've even stuck with some of the restrictions -- eating a lot less meat, dairy and gluten, and only having alcohol on the weekends. (Sugar, sadly, is another story.)

While I did not love the cleanse itself (to be honest, I kind of hated it), I'd consider doing it again -- with some strategic cheating and probably for only three days.