Photo Credit: www.diet.lovetoknow.com

The concept of people doing what’s called a cleansing of their bodies has been in the news lately.  It’s a controversial process where people basically give up food for a number of days, drinking a concoction of certain things they put together, and then slowly reintroduce some foods back into their diet.  The overall purpose is to cleanse the body of toxins, but many people are doing it as a diet.

The Master Cleanse Diet is also known as the Lemonade Diet.  That’s because a big part of this drink consists of the juice produced from squeezing raw lemons.  The rest of the mix, for one serving, consists of cayenne pepper, grade B organic maple syrup, and filtered or distilled water. 

Once mixed in the proper quantities, people are supposed to drink this mixture 4 to 6 times a day, mainly to stay hydrated.  Some versions of the cleanse will allow people to drink the mixture up to 12 times a day.  They will do this process anywhere from 4 to 14 days before starting to integrate foods of some fashion back into their diet.  During the time one is on the cleanse, the only alternatives to the mixture is one cup of herbal tea or a salt mixture, also known as a salt water flush.

This is one that I refuse to do, but my wife decided she wanted to do it, along with a friend of hers.  On the last day of solid foods, she made up the mixture, deciding to make a full jug of the stuff to hopefully last the entire week. She started it on a Monday morning, and the first taste of the mixture was that it tasted better than she expected it to taste.  The cayenne pepper was something she had to get used to, as she’s not a big pepper fan, but she got used to it within the first day.

She stayed on the cleanse for 9 days, and was doing fine until day six, when she started feeling hunger for the first time.  She believes it was in anticipation that she would be eating something within a few days.  After the first couple of days, there were no true bowel movements; that is, everything started coming out totally liquefied, which it will without solid foods.  She decided to add to the process a gallon of distilled water every day, as she’s always been big on staying hydrated.

By day 9, she was ready for food, but had to integrate it slowly.  She started with chicken broth, and then later added some vegetable soup.  She said she felt better and lighter after the process.  She was correct on being lighter; she lost 12 pounds, and her friend lost 15.  Males will tend to lose weight faster.  After two weeks, once she’d integrated food back into her diet, the weight loss stood at 10 pounds.  She said she couldn’t eat as much food as she could beforehand, and thus it helped keep the weight off.

She had a positive experience with it, but nutritionists warn that this is something most people shouldn’t go into without talking with a physician first.  There’s a manual that explains the entire process, and it says it’s safe for everyone, including diabetics.  However, the American Diabetic Association comes out against this diet, saying they don’t see anything positive about the plan.  Other physicians say that the liver is already doing a good job unless you’ve suffered renal failure, and that this is an unjustified risk. 

If you decide to try this, proceed with caution, and make sure someone knows you’re doing it in case you develop complications along the way.

See more:
7 Day Cleansing Diet
Detox and Cleansing Diets
Oprah’s 21 Day Cleansing Diet