The Master Cleanse - Day 1

Today I decided to start the Master Cleanse. If you haven't heard of the Master Cleanse, it is a 10 day liquid "diet" consisting of 2 tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, and a dash of cayenne pepper mixed in 8 ounces of water. The lemonade is consumed at least 6 times a day for 10 days (I'm going to start with 5 days and see how i feel from there), and it is all you are allowed to eat/drink, except for all of the water you want, a salt water flush in the morning, and a laxative tea before bed.  For more information a good place to start is http://themastercleanse.org/

A lot of people go on this "diet" to lose-weight-quickly, which will happen if you stop eating solid foods. Beyonce did the cleanse for quick weight loss for her role in Dreamgirls. I do not in any way endorse fad lose weight quick diets.  Most accounts that I have read, people who go on the cleanse and do not make healthy eating choices after quitting the cleanse gain all the weight back and then some!  Weight loss is not why I decided to try it out. I am more curious about the mental and detoxification aspects of the diet. I want to see if I am mentally up to the challenge of quitting my regular eating habits cold turkey, and to be honest I was starting to go down a bad path. Since I exercise so frequently I can afford to eat whatever I want and not gain weight. I was starting to consume more refined sugars, red meat, foods with preservatives, and caffeine than I would like. The cleanse seems like a good way to get back to healthier eating habits while being a mental challenge and ridding my body of built up toxins and waste.

In my research I have come across some warnings and side effects. Some people have experienced hair loss while on the cleanse, which is not cool. It is also recommended that you ease off the cleanse and not go straight back to eating solid foods by starting with just fruit juice and then soup and eventually solid foods again.

The first day went by a lot better than I thought. I was worried about missing my morning cup of joe, but so far no caffeine withdrawal. Surprisingly I haven't felt hungry at all today. The lemonade actually makes me feel full after I chug it down and my energy level is pretty much the same. But it is just day 1. I knew it would be pretty easy to go one day without food. They say getting past day 3 is the hard part. I did feel a little hungry around 4pm and started to feel a little light headed, but it went away in a couple of minutes. Right now I feel like I can easily do this for 10 days. We shall see how tomorrow goes. I am interested to see what happens after the laxative tea and salt water flush.