I made it to day two!! I’m proud of me. I am drinking caffeine (diet coke, primarily), but have not eaten anything since Sunday night.

Much to my surprise, I’m really not hungry. I had been very hungry around 7pm yesterday, but I truly did stuff myself silly with the lemonade mixture, and hit a point where I couldn’t drink it anymore. I was pretty surprised that I couldn’t finish it, I didn’t expect to be that full.

Physically, my stomach hasn’t been in great shape, I was popping a lot of tums yesterday, and am pretty nauseous at the moment. I used less of the cayenne when making my batch this morning, and that’s made it a bit more tolerable. I think the pepper has a lot to do with preventing me from feeling hungry, so I do need to keep it in there.

I am down two pounds, but it’s important to remember that this is not a diet to lose weight (although it is fairly commonly used as a crash diet). They say that people may keep half of the weight lost off. It may also all come back. This diet is to clean out your system, and theoretically, heal stomach problems. We shall see if it works on that, I will be amazed and very excited if it does.

The weirdest part so far has been my reaction last night. I was very, very out of it, which is why I didn’t post a blog entry – I couldn’t type very well. I was extremely lightheaded and dizzy, and got a horrible headache that hasn’t gone away (which is why I haven’t stopped the caffeine). I was pretty much worthless to the world from 6pm on. I’m not so lightheaded/dizzy now, although I am a little, hrm, how to describe. Slightly airheaded? I trust myself behind the wheel of a car (I wouldn’t have driven last night), but wouldn’t try advanced calculus right now.

So on that note, I’m going to post this now, just in case I hit a wall again tonight (which is exactly what I felt like last night). More on this wacky diet thing later!

…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.