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Master Cleanse, Day Fourteen: End of Cleanse
This is going to be my last day on the cleanse. Not only did I reach my goal, I went four days over to make a full two weeks. Pretty proud of that.
If you haven't read the comments over the past two weeks, please do, there's some great stuff. And for all of you who asked questions, I'm going to go back through later today and answer all of them in the comment sections.
I noticed several of you are considering giving it a shot. More power to you. It's certainly not for everyone though, and make sure you read as much as possible online before beginning. Here's the advice I can offer you from my personal experience.
- The first few days you will want to kill yourself. Do not kill yourself. It gets drastically better really quickly.
- Don't have food in your house. This was a lifesaver for me. I didn't have so much as a Cheerio for the full two weeks.
- Working out helps a lot with moving things along, getting stuff out, and improving your mental state. Definitely don't do anything physical the first few days, and definitely don't run a marathon while you're on it, but low-key jogging or what-have-you at the gym every other day really enhanced the good feelings I was having.
- Don't listen to haters. Everyone thinks they know everything about the body and what it can do. They don't, and neither do I. I do know my body, and I know that if I had been feeling exhausted or having bad cramps or anything like that, I would have stopped. For me, a fairly healthy man in my twenties, it worked like a charm.
- Eat a lot of whatever you want the day before you start. Really gorge. This helps you get through the dreadful first few days. And it's fun.
- Read everything you can find on the Master Cleanse before starting. Here's a good FAQ, here's most of the book a lot of sites tell you that you need to buy (you don't), and here's a beyond valuable message board that helped me with loads of questions. Google searching specific problems/questions always yielded results for me, too.
Here's how to do it:
Have all your ingredients at home and good to go. Don't make individual glasses throughout the day, this is annoying and time consuming. Make your whole day's worth in the morning. Here's what I used, and it worked perfectly. You'll need:
- Organic Grade B Maple Syrup
- a bunch of lemons and/or limes
- cayenne pepper
- unrefined or uniodized sea salt
- laxative tea (I used something hilariously called "Smooth Move," winner of a WRAP award -- "Waste Reduction Awards Program." Seriously.)
- a large pitcher
- a 32 oz. thermos
- bottled water
- a whole lot of toilet paper
The night before day one, drink the laxative tea. When you wake up, it's time for the Salt Water Flush. Fill your 32. oz thermos to the top with water and heat until it's lukewarm. Pour the heated water back into your thermos and add two teaspoons of the sea salt. (I used a bit more than two, it triggers the bowels faster.) Then...drink it. It's not pleasant, but just get it down fast. Now you're waiting for the assplosion to begin. It generally takes about a half hour to kick in, so use that time to make your lemonade.
Pour roughly 60 oz. of water into the pitcher (Fill your 32 oz. thermos twice and pour the water in). Add 12 tablespoons of the syrup. Add 12 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice. (It's best to actual fresh lemons/limes, which is obnoxious. I cut each lemon/lime and squeezed, you may want to purchase a juicer or something.) Add 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. (For me, this much pepper made the drink unbearable. If you don't like the taste of the drink, you're never going to survive the diet. So on the third day, I wised up and started putting half the pepper dose in the drink and taking the rest of the pepper on its own, like a shot. If you make your first batch and gag at the taste, I recommend this.) Now shake the pitcher and pour the mixture back into your thermos. You can bring that thermos to work and drink throughout the day. When you get home, fill the thermos with the rest of the pitcher and drink throughout the evening.
Back to that Salt Water Flush, DO NOT leave the house for 90 minutes after you've taken it. Allow yourself that time in the morning. Once it kicks in, you will be on the toilet for about an hour. If it's hasn't kicked in for you after an hour or so, and you're panicked about all that salt water sitting in your system: massage your stomach, do those torso twists you used to do in gym class, or throw your hands in the air and wave them around like you just don't care. All of these worked for me.
And if nothing's happening, the BEST possible thing you can do to trigger the flush -- and it's something none of the sites mention for some reason -- is to quickly chug a bottle of water. This will work lightning fast and will have you diving for the toilet.
Before bed, drink your tea, and it all starts over again. I did the tea every night, but the salt water I went two days on, one day off. It just didn't seem healthy to me to do that to myself every single morning.
I think that covers everything. If you guys have any questions, feel free to comment on here and ask.
And with that, I'm done. Tomorrow I'm supposed to drink nothing but orange juice all day, then the following day I'll add soup, then vegetables, fruits, etc, until I work my way back up. Even if you only last a couple days, it's important to come off of the cleanse properly. I've heard some horror stories. Commenter M. Kemper Brown was talking about doing it right up to Thanksgiving, and that seems like a terrible decision. You can't go from ten days of lemonade into a huge feast.
I'll let you know in a few days how the "post cleanse" went, but for now I'm a little tired of running a damn diet blog. I feel like Oprah.
In summation, reached my goal and beyond. Lost 22 pounds that I hadn't been able to get off through any other method. Feel cleaner, brighter, more focused, and a great deal healthier. Worked like gangbusters for me, might not for you. I'm really glad I did it, and I look forward to chewing again.
22 lbs? Thats like, crazy weight. You must be skinny as shit.
How old are you man? In the Alda short you look like, low-30s (lol), but in
this post you mention "Mid-20's".
What do you figure is the validation process for the Waste Reduction Awards
Program? What kind of materials do they have to send in? I see new blog
entries!
Holy shit, until I realized I should wait until after Turkey Day (as M.
Kemper should as well, if nothing else, to have others going through the
same hell at the same time) I was about to call you with a dumptruck-load
of questions.
Danny (...and Pat, I guess)
Congrats on accomplishing your goal Pat! That must have been tough.
You said you used organic grade B maple syrup. I don't know what this
means, especially as I make my own maple syrup from scratch. Do you think
my homemade syrup (which, taste- and quality-wise, blows any commercial
product counterpart out of the water) would work okay?
Kastner,
Congrats! Well played, Mr. Walsh. And thank you for saving me from 3 fatal
Fall movie watching mistakes...
-Scribe
It's actually super-easy. Since I come from a relatively poor family my
Mom was always home-making this and that thing that most everyone else buys
from the store (I don't know if she still makes it nowadays). We also
didn't drink milk straight from the container--she did something called
"mixed milk" where she'd use a little bit of milk from the carton, mix it
with evaporated milk and powdered milk and water, and put it in like a
Tupperware pitcher. Man I haven't thought about that in a long time., but
now that I do, I realize we must have been even poorer than I thought. I
guess five kids'll do that to ya!
Oh, and no--I don't think I'm seriously considering it. Fancifully, maybe,
but not seriously.
I'm starting this clense today... did u really drink the tea every night? i
have read a lot on this and you were the only on to mention doing it.
everyday?
Addy,
where did you buy organic grade b syrup from im in the uk! in my
supermarket they had organic medium 1 and 2 is this the equvilent?
Hey, I just read your blog through the MC - you had me giggling hard! Just
wanted to say thanks for the info, what you've written is dead useful. I'm
thinking of trying it starting next week.
Hi! I want to know if you gained any of the weight back / what you're
doing to keep it off.