Welcome!

At the request of friends, I started this blog to detail my first Master Cleanse. Created by Stanley Burroughs in 1941, this is a program by which one can cleanse their body. There are all sorts of reasons why I'm doing this, which I'll detail later, but I want this to be as informative a site as it can be. That said, here are some links:

Gerneral Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Cleanse
http://therawfoodsite.com/mastercleanse.htm

The Book:
http://www.circle-of-life.net/TheMasterCleanse.pdf

Personal Accounts:
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=572&i=1
http://lemonadecleanseblog.com/

Disenting Views:
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/detox.html
http://www.health24.com/dietnfood/Diet_basics/15-1168-1176,38987.asp

If you are thinking about doing this, I recommend you deeply evaluate your reasons for a cleanse. Read up on the web, and read dissenting opinions, too. Make sure you have all the viewpoints covered and still feel solid about your decision. There are a number of vlogs on youtube.com about this as well which allow you to watch people change during the course of the cleanse. I'm posting no personal pictures here, so check those out if you wish. I also would check other personal accounts, they are all over the web, and let you know what you're in for. I did weeks of research before I did this, and friends of mine were doing this months before I'd thought of it. It's definitely helpful to have people to help you out, and do it with you if possible. I did this with my boyfriend and it made it far easier. If you have friends who will rally around you, let them know what you're up to. But there are haters out there, so make sure you're strong in your decision.

Enjoy & Good Luck!

*note* This was a cleanse. It had a lot of laxatives. If you don't like reading about what that causes, turn back, you don't want to know.

*double note* I'm verbose. Some of these posts are LONG.

Pre-Game

The day before the cleanse. I tried to eat light today, fasting tea for breakfast (I thought it might help the day light, and it has some laxative herbs which started my system up), cup of soup and a whole grain biscuit for lunch, plain oatmeal w/ milk for mid-day snack…But dinner was a farewell meal for my boyfriend and I… Good-bye hot dogs! Good-bye cheese fries! Good-bye gummy octopuses! Hello Laxative Tea.

We bought and prepared all of the supplies on our “cleanse table”. It cost about $80 for all the supplies for 2 people for 1 week, including organic lemons, maple syrup, salt, 8 gallons of Poland Spring Water, and an awesome lemon juicer--we already had enough pepper for the duration. (Obviously if you are doing it by yourself you should spend about this for the entire cleanse. Of course, we do live in Brooklyn, so those out of the city should spend less.)

We had a cup of the tea before bedtime. We used Yogi “Get Regular” tea, because I’m familiar with it—it works. My stomach recognized it, and gurgled loudly in response. I went to bed early, around 10:30 because I knew I was getting up earlier than usual.

*tip* If you are a coffee fiend (I was), say Goodbye Coffee! 2-3 days BEFORE the cleanse. I did this by accident and am sure I wouldn't have lasted a day if I hadn't, my withdrawl was absolutely terrible. I did this during a long weekend, which would help you if you can't survive the morning at work without a cup.

Total lbs Lost: 0

*note* This is not a diet, it’s a cleanse. I’m doing it for reasons listed below. However, weight change is certainly going to happen with this cleanse, so I’m keeping track. I’m not taking measurements or photos, though some have. I don’t recommend doing this only for weight loss, if you aren’t doing it to make you healthy, I doubt you will still have any of the weight loss around long after the cleanse.

My Reasons

There are plenty of reasons to go on a cleanse, and I have most of them. First and foremost I wanted to do this because for that last year I’ve been suffering from IBS. For those who never have, it’s really more of a life consuming ordeal than I ever thought possible. I’ve spent more time looking up constipation, diuretics, bowels and laxatives than anyone ever should in their life. I embarked on this to see if cleansing my digestive tract in an intensive way would help alleviate the agitation that I’ve been experiencing for way too long. I tried a lot of diet and exercise techniques (I’m 25 and ate more prunes and had more high fiber products than most grandmas), but nothing seemed to do the trick. It all started when I went off coffee for a week, and was then exacerbated by iron pills I started taking when I found out I was anemic. Those iron pills, they will stop you up like no other.

I also did this because, while I had pretty good eating habits in high school, that all went out the window in college. I had great portion control, but I started eating for reasons other than hunger, namely stress. I also started eating much faster than I ever had before. It affected my weight and how I felt. I also lost the ability to really have my body feel FULL and EMPTY. I ate when I was stuffed, I ate when I wasn’t, and what had previously felt like hunger turned into a ravenous need for food. I couldn’t handle not eating for a few hours. I wanted some of my control back.

I also did it to jump start my weight loss. After gaining about 20 lbs during college, I was still having a lot of trouble losing much of it. I was at a mental block, more than anything else, after I’d lose 10 lbs. I’d been going to the gym regularly for about 4 mos and trying to watch myself, but every time I would near +10 I would fall flat and go back near +20. I wanted this to push me past that point so I could see the results.

Another reason was the number of people I knew who did it and were thrilled with the results. Many changed their entire lifestyle to be more healthy, and I hope to get to that, too. Everyone I spoke to felt terrific after the cleanse and were more than excited to share it with me and help me through. They did a lot to convince me.

I finally decided to start the cleanse when I did because it looked like it was at a fairly good time (though it was right before my birthday! No cake!), and because there had been a lot of visitors in town and holiday eating right before hand—my body was less than happy with me. My skin dried out (not at all normal for me) and I started getting terrible heartburn. I just felt awful for the two weeks before, though I continued to eat horribly until the day of the cleanse. I wanted something to put the breaks on bad behavior. The Master Cleanse.

Day 1

I woke up constantly during the night because I was honestly so excited to start this I couldn’t sleep well, which surprised me. I slept better on Christmas Eve than I did that night. My alarm finally went off at 5:00. I have to leave by 8:00 to get to work on time-ish, and I was hoping it would give me enough time to get the salt water flush done before I left. I was wrong. I drank the SWF mix, which literally made me gag and took 20 mins for me to put down, made the lemonade for the day, and then nothing happened…until about 7:30, when the flush made itself known. I ended up leaving at 9:00, after calling in to say I would be an hour late. I made it to work without pain, and by 10 I was done with the flush, which, by the end, lives up to it’s name. It’s like a waterfall, everyone. Be prepared. (Though I didn’t feel pain, I think some do.)

*tip* after our farewell meal, we found out a friend recommends a liquid dinner the night before the cleanse. I put money on that helping the first SWF go faster.

I immediately became parched after the saltwater, but didn’t drink the lemonade right away. Instead, I nursed a tall glass of water from 10-10:30 and then started the lemonade. I was a little nervous of weird reactions from co-workers, so I kept my stash-o-cleanse-juice under my desk and poured it into a coffee mug as needed. I know there are some haters out there, and the first day is no time to hear them! The lemonade definitely had a kick at first, but otherwise it’s good. I don’t know why people don’t make lemonade with maple syrup anyway, it’s tasty.

*tip* if you have chapped lips, make sure you have chapstick on when you drink this. cayenne pepper + chapped lips = pain.

At noon, I wasn’t hungry. I had a little bout of hunger right after the SWF, but that one glass of water cured it. I think I wasn’t feeling it because I was so excited about this that I’d been mentally preparing for weeks. Even the day before, because I knew lunch was coming to me, I pounced on my food 10 mins before noon (when the office is cool with us taking our lunch break). I finished my third cup of lemonade and had a cup of peppermint tea at 12:45 to give my taste buds a break and poured myself another tall glass of water.

At about 1:30 I started to have phantom smells—I know no one in my office had grilled chicken with a lemon shallot cream sauce and roasted red skin potatoes, but I smelled (and envisioned) it nonetheless. It did spark some hunger after I thought about it for a few minutes, but I put it out of my mind and was fine. However, even when I eat regularly I get phantom smells all the time. My friend Jen can attest to this. Usually those were desert based, though…warm pumpkin bread and cinnamon glaze? Yeah. That happens to me normally.

I was still working my way through the water at 2:30 when I did get hungry, but I just jumped back on the cleanse juice and my taste buds were too occupied to care. It seems like the pepper is what does it for me…who knows, if I get hungry in the coming days, maybe I’ll add more to the mix.

By 3:30, 1 ½ mugs later, I wasn’t not just not hungry, I was full. I’d just started on my second half of my daily supply when I realized I was full, in a really satisfied way, too. That was a nice surprise…unfortunately my phantom smells really ramped up. Curry? Oh, no.

I didn’t really get hungry until I left work at 6:00, but by the time I got home, I didn’t want anything, not even the juice, which was surprising. There were no food smells left in my apartment so I didn’t even think twice. I was thinking about doing a tiny workout at the gym, but after discussions with friends, I decided not to. There are differing opinions on this, but since my boyfriend was concerned, I took the safe road. I started drinking again at 8:00 and didn’t finish until around 10:00, which was later than I’d wanted, but I wasn’t about to try to chug this stuff. I drank my laxative tea, and was in bed at around 10:30

Oh, and what about the BMs? Well, things were certainly moving, but it was mostly fluid. Not too much was left after the morning, so not too much came out. I probably visited the bathroom 3-4 times, but this was not at all the inconvenience I was prepared for. The SWF really did seem to free up the rest of the day, which was great for me. Working a full-time 9-5 and having to go to meetings far from the office while you are voluntarily taking a lot of laxatives could be a problem.

Total lbs lost: 1

The Daily Regimen

Salt Water Flush (SWF)-
1 qt fresh water (Spring or filtered)
2 tsp non-iodized sea salt (yes, the salt must be that specific)

One Dose-
2 tbsp lemon (about half a lemon)
2 tbsp pure, organic, grade B maple syrup (use only grade B, it has more nutrients, for example 2% more RDA of Iron.)
1 pinch cayenne pepper (or to taste, my boyfriend used a bit less)
8 oz water (try to keep this warm, room temperature, unless that’s unbearable)

The book mentions that you may substitute lime juice and you can use “freshly extracted juice from sugar cane.” Other recommendations online include Brown Rice Syrup, or Agave Nectar. You should NOT use Honey. That warning is on a lot of websites, with good reason. It has significantly fewer nutrients (roughly 1/3), and far more calories (about 3x). The book also mentions that you may increase or decrease the amount of maple syrup depending on if you are doing this and want to gain weight or lose weight. I wouldn’t really recommend either because of the taste of the juice.

Full Day’s Dose-
The recommendation is 6-12 servings. At the advice of a friend, I went with 8. That seemed to work for me, though my boyfriend needed more like 10.

How I Did It-
The same friend told me her secret:
Take (2) 1.5 liter Poland Spring, you can use these for the duration, add to each:
40 oz water
4 oz lemon juice
4 oz maple syrup
4 pinches cayenne pepper

Shake, drink, repeat. Really, shake it every time you want to drink, the pepper settles. This took me about 5 lemons a day, sometimes more. We used organic lemons. If you’re doing this for health, you might as well, eh?

Teas-
Laxative Tea (Smooth Move by Traditional Medicinals or Get Regular by Yogi Teas)
Peppermint Tea (or a Mint tea of some kind. I often went out and took whatever the café had available for mint)

Many websites listed a number of alternative teas they drank during the cleanse. I suppose any herbal, caffeine-free tea is not going to do much harm.

Equivalencies
1 oz = 2 tablespoons
8oz = 1 cup
4 pinches = roughly ½ teaspoon (I actually have a “pinch” measuring spoon, so I measured this out for those that don’t)

Day 2

After going to bed much later than I’d wanted, I slept solidly until my alarm went off…I’d hedged my bets on the SWF going much faster than the day before, but then I hit snooze…I didn’t get up until almost 5:40, ran into the kitchen, put a quart of water into the kettle and waited. It took me until 6:15 to get it all down, and I was worried I would be in trouble, so I started…dancing around like a lunatic. It definitely helped to move things around…within an hour the SWF had kicked in and I made it to work only 20 mins late, which is kinda normal for me (bad, I know). However, if I hadn’t read the shrewd warning about SWFs in other blogs I might not have made it. That note is: If you’ve done a SWF in the morning and think you have gas, YOU DON’T. I know some people who found this out after accidentally, uh, SWFing in their pants. Yes, you read that right. And I would heed that warning if I were you on this cleanse. So anyway, the subway ride was much longer than usual, and without this advice there would have been problems.

Otherwise the morning went smoothly. No cravings to speak of, which was, honestly, a HUGE shock. After my dinner time hunger pangs yesterday I thought for sure that this morning would be awful, but until people started bringing their lunches at 12:30, I didn’t really think of food. I did have a big deadline, so that could be the reason. Unfortunately the guy next to me had some toasty sandwich and the smell of warm freshly baked bread was heavenly. But I pressed on and tried to stop thinking about it. Instead I did some research about what I was taking in. See below for yesterday’s tally.

At about 4:00 I really did start to want food. I didn’t feel hungry in the traditional sense, but I wanted food, and my phantom smells came up with some amazing ideas…the chicken with lemon cream sauce made a reappearance, but so did Little Cesar’s Cheese Pizza, among others. And if you think I can’t specify these smells like this, you’re definitely wrong. It wasn’t Pizza Hut, or Papa John’s. Maybe Donato’s could have sufficed, but this was certainly Little Cesar’s. Kinda gross. I did notice, though, that as long as I didn’t spend any time envying the eaters I was better. My energy level was definitely down, though, and my head was a little spacey, which wasn’t good for my deadline. But I’ve also been drinking the juice much slower today, so that could be why. At 5:45 I was still only 2/3 through, the day before I was almost done. I didn’t feel too hungry the rest of the night, and I finished the juice at 10:00 and made tea and off to bed.

My bowels were gurgling all day, but nothing much happened, mostly liquid again, and mostly right after the SWF. My mouth did feel mucus-y, which is to be expected, and all I wanted to do from about 2:30 on was brush my teeth. I think with all this citric acid it might be good to brush more often…

Total lbs lost: 2

Daily Intake (more or less)

SWF:
32 oz salty water

Cleanse juice:
80 oz water
8 oz maple syrup
8 oz lemon juice
(+ cayenne pepper, of course)

Water:
32 oz fresh, plain water

Tea:
8 oz peppermint tea
8 oz laxative tea

That’s a total of 176 oz of fluid—22 cups!

If 1 oz of water is 28 grams, and 1 lb is 453.59 grams, that means I took in 10.86 lbs of fluid! That’s really quite a bit, and probably more by weight than I usually have a day. A cup of water weighs so much more than a slice of bread so I bet I take in about half that, I’m really terrible at drinking fluids otherwise.

Day 3

I’d planned to sleep in again, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Starting at about 3am, my stomach was churning and woke me up, I went to the bathroom, and nothing. That wasn’t the case when I woke up again at 4:30, I passed a lot, and it wasn’t just lemonade. My stomach was really cramping up, and I started thinking “ah. This is why people quit.” I got up again at 5:20 and again passed a lot…this time, though it smelled metallic. Gross, I know, but I wonder if it wasn’t a bunch of iron from the iron pills I’d been taking that had clogged up my system. (Until about noon, I noticed a lingering metallic smell about myself. Strange, but it finally passed.) I stayed up and did the SWF, which didn’t take effect until 7:30 again! I decided then that I would sleep in more, and do the SWF right before I left for work so I wasn’t so tired.

After only getting about 4 solid hours of sleep the night before I was exhausted all day, but to be honest, I often get really tired after eating (even just a bowl of oatmeal) so it wasn’t worse than that, and I made it through.

That day was the first time I had to blatantly turn down food. I was in a two hour long lunch meeting, catered. About 15 people around me ate and enjoyed their food, which looked pretty good. We actually get really good catered lunches, whole grain bread and veggie sandwiches and salads, so I was sad I had to miss it. Only one person asked me what I was doing, not eating, and said “What, are you on some kind of diet?”…and I lied. I said my stomach was upset and I didn’t want to eat anything. I’ve gotten a lot of flack in the past for wanting to watch what I eat—people saying I’m not fat (I’m not! I know that! But still!) and I shouldn’t bother, so I lied. I didn’t want to go into why I was on what looked like an extreme weight loss diet, because then I’d have to go into why I was on the cleanse, and talking about my IBS isn’t something I do. No one else said anything, so I was free and clear, though I knew I won’t be able to keep quiet about this the whole next week. There were already three or four events planned that involved eating, so I was going to have to come out with it. I just wanted to be past the half-way point when I did it.

The rest of the day was pretty good, I didn’t really get hungry, and I was actually not jonesing for the cleanse juice, either. I know a lot of the people who do the cleanse get addicted to the juice, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I ended up just drinking more water and having more tea the rest of the day. Speaking of tea, I did go out with a friend that afternoon to grab tea, and I ended up getting a ginger citrus tea…hilariously this tasted almost exactly like the juice. The ginger was potent and hot and the citrus, well…it was good, but it wasn’t a big shift for the ol’ taste buds.

Walking home, I ended up passing an ice-cream truck (if you’re not familiar with NYC, ice cream trucks pick corners like prostitutes in the summer, you can’t walk more than a few blocks without running into one), and noticed all the people eating ice-cream cones. The most amazing part was that most of them looked sad and overweight and unhealthy and didn’t appear to be enjoying their ice-cream at all. It made me really rethink the deserts. I want something like that to be a treat, something that makes me so happy I can’t help but smile or have a spring in my step. I have had an affinity for sweets for a long time, but I realized how little I savored them, and I wanted that to change. That whole scene definitely shifted my thoughts on the matter.

Otherwise, the day was easy, drank some tea, off to bed.

Nutrition Data

I got most of this from nutritiondata.com, an amazing resource. Aside from Calcium & Iron, the Maple Syrup data is from Grade A. Grade B seems to concentrate things.

8 oz of lemon juice has:

Calories - 61

Total Carbs – 21 g / 7%
Dietrary Fiber – 1 g / 4%
Sugars – 6g

Vitamin A – 46.4 IU / 1%
Beta Carotene – 7.3 mcg
Vitamin E - .4 mg / 2%
Vitamin C – 112 mg / 187%
Thiamin - .1 mg / 5%
Riboflavin – 1%
Niacin – .2mcg / 1%
Vitamin B6 – .1 mcg / 6%
Folate – 31.7 mcg / 8%

Calcium – 17.1 mg / 2%
Magnesium – 14.6 mg / 4%
Phosphorus – 14.6 mg / 1%
Potassium – 303 mg / 9%
Sodium – 2 mg / 0% RDA
Zinc – .1 mg / 1%
Copper – .1 mg / 4%
Manganese – 1%

Protein – 1 g / 2%

8 oz of grade b maple syrup has:

Calories – 800

Total Carbs – 212 g / 72%
Sugar – 212 g

Calcium – 320 mg / 32%
Iron – 32%
Magnesium – 45.1 mg / 11%
Phosphorus – 6.4 mg / 1%
Potassium – 600mg / 16%
Sodium – 28 mg / 1%
Zinc – 13.4 mg / 89%
Copper – .2 mg / 12%
Manganese – 10.6 mg / 531%

Total Calories - 861
Though this is below the 1200-1500 a woman should have, it's not too far away. This is why it's not a fast, people. Of course, I define a true fast as a water fast, and other people think differently.

ps. since I'm anemic I was especially interested in the iron. Turns out I'd have to eat 6 servings of raw spinach, have 35 glasses of milk, or eat 8 cups of beets to get the iron I do with this. The only thing that bests it is beef. moo.

Day 4

Oh, the weekend. Unfortunately the cleanse did not let me sleep in so much. I was up at 6:30 with more eliminations. Like last time this had …substance. A little mucus. Otherwise, it was pretty spectacular how much stuff was still inside me. No metallic smell, so hopefully that has passed. The best part, though, was me going back to bed. I slept until about 9:00 when I again had to go, and then went back to sleep for about an hour. I turns out that my boyfriend’s friend was having birthday brunch that morning at 11:00, so we had to get up and get out quickly, so there was no SWF. I’d meant to do it everyday, but it seems from other people’s accounts that this doesn’t always work. I couldn’t down the laxative tea in time, either, as instructed, which was pretty disappointing. We went out to this amazing New Orleans cuisine restaurant and had peppermint tea. I’d been there before so it wasn’t too bad, but my boyfriend hadn’t and really wanted to try some of the foods. We’ll definitely be back. Yes, be back to eat food from New Orleans, like gumbo, fried okra, creamy grits, etc. I know a bunch of people end the cleanse and then go on really strict diets, but we aren’t going to be able to do that. You’ll see why below.

The rest of the day was easy, it was nice out so I went to a park for a while, then to a café for some more peppermint tea. I had no problems with energy like some of our friends seem to on day 4 & 5. We planned for those to be weekend days in case it was the case, but it didn’t really bother us. I don’t think the caloric intake is so restricted that we become sluggish, so maybe that’s why. We are drinking enough to satisfy our systems. It really wasn’t until late, though, around 6:00 that I started drinking the juice again. I was only drinking it when I got hungry, so by the end of the day there was about ¼ left. I just didn’t feel like drinking it. I think it had a lot to do with wanting to have something with a different texture in my mouth. We thought about baking some maple syrup like candies so there was some crunch without cheating…We didn’t do it, but squirreled that idea away for later if needed. We stayed up late, around 2am or so, and drank the tea and hit the hay.

Total lbs lost: 3.5

Food of the Future

I spent a lot of time before and during the cleanse thinking about how I was going to treat my body afterwards. Many people make this a point of changing their diets entirely. Some people stop drinking, some go raw, or vegan, vegetarian, other. I have to be honest, I was a vegetarian for about 7 years. Because of my anemia I had a lot of what were then unexplained medical problems. I never saw anyone for them, but I had a lot of severely anemic symptoms. I started eating meat when I started doing research on how I was going to include iron in my diet, it’s much more difficult on a vegetarian diet without taking pills. Since my system cannot tolerate the pills, I slowly started eating red meat again. I eat organic, grass fed when I can get it, and try not to eat it when I’m out unless the restaurant specifies how they source their meat. For this reason, I am not going on a raw, vegan or related diet.

I’m also not giving up cookies. Or cake. Or fried okra. Or onion rings. I love food, and I love eating food with friends, and I love making deserts (I’m an amateur pastry chef of sorts), I love trying new things. I’m going to eat at that new Peruvian restaurant down the street when this is over, and I’m not going to feel guilty about it. Why? Because, for me, for us, the magic is in the measurements. We are planning to watch portion sizes like crazy. If you have 3 amazing onion rings and love them, every little crumbly bit, then that should be enough. If you eat 25 and they are from Burger King and they aren’t really good and the onions are only in tiny bits, and it’s mostly batter, well…why eat them at all? That’s our plan. Eat good food. We eat mostly organic anyway, so we are going to continue. We’re going to make sure that treats are treats, they don’t happen every other day. And we are going to eat three bites instead of ten. This way we hope to maintain the shape we’re in and not miss out on pan-seared scallops with a citrus-basil marinade over capellini. And pie a la mode.

Day 5

Sunday, I was able to sleep until 9:00 before being rushed to the toilet by my bowels. I had a couple eliminations before 11:00 when I finally drug myself out of bed. I should have stayed in. We woke to a dwindling supply of lemons, two days before we anticipated it. We managed to make half of what we each normally make, but we had to run to the store. We were also running low on spring water, so we did an SWF and went to the grocery. (…full disclosure. We both did half an SWF, 2 cups. A friend of ours did this after the first few days because she couldn’t take it. I hate drinking it, too, but she seemed to have no reduction in eliminations. I did, and it bothered my system all day.)

We decided we would add some limes to our recipe to do a little change-up to our routine. By now, though we weren’t craving food in a “ravenously hungry” sort of way, we wanted to taste new things. Because this is endorsed by the book, we got enough limes to add some flavor to the mix. We also got 30 lemons. Non-organic. They didn’t have any organic lemons, it seems the Florida citrus freeze-out did a number to the lemons, so we had to get the regular variety. They were far larger and a bit cheaper, too, so we felt like maybe this would save us some money. We’re broke and every little bit helps. We also got one more jug of maple syrup, we’re about half way through the supply and didn’t want to run out, so we grabbed it. And then the water. Since my boyfriend is fancy, and misplaces things, he needed to get a replacement 1.5 liter bottle. But he didn’t go P.S. (Poland Spring, yo.) on us. No, he got himself some BrioBlu Natural Spring Water from Umbria Italy. This water comes from a naturally effervescent spring, so it is acceptable. I think. Technically.

We brought our stuff home and headed out to do laundry and other exciting weekend tasks, stopping for tea on the way. In our desire for more taste sensations we did not get peppermint tea! No Sir! He got organic raspberry tea, I got organic Honeybush tea. Both were free of caffeine, both were really tasty. Mine was more subtle, but the raspberry tea was robust, and quite the shock to my taste buds. In a good way, though. It was nice to taste something new.

When we returned, we made our second helping of cleanse juice with our new, larger, non-organic lemons. So large, in fact, that they BROKE our lemon juicer! This thing was metal, people!! We were devastated and pretty angry at these lemons. I had to run to the store to buy a hand-juicer, a crappy looking plastic thing, but we were in a pinch. The lemons did give more juice, it took about half the lemons it normally took us, and we added one lime to the mix, half for each, to see how it would taste. It tasted AWFUL. And it wasn’t the limes, it was the lemons. We could actually taste the chemicals used to grow these lemons. The juice was flavorless in comparison to the organic lemon juice and the aftertaste was like bleach. I’m not even joking. It was too late to go scrounging for other lemons at this point, but we made plans to toss these lemons and buy organic lemons the next day. It was that bad. We even washed the lemons to make sure the pesticides from the skin weren’t on them anymore. It was even so bad that we didn’t finish the second serving, down the drain it went, and we drank a bunch of tea. …But, what about the calories we missed? Glad you asked.

In the spirit of new taste sensations, we made the syrup candies. We put syrup, all by itself, on parchment paper, tossed it into the oven on 300 for a few minutes and waited. It bubbled, it ran everywhere, and then it started to smell a little burn-y, so we pulled it out and let it cool. It was really thick for a while, but it crisped up and ended up tasting exactly like marshmallows, burnt on the end of a stick over a campfire. It was nice to have something different to taste, with a crunch even! I decided to chew the candies and then let them melt in my mouth before swallowing, which turned out to be a good idea. My boyfriend swallowed his crisps and his stomach hurt an hour later, a warning for detoxing too quickly.

After all this madness, I did get another BM (a little more solid than usual), drank my lax tea and headed to bed…only to be woken my boyfriend called. His stomach was hurting and he was tired, hungry, light-headed. The stomach ache could be still attributed to the syrup candy, but he ate it about 3 hours prior, so it seems unlikely. We are tentatively attributing it to the conventional lemons with all their bleach-y chemicals. He was ok after another 2 hours, but all in all, not a good experience.

Total lbs lost: 3.5 ...this shows no change from yesterday, which a lot of people who don't need to lose much report. My boyfriend has "more to lose" and is down 9.5 lbs. To note, men have different kinds of fat that they lose more readily than women. Check it:

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/visceral-fat/?searchterm=fat

ps. Something else to note, the dry skin I'd gotten before the cleanse while eating horribly is peeling off, and the skin below is glowing. Glad to get that layer off!

Limes

8 oz of lime juice has:

Calories - 60

Total Carbs – 21 g / 7%
Dietrary Fiber – 1 g / 4%
Sugars – 4.1g

Vitamin A – 121 IU / 2%
Beta Carotene – 72.6 mcg
Vitamin E - .5 mg / 3%
Vitamin C – 72.6 mg / 121%
Vitamin K – 1.5 mcg / 2%
Thiamin - .1 mg / 4%
Riboflavin – 2%
Niacin – .3mcg / 2%
Vitamin B6 – .1 mcg / 5%
Folate – 24.2 mcg / 6%

Calcium – 33.9 mg / 3%
Sodium – 4.8 mg / 0% RDA
Iron - .2 mg / 1%
Magnesium – 19.4 mg / 5%
Phosphorus – 33.9 mg / 31%
Potassium – 283 mg / 8%
Zinc – .2 mg / 1%
Copper – .1 mg / 3%
Manganese – 2%

Protein – 1 g / 2%

If you do a bit of comparison, you’ll see that limes are actually better than lemons on most accounts. Again, I got the data from nutritiondata.com, so I trust them blindly on this. Some of the % changed a bit with the g/mg/mcg counts, but I’m guessing this has to do with rounding the counts for the sake of efficiency.

Day 6

After gifting the terrible lemons to an unsuspecting friend the night before (I felt guilty, but he couldn’t taste the difference), we were left with a bunch of limes. Luckily they were organic limes. I got up at 6:00, planning on implementing my SWF-right-before-I-leave policy, and started juicing my limes. It took a long time. This was the first run on the new juicer (the chem-lemons were juiced by hand), and I didn’t realize just how awesome our awesome juicer was until it took me almost 45 minutes to juice the limes. The juicer did give a lot more pulp, which, depending on what you read, is good or bad for the cleanse. With no time to strain, I mixed the juice, hopped in the shower, and tried to get ready while downing the drink as fast as possible. I finished about half of it with no more than 5 minutes to spare when…it hit. I’m sorry, what? Well, as I was racing to down the stuff I dumped a lot more salt in than I normally do, and that can change how you are affected by it. I, apparently, needed more salt. I spent the next 25 minutes in the bathroom, and then I had to just run to work and deal with it. Luckily, the trains were also running slow…though that did give me an excuse when I called in to say I was going to be late (I swear, they were running late!). My boyfriend ended up drinking the second half of my concoction, and he, too, was immediately affected. However, because it was only half, I don’t feel I was fully cleansed (…the eliminations never hit the “flushed” stage).

I made it to work with no accidents, and just hit up the restroom a lot until almost noon. The limes were pretty good for me, mild in the beginning, but it seemed like their acidity grew as the day went on (I don’t refrigerate my juice). My boyfriend said his tasted like the limes had gone bad by the end, maybe his had. He did, however, say that his fizzy water was really good. I don’t actually like carbonation (I shake it out of sodas before I drink them), so it wouldn’t be fun for me, though if you have the money and the predilection, I suppose it’s up to you. I imagine you’d get gas after a while, though.

After I got out of work my task was before me. Buy Organic Lemons. We had no limes left and our “best” source of groceries was out. I quickly went to Whole Foods, where they didn’t have organic lemons OR limes anywhere. I was so shocked I waited in line at the help desk, asked where they kept them and they said “nah, we don’t have any.” They even called the stockers who couldn’t say when they’d get them in. So I backtracked and went to Dean&Deluca. None. It was starting to get late by this time, and I was hoping places wouldn’t close. I hopped the train back to Brooklyn, and walked up and down the streets looking for likely grocers. I went to D’Agistino. Nada. At this point I was considering quitting the cleanse. There were no lemons and I would not put a non-organic lemon to my lips again. I started thinking about OJ, then I realized I’d have to find organic oranges. Things were not looking good.

I went to a tiny natural foods store, right as the grates were going down over businesses. They had them. I nearly jumped for joy. Then I proceeded to wipe them out. I got mostly lemons, and a couple days of limes for me. I made sure to get 10/day for the remaining six days so we wouldn’t have this problem again. As I paid for them, the clerk immediately realized what I was up to. “Master Cleanse?” she asked. I conceded. “I must have sold 90 lbs of lemons today,” she replied. It seems the entire city of New York is on the cleanse. (and there IS a lemon shortage due to erratic weather in CA, which has put farm workers out of jobs. To sign a quick letter to your senator to help them out, go here: www.ufw.org/freeze/ ) Some of the lemons were a little green, which worried me for juicing, but since lemons don’t ripen much after their picked, I just put them in the fridge and got out some tea. By this point, the first sip of the tea made my stomach gurgle, it knew what it was in for. And I knew what I was in for: another early morning. I tried to get to bed early, but it seems 11 is the best I can do, and with the fiasco in the morning I was setting my alarm for 5:00 again. Thrills.

Total lbs lost: 4

Organic or Bust

So how much does organic matter? Before, I bought it when I thought about it, but this experience made a difference to me. I could taste it. I know a woman who typifies a new-age crazy (she has a shaman, whom she believes can control electricity. I have my doubts.), who would yell "ah! this isn't organic! the chemicals are buring my tongue!" when she ate a conventional strawberry. I thought she was nuts. I was wrong.

Post cleanse, my eating plan had a lot to do with seasonal, local, organic goods, keeping me healthy, keeping the earth healthy. Here’s some links to those topics:

Seasonal Foods:

http://pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/1319/prmID/1410
http://www.sustainabletable.org/shop/eatseasonal/

Regional Harvests:

localharvest.org
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/localfood_dir.php
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20030802/food.asp


What's Organic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
http://home.howstuffworks.com/organic-food.htm

Taste Tests:

http://www.slashfood.com/2006/09/29/organic-heinz-beats-original-in-taste-test/
http://www.slate.com/id/2065155/
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0409realfood0410chart.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/bananas022403.cfm

Day 7

5:00am. My alarm goes off, and before I can hit snooze, my bowels are perking up. There is no rest for the cleansing. (I would suggest doing this cleanse when you can have some leeway in the morning hours. I have to leave for work by 8, so it makes this rougher than I would like.) I make my now normal morning pit stop and head to the SWF, which had extra salt, and managed to drink all of it over a half hour while I juiced the lemons. There was even more pulp from the lemons, which were much larger than the original organics, but the taste was much fresher. They were clearly less tart, though. I managed to get out of the house and to work at a reasonable time, which was a nice surprise. I still had to watch myself on the train, but it could have been worse. I could definitely feel the difference in taking a full dose of extra-salt SWF, too. I felt less bloated and my system was thoroughly flushed by 11:00.

The day went all right, until about 2:00 when I felt hungry for the first time since the first day. It was something I felt in control of, but it was surely hunger. I don’t know if the day of lime juice or the pulp had put enough in my system to make my stomach wake up, but it was a definite change. I tried to not over-juice myself, but feel and appreciate the hunger for what it was. Make friends with it almost. I knew that in the past even the slightest pangs of hunger would have me running to the fridge, and I didn’t want that again. I didn’t want to be scared of it, so when I did feel hunger I sat with it a while before taking a drink. It went away almost immediately.

I also was extremely tired, it was the first time I’ve craved a coffee. This, I feel, has little to do with the amount of energy I had due to the cleanse. It has much more to do with the 6 or fewer hours of sleep I got. About coffee, though, I was surprised at how little difference the lack of my morning cup made. I felt freed from caffeine, which I typically loved with abandon. I always look for energy jolts, and was drinking even more coffee than usual before I started the cleanse. Though I was tired, I functioned pretty well, and knowing how I felt before, I don’t think I was funtioning less well. I still love coffee, the taste, the ritual, everything, but I didn’t want to go back on a daily dose. If I need something hot in the AM, it’s caffeine free tea. Save coffee for the times when I really get to enjoy it (e.g. not at work, at my desk, while it grows cold).

I also noticed that my nose was running a bit. Not like it does during a cold, but a little clear mucus, very thin. It’s nothing that bothered me, I hardly noticed it, but I thought I’d look it up, see if it was on the detox symptoms list—I found a good article here: < http://www.healthrecipes.com/fast21.htm >. I also felt my leg muscles tightening all day. While I attributed that to running around to find lemons and lugging 15 lbs of them back home, it is listed as a symptom…who knows. I do know that it made me want to go to the gym and work out the kinks.

I decided to got for a short workout and to stretch out my muscles. I spent only 20 mins on the elliptical, and then just stretched on the fancy stretch equipment. It felt great to move again, though I did notice a bit of a change in my energy level. I never work out very hard, and I went even easier on myself this time, barely breaking a sweat. By the time I left, though, I felt rejuvenated. I hadn’t worked out since I started the cleanse, but I normally do 5+ days a week. I would encourage lighter workouts for those used to it, but if someone doesn’t usually work out, during the cleanse is not the time to start. I would fear bouts of light-headedness coming on too quick and possible injury. If you want to start exercising, start after you are back on solid foods.

After returning I drank just water for a while, and then went to take a swig of the lemonade, but it had fermented! I could have gotten drunk off it, it was so far gone. My stomach immediately bubbled and gurgled at the hit of the juice, so I put it down and called it a day. Tea and off to bed.

Total lbs lost: 5

Work-out or Work-not?

There are differing opinions on whether or not you should exercise while on the cleanse. I didn’t do much of it at the initial advice of friends, but felt it would not have been a strain on my body, as I was used to getting the exercise. My personal advice is to decrease your intensity if you normally work out, and to wait if you don’t. But most importantly, you should listen to your body. If you have extra energy to burn, do it, but if you feel you want to relax your muscles along with your digestive tract, that seems fine, too. Concerning the loss of muscle mass, I feel the body can rebound rather quickly from a week or two of relaxation, but if you are trying for a longer cleanse, I would talk to a professional. You are only gaining 1-2 g of protein each day, so a 40 day cleanse may prove a problem. On the short term, though, as someone who survived a vegetarian diet with few protein supplements for 7 years, I can assure you that you will not die. All of the sites out there claiming it is unhealthy are right if they are discussing a diet you intend to keep for a long period of time, but a cleanse has a finite length, so I wouldn’t worry.

On the exercise, here are some sites to check out, the info is buried in the content, scroll and you’ll find it:

http://therawfoodsite.com/faq.htm
http://www.elsonhaas.com/articles/article_05.html
http://citym.org/blog/archives/master_cleanse/
http://www.empoweredyoga.com/master_cleanse.html
http://mastercleansesecrets.com/blog/category/master-cleanse-questions/

Day 8

Again at 5:00 I started my ritual. Morning BM. (Like normal BMs, but mucus-y. I know you wanted to know.) SWF. This time, though it only took me 15 minutes of intense concentration to get it down. A record! The extra salt apparently helps the taste, and the rapidity of the flush, which was in full swing after about 20 minutes. Everything went well (aside from my boyfriend and I fighting over the bathroom), and I was off to work only 5 minutes late! After two days of a full SWF I could certainly tell the difference in the way I felt, I know most people don’t follow the rules on that sucker, but I swear it helps.

Due to the fermentation problem yesterday, I threw my second 1.5 liter into the freezer at work, and chilled it until I would need it, at around noon. When I took it out it was slushy, but it warmed by the time I drank it. I could already tell it was a race against time, though, the fermentation was already apparent by 4:00. I popped the bottle back into the freezer, hoping to nurse my last cup through the end of work, and have lemon-slush for dinner. But by the time I got home, I just couldn’t bear to try it.

On the way there I’d met my boyfriend for tea. Him: blood orange, me: pear cinnamon, both: delicious. And both brewed with little bits of fruit. Right there in the open brew pot. Tiny bits of pear. My boyfriend dared me to taste it. I put one in my mouth and chewed it, tried not to swallow, and realized how intense that swallow impulse is. I couldn’t chew this like gum, I had to…swallow…oh, no… But before I did, I spat out that tiny mushy piece of pear. Self-control! You win!

We spent the whole time talking about foods we want to eat when we’re done and possible menus. Featuring largely are: asparagus (in season!), avocados (guacamole!), crabs (local!), scallops (tasty!), plus many more. We are both looking more forward to vegetables than anything else, and can’t wait for the soup that comes at the end of this. I’ve always been much better at eating fruit than veggies, but at this point veggie soup was my ambrosia.

A couple hours later I got home, my juice warm, and my tummy a little lighter. I didn’t care. I needed tea and sleep. I took both.

*note* Most websites list days 7 & 8 as heavy cleansing days, big detox, strange black BMs, muscle aches, etc. I did not get any of that, but you might. I did, however, have the coated tongue.

Total lbs lost: 6

The Coated Tongue

An oft-repeated mantra in the cleanse is “cleanse until the coating’s gone.” That is, the white mucus-y coating that will develop on your tongue, causing foul breath and a ‘less than fresh’ feeling. Some people have a slight one normally, but this gets more intense during the cleanse, then reduces until the day when you have the tongue of a newborn babe, according to the book and personal accounts online.

One cause of the coating could be dehydration, as noted here: < http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/sym/white_tongue.htm > though everyone should be incorporating enough pure water (w/o salt or lemons) to combat this. It could also be Oral Thrush or the result of a weakened immune system, but their descriptions point to a long-term ailment that shouldn’t be brought on by the cleanse.

Here is one cleanse tongue blog page: < http://colorsonmymind.blogspot.com/2007/04/self-portrait-challenge-master-cleanse.html > to give you a picture, and some more insight. My tongue was not blotchy like this, and had at the 8-day point started to clear more evenly. I was also brushing my tongue daily. This didn’t remove the coating entirely, but if I hadn’t it would have been layered with gunk. Ew.

Something else to note is the color of the coating. I read one woman’s blog, and her tongue was brown for part of the cleanse. I don’t think I could have done it. As I was researching the tongue coating, I did come across a Chinese medicinal site with a tongue coating survey. Yes, indeed, a survey, complete with diagnosis based on your tongue coatings, spots, veins, and colors. Though I am not standing behind the validity of this survey, it is an interesting one. My diagnosis? A-ok. Check it if you want: < http://beyondwellbeing.com/herbs/tongue-diagnosis.shtml >

My boyfriend spoke with a nutritionist about the tongue coating, and she felt it was not necessarily a sympotom of removing toxins, and regardless of when one chooses to finish the cleanse, their tongue would clear back up after eating normally. I'm not about to challenge that, though I will note for the readers that she drinks a glass of the cleanse juice every morning for breakfast and thinks it's a good way of cleansing the body year-round.

Day 9

I slept alright until about 3:30am, having to pull myself out of bed for the AM BM. But luckily I slept sound until my alarm went off at 5:00. I was again pretty tired, but I tried to get myself going quickly, not wanting to be late again. I got the SWF down around 6:00, finished making my juice and decided, instead of waiting until the SWF had done most of it’s dirty work, I would just hop in the shower. I was determined to be early if nothing else.

Just as I jumped in the shower and got my hair wet, though, the SWF perked up. Dripping, I jumped out, toweled as fast as I could and made it to the toilet, just barely. I then made a pledge to myself to take the fastest shower ever, which I did, and finished just in time. That’ll wake you up if nothing else does. Whew. I managed to leave for work on-time-ish

I felt good all day at work, which was nice, and the SWF did what it needed to. I’d decided to strain every tiny pulpy bit from the lemons this time, and I think it helped both my digestion and the fermentation, which was far less noticeable. The most unfortunate part of the day, however, was that evening. A favorite co-worker and friend was leaving the office, and had his going away ‘bar-bash’ that night. Lots of people from my office went out, and I was the only non-eater, non-drinker of the event. It gathered a number of funny looks and prompted questions, to which I nonchalant as possible tried to say “oh, I’m trying not to drink alcohol or caffeine for a while.” This didn’t satisfy anyone, and at this point, I didn’t want to go into it. Early in the night someone asked “is this your whole juice diet thing?” I couldn’t tell if (a) they’d figured it out and the whole office had gossiped about it for the past week-which is plausible-or (b) it was a joke. I just said, in my most sarcastic tone, “yep, that’s it,” and turned to chat with someone else.

As everyone was starting to bar-hop and get thoroughly trashed, I decided to head home. It was getting cold and I not drinking around everyone was a little more bizarre than I’d anticipated. I usually keep about par with everyone, so this was a pretty big departure from normal. It was about 8:30, and I was looking to be in bed early anyway. I headed home, drank tea, and snuggled into bed.

Total lbs lost: 7.5

ps. look at the archive for the rest, blogger is being dumb...

A Fasting Overview

Fasting is an ancient tradition that has prevailed in different cultures for thousands of years. Primarily religious and ritualistic in nature, cultures from historic Incan to modern Islam used and use fasting. To see a list of fasts by religion, check out this site: < http://www.beliefnet.com/features/fasting_chart.html > Simply googling “X Religion” and “fasting” will turn up numerous websites listing the reasons and techniques of their specific fasts.

Fasting has generally fallen from favor and in rigor in modern society, no longer practiced by the people en masse. Except in the case of the political fast, one hardly hears of a person fasting unless they know them personally. No doubt, though, that one of Mahatma Gandhi’s most useful tools was the political fast. Prisoner’s also use fasts to send a message, one of the few tools they have to make a statement. Some information is found here < http://www.pressureworks.org/frontline/features/fast.html >

Less well publicized is fasting for detoxification or medicinal reasons. Fasts were commonly used in the past when confronted with bouts of illness, though now we typically eat through colds and flu. More popular now is a detox cleanse, that is typically a juice fast (though water fasts are seen), and a mono-diet, focusing on only one type of juice for the duration. The Master Cleanse is in this category, where the only nutrients and calories taken in come from one source, though water and herbal teas are sometimes used. Until the recent history (ahem, globalization), our diets were significantly more restricted than many realize, responding directly to the kinds of foods that could be both (a) grown locally and (b) grown during a specific season. For this reason, I feel our bodies are more adept at handling a mono/restricted diet than we assume. That said, I will whole-heartedly agree that this diet does not contain every nutrient you need, and am hesitant to recommend it for too long. Anyway. Some sites on detox fasts:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/detox-diets-cleansing-body
http://health.ivillage.com/eating/estyles/topics/0,,4vhc,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_cleansing
http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?ID=1996

And what about water fasts? I would never attempt more than a two day water fast alone. These typically require full bed rest and a physician to do it without damaging your body. And don’t worry, if you’re interested there are plenty of fasting spas that specialize in water fasting, with specialists on staff and a lovely room for you to stay in with some great views. They also charge appropriately… < http://www.tanglewoodwellnesscenter.com/index.php > (In reading the user's comments it seems the only stress many felt during the experience was about how much money they were spending to do the fast... not a good sign.)

Day 10

The night before I’d gone to bed at 9:45, but I live above a bar. A loud bar, full of karaoke singers. I didn’t get to sleep until probably 11:00 again, and slept like a rock until my alarm went off at 5:00. I was immensely groggy and it took me quite some time to get myself moving, both inside and out. It wasn’t until about 5:45 that I had my usual BM, and not until 6:20 that I finished what I could of the SWF. I only managed to drink half because I realized part of the reason I’d had so much trouble putting it down in the past was because I got FULL. It felt like it wouldn’t fit anymore, and I didn’t want to force it. I again hopped in the shower ASAP, regardless of what the day before had done to me. Since I was moving so slowly, I knew I needed time. I slowly pulled myself together, and managed to leave 5 minutes EARLY. This would have been awesome if my train hadn’t been re-routed mid-commute. These things aren’t my fault, I swear.

The SWF kicked in while I was waiting to transfer trains, but by this time I was a pro at holding it in. I made it in to work a full 15 mins late, and went to spend the next 10 in the bathroom. I was still pretty tired, but got myself some hot tea to wake up. At about 9:30 there was a catered-breakfast presentation, which included some lovely fruit options and fresh orange juice. Not everyone ate, so I wasn’t the only weird one, but I was looking forward to a handful of berries again soon. I was, however, the only weird one not eating at our lunch presentation. The woman seated next to me asked where my lunch was, and I just said, “oh, I’m not having anything right now, just juice.” She was clearly miffed. I wasn’t at all hungry, though, so it didn’t bother me too much. I did finish my juice while I was at work, though, which was a first. I wasn’t drinking as much water during the day, and pledged to drink only that all night. That I was never significantly hungry remained a surprise throughout the entire cleanse.

It was raining that night, my boyfriend and one of our friends who knows about the cleanse hung out and watched a movie, and drank tea. We also talked with him about how the cleanse was affecting us and what we planned to do afterward, at which point my boyfriend’s stomach started feeling bad. As the night wore on, he felt more and more gassy and was considering stopping the cleanse then. He’d had a bad fermentation problem as well, and I thought it might have been that, though we won’t sure. By the time we went to bed, he’d decided that he would feel out tomorrow and see how it went, but he wasn’t going to continue. Since I had plans of keeping on, I wasn’t sure what I’d do. It’d been helpful to go through this process together, and finishing together was the plan all along.

Total lbs lost: 8.5

The Word on Senna

In many of the blogs I’ve read, the topic of a Senna-based laxative tea doesn’t get much play. Because of that, I wanted to bring it up here. Senna is a powerful naturally-occurring laxative, used in many conventional laxatives, including ex-lax. That said, it does not mean that Senna is 100% safe. In fact, most Senna teas come with a warning indicating that the tea should not be taken for more than one week continuously. I read this going into it, and took the leap, regardless, knowing I would not be on the cleanse too much longer than that (and I wasn’t). But for those considering a longer cleanse, I would be hesitant to add this tea to the every-day routine. Once the body becomes familiar with a laxative (such as caffeine, in my case, as it jump-started my IBS), it is terribly difficult to get it to recover from the dependence, and can possibly cause permanent damage. My advice is to use the tea more sparingly on a long cleanse, but use the SWF. I know some people can’t stand the SWF, but it works and saltwater comes with no warning labels (outside dehydration, so drink up!). At the end of this cleanse I decided that I would use the SWF as a laxative when necessary, rather than the tea, as it seems better for our bodies in the long run.

For more Senna info, check here:

http://www.yogitea.com/Lifestyle/SennaLeaf.htm
http://www.traditionalmedicinals.com/?id=31&pid=76
http://www.drugdigest.org/DD/PrintablePages/herbMonograph/0,11475,4029,00.html
http://www.drugs.com/mtm/senna.html
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/1828452/detail.html

Day 11

My tea decided to kick in early in the morning. Real early. At 3:00, while people were still drinking at the bar below, I was stumbling in the dark to the restroom, which I visited three more times in the next 1.5 hours. Then it was my boyfriend’s turn. I didn’t sleep all that well as a result, and had to be awake at 6:30 as it was. It was Saturday, but it wasn’t a break for me. I had a seminar to go to at 10, and we were heading to the local greenmarket at 8:00 to pick up vegetables for the soup we were making when we broke the cleanse. My boyfriend had woken up still feeling not great, and was set on Day 11 being the final day. He wanted to finish the day out, though I encouraged him to just stop then if he didn’t feel well. I was still on the fence, I felt well enough to continue, but didn’t want to split up. As we picked up some fresh, local, organic produce, I got more excited about the tastes I was missing. Asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes, scallions, onions, leeks, peppers, cucumbers, apples, pears. Everything looked and smelled marvelous. We bought what we needed and I jumped on the subway to go uptown. …As a note, I didn’t SWF that day because of my two-hour no-bathroom period. Not safe.

At the seminar there was a really lovely looking snack table, which I left where it stood. Two co-workers (a guy and a girl) were with me, and though they didn’t mention anything at the breakfast break, at the lunch break the girl asked if I wanted anything, anything at all “want a grape?” No, I was fine. I was, too. I was surprised, again, but I was not hungry at all. Even in the tiniest bit. It was marvelous to not have that yoke hanging around my neck. I didn’t feel like I had to rush to the snack table, like I normally would have. I wasn’t drinking my juice, though, because of the layout of the seminar it would have been really awkward to break out the giant bottle I had with me. We got out at 2, and I drank some then, wanting to get some calories in me.

The day was beautiful and my boyfriend and I headed to the park for a while. While we were there I decided I would end the cleanse with him. I was starting to get worried about the Senna Tea as it was, and, though I felt fine, it would be difficult to have different eating schedules at this point. I was also the better versed on cleanse info, so I didn’t want to be in a position of trying to give him whatever advice I could though I wasn’t going through it myself. We stopped to get some tea after that and paid great attention to our taste-buds. They were going to be in a whole new world in the next couple days. As I started drinking the juice later, at around 5:00 my stomach started bubbling up. That was enough to clench it. I’m sure it would have passed quickly (it had before), but we excitedly drove to the store at 7:30, picked up orange juice and a couple more veggies, and went home. I took a couple table spoons of syrup to make up for the juice I wasn’t drinking, and said good-bye to the lemonade. We got another movie, drank water, and went to bed. No tea.

Was I disappointed to end the cleanse before I felt I had to? Sure. Neither of our tongues had quite finished clearing (though they were getting better by the day), and I felt like I could keep going for a few more days, even with my Senna concerns. I was, however, looking forward to food. All those flavors out there were calling to us. Plus, being a few days before my birthday, I could eat something then—though still not cake… I decided solidarity was best on this, and didn’t regret my choice.

Total lbs lost: 9.5

When to End

Aside from the Tongue-Coat Mantra, many people choose to end the cleanse on day 10. This has been perpetuated by a book called Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days by Peter Glickman, who runs the website <>, which I linked to earlier. The original book states that 10 days are the fewest days one can complete to see the benefits of a cleanse, so this seems to be the cleanse-lite approach. Many websites say that no one should start a cleanse with a set cut-off date. In my cleanse, my boyfriend set out with the goal of cleansing until the tongue is uncoated, but we did set a max-cleanse time, 12 days. This was heavily influenced by our friends, who had each gone 12 days before ending the cleanse. I recommend one seeks the advice of a specialist if they consider going on the cleanse for around 20 days or longer to find out how their health could be affected by the cleanse. There are certainly people who have done the cleanse 40+ days, and survived, but lost nutrients can be a problem...and I wouldn’t brush off the Senna issue either.

Once you end the cleanse it is imperative that you treat your body delicately. Your digestive tract is pure and clean as a baby’s. Treat it as such. Don’t go breaking the cleanse with pizza, as some have done. Not only will it cause extreme pain (some bloggers have done this, and ended up in the hospital from the pain. For reals.), but what is the point? If you are doing this either as a cleanse or as a liquid reducing diet, that is a completely absurd way to finish out the process! C’mon! Anyway. Some info:

http://www.thelemonadediet.com/comingoffdiet.html

Day 12

The first day off cleanse. Oranges. What lovely things they are. We got up near noon, and each took an extra-salty half dose of the SWF. I felt I really needed it to clean out what was left from yesterday, and to get my body cleared for some new stuff. We squeezed all ten of the oranges we’d purchased the day before and made orange juice, watering it down to taste (pure OJ is not usually taken at this point, too intense they say). We also took a pro-biotic and a digestive aid pill (chewable! Yea for chewing!) I’d picked up at GNC. We didn’t get started drinking the juice until around 2:30, at which point we were both incredibly tired. I’m sure this was from not finishing our juice the day before and not having any calories for almost 15 hours. Lethargic, my boyfriend drank even more OJ, while I also spiced it up with a couple swigs of the left-over maple syrup. I’m sure it spiked my blood sugar, but I knew I needed some more calories. Within an hour or so I felt better, and then we went outside to run some errands, perking us up even more.

We’d decided a couple days ago that we weren’t going to adhere strictly to the end-diet suggested by the book. Again, this was influenced by friends. We pushed up the schedule by a day, making the veggie soup in the afternoon. At 8:30 I had my first sip of something non-citrus. Delicious, natural, wholesome, fresh veggie broth, it tasted better than I’d thought possible. After tossing in every fresh veggie we could find, a bay leaf, some coriander, basil, thyme, salt and pepper, we simmered our soup for 2 hours, creating a thick broth with floating bits of veggies—we didn’t even strain. Rebels, we are. We used our smallest bowls, and filled them with about 1.5 cups of broth, but by the time we’d downed 1 cup we were full. AMAZING! We couldn’t get over how great that was – how much money our newly tiny stomachs would save us! We followed with another pro-biotic and a digestive aid, both were flavored, too, strawberry and papaya. Almost desert… We put the rest of the soup in the fridge for the next day and sipped OJ and water until bed. It was a marvelous day, and I even had an evening BM-huzzah!

Total lbs lost: 10

ps. During the cleanse I dropped a jeans size, which was pretty exciting, I finally fit in all the clothes I was wearing a couple years ago! My boyfriend dropped almost 17 lbs, which is pretty astounding. We both landed firmly in our “Normal BMI” range, as well, which was great. The long battle: to maintain it.