Master Cleanse, Day One. Am I nuts?
…probably. But I’ve wanted to do this for a while, and figure I might as well try now.
Why? Well, for weight loss, sure, but also because it claims to heal stomach problems. I don’t have ulcers now (although I did about 10 years ago), but my tummy has never fully recovered. I pop pepcid like candy on top of taking nexium AND tums, and that just can’t be healthy. I’ve tried other diets that claim to fix tummy problems with absolutely no success, why not try this one.
And why now? I am going to Canyon Ranch (spa) in two weeks thanks to my mom giving me the trip as an awesome bday present, and just generally feel physically icky. I’d like to feel nice and healthy by the time I’m in that kind of “work out, be healthy” environment, and dealing with my tummy would go a long way towards that.
It, of course, doesn’t hurt that this is November, and I need to write a blog post a day (yah, I missed yesterday. Oops.). This will easily keep me going for a few days. 
For those who don’t know, master cleanse is a liquid diet where you drink 2 liters of a lemon juice/cayenne pepper/maple syrup mixture a day (14 tbl lemon, 14 tbl maple syrup, 1/2 tsp pepper, water). The mixture tastes okay, the description of “lemon gatorade with a kick” isn’t far off (mind you, I haven’t had gatorade in longer than I can remember, but from what I do remember, this is what it tasted like). It most certainly tastes a lot better than some other things I’ve had to eat on diets.
Today’s day one. I’m going to try to do five days – Monday through Friday. I’ve done crash diets before, so I’m thinking this may not be tooooooo bad, but I suspect I’m in for a few rough days.
I have to admit up front, I’m not doing this by the book. I am going to keep drinking diet coke, coffee and tea, although I will switch to decaf as much as possible. I know it sounds really weird, and very contrary to what doctors say, but the only drink I can tolerate in large amounts is diet coke. It has to be that exact brand, too, Diet Coke, not Coke Zero, not Diet Pepsi. I can tolerate coffee, tea (nothing sweetened or the fruity types), and water, but I will inevitably feel sick. I quite literally cannot drink anything else, and believe me, I’ve tried.
I’m using lemon juice, not lemons, since despite the ramblings on the internet, sugar is not added to lemon juice, or at least, not the lemon juice I bought, and I’m not about to juice 20+ lemons a day. Sorry, but no. Going through a bottle of lemon juice a day is crazy enough.
I also accidently bought the wrong maple syrup, I have organic grade A dark amber, whereas I’m supposed to use grade B. According to wikipedia, the difference is in taste and color, not content, so I’m not so worried about that, although if I still may pick up the right grade tomorrow.
I was conservative with the pepper, I put in a little under the recommended 1/2 tsp per 2 liter. I do hear that the longer the mixture sits, the stronger the pepper gets, which I can understand…the pepper doesn’t dissolve when this stuff is initially mixed. It baffles me how something that swears to cure stomach problems contains two ingredients that we’re taught to run from like the plague, pepper and lemons. I don’t taste the pepper toooo much, but it does leave my mouth/tongue feeling spicy, which I hate, and can’t seem to get rid of (have tried caffeine-free diet coke and water). I may just leave the pepper out tomorrow, or at least, drastically reduce the amount.
So far on day one I’m not hungry, not tired, just…fine. Okay. I’ll check in later tonight, when I suspect I may not be feeling so okay. Will see, though, this could be very interesting.
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By Diana, November 10, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
I’ll be checking back. I always wanted to try it to see how well it’d really detox me.
I’ve only ever done detoxes where I can still EAT. So…