Master Cleanse - Day 1

Have any of you heard of the Master Cleanse - AKA Lemonade Diet?  Please don't misunderstand the word diet... yes, you can lose weight on this, but the point of the Master Cleanse... is just that... to cleanse your body.

I haven't been treating my body the best since Olivia stopped nursing, as you may have figured out from my sweet tea post.

So, I decided it was time for a cleansing fast.  A lot of people misunderstand fasts... fasts are generally not done for weight loss.  I'm sure if you have weight to lose, you will lose some during a fast, but if you go right back to your old way of eating, the weight won't stay off anyway.  People fast for many reasons, but I think the most common reasons are cleansing of the body or self discipline/spiritual reasons.

When you fast, you allow the body to have the time and space to get rid of toxins from the body.  On a day to day basis, if you don't eat healthy foods, it's hard for your body to get rid of all the waste that we put in it.  A fast every now and then is a good way to help your body do that.  Of course, ideally, we should just all eat healthy every day of our lives, but unless you have super human discipline, that's probably not going to happen.

Okay... on the talking about the Master Cleanse.  You can google and find lots of information about the cleanse, but the gist of it is you drink a mixture of water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for 10 days.  It is also recommended that you drink a laxative herbal tea morning and night, but I'm not sure that it is crucial to the cleanse.

I started the cleanse on Thursday, Sept, 8th (yesterday).  On Wednesday night, before bed, I drank a cup of herbal laxative tea as directed in the book. ( I also pre-made an 80 oz batch of the lemonade so I would be ready for the next day.)  I drank another cup of the tea when I woke up yesterday.  Then for the remainder of the day, I drank the lemonade mixture.  I chose to forgo the tea last night because I spent way too much time in the bathroom (sorry if that was tmi).  I'm sure I will go back to the tea, but for now, I'm taking a break from it.

My yummy mixture

I felt pretty good most of the day.  I did get hungry, of course, but when I felt hungry I just drank my mixture and felt fine after that.  I made ribs and green string beans for dinner, because I don't like either of those foods! :) I have fasted in the past, but not since I had kids and had to prepare foods for other people while fasting... it wasn't too tortuous yesterday... we'll see how the rest of the 10 days goes.

I did get a pretty gnarly headache at the end of the day, but that's because I was running out of my mixture and we were out of water, so I couldn't make more. (We don't drink our faucet water... if you tasted it, you would understand)  After my hubby got home, I went to the store and got more water and was able to make more of my mixture.  At that point, though, my body was pretty mad at me, so I just went to bed at 9 and called it a day.

I'll continue to update you throughout my fast on how I'm feeling and what I think of it all.

Have a great day!

~Nicole~