Master Cleanse Forum - Master Cleanser Lemonade Diet

Bali Lemon is back. 9th MC. Ten day scope, looking forward then to a 4 day ease-out: slow and done.

Basically, my chiropractor daughter told me in August of 2017 that I should try Intermittent Fasting. I went right onto it in Boise, Idaho (eclipse road trip) after having spent the previous couple of weeks on the MC (posted in forum). I loved IF and I lost my final 3 or 4 stubborn pounds by eating only between 10:30 and 4. I allowed myself a bulletproof coffee in the am. This kept me satisfied until the midday meal.

Then it was a big lunch with large green salad and maybe 2 eggs and or fish. Sometimes a steak. Always lots of olive oil, nuts, cheese (maybe sometimes too much of that). I ate this high fat, high veg diet for a year and kept the weight right down at ideal. Never felt the need to do a MC until now.

Just came back from 2 weeks in Italy. I know what they all say about The Mediterranean Diet, but really there is way too much bread and other grains and starches. I knew what I'd be in for (and besides I knew that Naples was the home office of great tomato sauces for pasta, pizza, etc... I actually "trained" for 1 month before Italy, easing myself onto sugars simple and complex). Yeah, I gained back a muffin top and because my diet was such a gross alteration of the IF plan, I have to give my poor gelato-addled body a big break. SO! It’s back on the MC!!

Not for one minute do I believe this crappy old scale I have here (says I’m 54 kilos) so I measured my critical areas and I’ll work from a girth viewpoint.

As I go to bed, anticipating 10 days of lemons and running for the toilet, I psych myself up and set a few goals.
1. No desire for sugar s.
2. 3” off waist
3. 2” off hips
4. Muffin top gone
5. Craving salads

Happy to communicate with others along for the ride. Positivity a must!!!
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Blem

Can't help but notice that this forum has lost some popularity. I think I first started a MC in 2014. Doing the Cleanse a bunch of times over the intervening years, religiously posting my progress here, there was always a pretty good number of readers and respondents and fellow Cleansers running concurrently.

I take this two ways.

The MC got to be something of a fad diet. That's a shame, because although the prime mood-elevator with this thing IS weight loss, the purpose of the MC is to give your body (specifically your digestive tract) a nice rest. But with any fad diet, you will get people trying it without any more education or thought than, "Beyoncé did it! That's for me!" The MC is serious stuff and it takes constant referrals to Burroughs or Glickman to reinforce the discipline and regimen, every day a person is on this thing. It is a good thing people who lack discipline or misunderstand the purpose of the MC are off trying Keto or Paleo or IF or one of the other "hot" diets right now. Because you can mess around with those a bit and still derive healthy benefits. But you can't muck around with Burroughs' Master Cleanse and come out shining.

AND / OR

Fasting for the release of toxins is falling out of favor. Also a shame. We eat, eat, eat, in the normal American lifestyle and we take in a lot of processed foods. I always laughed off, "what you eat you are," but there is evidence that some of our body cells are taking on the appearance of corn cells, because we eat so much of it. I have enormous reality on food addictions. When I read up on the health benefits of going off grains, I said to myself, "wow, I bet that works. But I can't do it, because I love pasta and I'd never be able to stop eating that." I may have been all cheerful and content with my pasta habit, but actually the pasta I'd been eating all my life was sitting inside my entire system, EXACTLY like heroin in a heroin addict's system. I THOUGHT I was pasta, could not even logically conceive of life without it. What you eat, you are.

Finally I got so disgusted with my excess weight, I got on the MC. And that became the only thing to wean me off the pasta monkey. Food addictions are real. The Master Cleanse is miraculous in that a body can lose its food addictions in the space of 2 weeks.

And that is the great purpose of the Master Cleanse. It is a medical tool to give the body a rest, via the digestive system. When you view it that way, it is suddenly easy to understand the phenomena that go with the fasting... cravings (it doesn't mean "drink more syrup"... it means your body is going through symptoms of withdrawal from its own quirky food addictions), feeling poorly (again, these are expected... our bodies are experiencing the release of toxins ingested long ago and now surfacing on their way out), and myriad other weird stuff (I've read here how people pass stones, worms and parasites, things associated with a clogged up digestive and elimination system).

So I see that maybe we've lost sight of the great purpose of the Master Cleanse.

Yes, I like to use it for jumpstarting a major change in diet. It is a great tool to change from Standard American Diet or any unhealthy eating pattern. It can be so wonderful to lose 10 lbs on the Master Cleanse and then hop onto a Paleo diet, knowing that one is capable of losing weight (it can be so demoralizing to make the supreme effort of changing one's diet from SAD to something new, only to plateau for all one's efforts, cravings, and introspection.

So... just my opinions on Master Cleanse popularity or lack thereof. I have only great things to say about Intermittent Fasting and a keto diet, but you don't either-or that regimen with the Master Cleanse, which is a short term medical style remedy.

B L

DAY 1
Edited this throughout the day.

stats:
weight: 54 kilos (I kind of don't believe it, looking at my flabby body, post-Naples pig-out)
bust: 34" (my back does not feel overly flabby)
waist: 28.5"
muffin top: 32.5"
hips: 38.75"
left thigh: 21.3"
right thigh: 21.3"


Got fantastic amount of sleep last night (over 8 hours... that's nothing less than incredible for 59-year-old me).

Did not take the Senna tea last night. It just loosens things up way too much for me and I am always hypersensitive to the flush part of this routine.

Already normal BM upon wakening; went straight to the Salt Water. I chugged a liter of mineral water mixed with 1 Tablespoon of Kusamba Sea Salt and spent the next hour "going."

Day 1 is usually pretty easy for me, marked by mild frustration at not being able to make a cup of coffee or munch some peanuts sitting in a bag somewhere nearby.

Lemonade tally: 5 so far at 4:45 afternoon check-in. 7 total for the day.
Really conscious of my water intake, which I am trying to keep high. My cleanses are sometimes marked by kidney pain and dehydration. Urge to nap at 3:30. I absolutely don't want to fall into that. Worst thing today is latent jet lag making me want to nap, which would be fatal to readjusting to 6-zone time change from Italy.

Mood 5.5 out of 10. Restless at times. Hyper conscious of inability to eat. Husband in town; had to cook dinner for him. He did say some encouraging things to me today.

this is a 'waist loss' ticker:
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DAY 2
posting throughout the day and editing as I go.
Good sleep last night. Didn't do my sleep cycle app, but I appeared to get scant 8 hours. Did half of my exercise video chapter (frozen shoulder chapter).

SWF productive; didn't have to drink all of the salt water to get the effect.

Amazingly, my (albeit untrustworthy) scale says I am at 52 kilos today. Likely it is all water weight, although I used a ketosis paper on my first morning urine and it read "trace" ketosis!
No reduction in waistline and good reduction in the muffin top, which looks acceptable in the mirror. Really, I am already in generally good shape, but this time the MC is to rest my gut after the excesses of Italy. I would hope that more people use the MC as a toxin remedy than anything else, but I would never discourage anyone from using it as a way to ready one's system for a new diet regimen.

34 - 28.5 - 39 measurements today,
with a muffin top of 32 inches.
Left thigh 21.3
Right thigh 21
go figure.

Feeling good today. Mood 8 out of 10.
Lemonade tally: 8 (drank the last two a little too close to bedtime and it took a while to fall asleep with all the sugar in my system) Note to self: this is a fast. Get sleep.
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DAY 3
The dreaded Day 3
Slept at least 7 hours but I wasn't exactly bounding out of bed this morning.
Quite a bit of bloated feeling. Mood 5.5 out of 10.
Weight 55kg on the insane scale
Waist lost .25 inches, yay,
but the muffin top was up to 32.25 inches with the bloat
hips 38.66 inches, woo-hoo
thighs : Left: 20.9 " Right: 21.25"
this made me remember that the last major weight loss during the ketogenic diet, I saw my thighs finally change A LOT. Like the final 3 or 4 lbs definitely sat partially in the thighs. But just from looking at them, and from pants not fitting, i know they got fat again on recent bad decisions (alcohol, Italy). So even though the waist and muffin top will move easily on this fast, I have no idea what the thighs will be up to. I measured these as precisely as possible, without actually tattooing the measuring line on my skin.

Yeah, definitely feel the toxins coming out today. I know that Day 4 will be wonderful, though.
Re-read the instructions, and, as in some previous MC's, I realized I'd mis-measured the salt for previous days (1 T is too much for a liter of water) so I measured correctly 2 t of salt. Went down easy. Backed with frequent quaffs of Tirtagangga water we get piped in.
SWF moderately productive. Not smelling like roses.
Lemonade tally: 7 or 8.
Great mood at night, going to bed. Just a little too peppy but managed to calm down and sleep. Trying to not drink too many after 6. Minor leg joint aching.
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DAY 4

SWF productive. dusty bile.
Weight: 53 kgs on the wacked-out drugstore bathroom scale.
woke up *BOING* at 5 am feeling GREAT, but figured I should have a little more than 6 hours of sleep, so stayed in bed, only to get cramped-up thighs and feel worse. keto paper strip revealed zero ketones in urine. Why do I bother checking? I'm living on sugar water.
Better after 22 mins of stretching.
28.5" waist
muffin top 32" feeling of bloating still
39.5" hips (wtf)
left thigh 20.5 right thigh 21
Mood 6.5 out of 10
Feeling goofy today, not necessarily in a good way. I was really looking forward to Day 4, the classic first day of feeling great, but, as with some of my other cleanses, this Day 4 is apparently just a continuation of Day 3.
Lemonade tally: 6. Continually reminding self to drink water.

Had to drive to Denpasar at 4:30 for an experimental art performance by an artist who I admire very much. Brought cooler with 3 lemonades in it, to see me through the evening. Ended up drinking only one of those. The darn experiment didn't quite go as planned, and although I got to meet the man behind it, I was up pretty late. My husband was concerned about the amount of back-and-forth driving I was making myself do (Day 5 slated to go BACK to the city... one way there from our hacienda (ha... love that word) is 2 hours average. He was so concerned that I was overdoing it (when you drive in Bali, you are dodging cows and chickens and dealing with slow-moving trucks that won't pull over and motorcyclists who randomly enter the highway from country roads without even LOOKING at who's coming... 2 hours of that is like playing the most stressful video game).

So he says, "here's a cheap hotel ($14) that looks amazing... you just check in and stay down. You can find salt and maple syrup and limes down there and just make everything you need. Don't kill yourself driving back tonight." Well, I was really reluctant because I didn't have my orthokeratology contact lenses with me (I sleep with them and if I don't wear them one night, my eyes revert to old lady vision). My husband said, "aw, I skip 'em once a month. You'll catch back up." OMG, why didn't I listen to my second mind?

The art thing was over at 11 and I drove to the hotel (20 mins away) and checked in at 11:30. The room was fine (neat as a pin, clean) but their tap water pump was "ka-shunking" all night long, every 2 seconds. And my joints (particularly in the legs) ACHED! I finally must have fallen asleep at 1 am, and I was awakened at 2 by a shallow 6.4 magnitude earthquake off the eastern end of Java. I was so dog-tired, I thought, there is no way in hell I'm going to put on some clothes and go stand in a doorway right now. If the roof collapses on me, fine. I'll die. But I am NOT getting out of the horizontal. I survived.

Can't enter my ticker because the application is not letting me go backwards in the progress, even when I enter the correct data. Now, THAT is really demoralizing.

Bali Lemon!!YAY!! I am so glad I checked in and saw ya! Back from Italy! How lovely.

Or Bali Lime? I've become a Lime-r. One who Limes. Last time they hit 15 limes for $1, I spent $12 and got questioned in the grocery line by everyone. Everyone. I just told them the truth. "Master Cleanse!"

The part about how fasting has fallen out of favor is brilliant and true. And yes, sad. Standard American Diet Sad.

My feeling about the maple syrup is that it is a nice plant food, esp done well. Tree Magic. I just got some from Vermont and it is the most potent I have ever tried. Smoky. From the outdoor sugaring. Good stuff. I would love to try raw cane juice one day. But it is crazy costly here and ... 30 minutes away in very good LA traffic!

The last MC I did ended recently. It was 30 days. I cannot stress enough, that ... it really is a medical procedure. It's got to be the fastest way to get inflammation down that I have ever found. Including steroids. I still have so many questions. How does the MC make hair and nails grow that fast? The glow that appears about 2-3 days in ... is it the Cayenne? Have you seen that one girl who did 40 days ... and used to be an athlete .... African American girl .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XAPx5C3e30

You know what? She was drinking MC made with freakin' bottled lemon. (and not much of it ...) I kid you not. I could not believe it. It brings up so many questions. I so wish that more actual study was being done. But ... what can we do but ... do what works? ... cause yes ... it works.

I do think everyone is off on a paleo or keto thing now that it is more popular.

I think that the supposed magic of the Mediterranean diet is in the Family connection (4 generations eating at a table) and the amount of time devoted to eating. The long meal times and togetherness. Because yes, pasta and bread are addictive and not health creating.

My Hubs has gone to intermittent fasting. He does breakfast and lunch. And bulletproof coffee. Over the few months he lost the weight he wanted to, and needed to. It did mean that I was cooking for him less than before. Then he got us a Puppy! A standard American Poodle puppy! Puppy is named Henry, and is the grandson of the Poodle named London, who is the winningest Poodle on the Big Green Flat Earth Rock. So I had to figure out how to cook for a puppy. I was cooking for everyone and their dog.

I'm so grateful to see you journal-ling! I read it all. It is good to be able to look back on too. Nice that your Hubs said encouraging things to you. You are to be awarded many laurels!

More soon! Excited you are here!

Abbey Lee

Hey, Abs! Was wondering when you were going to check in again here.

Listen, I have two days to catch up on. I'll read your post and reply in a few.

L, L

DAY 5
OMFG

No way to measure body parts or weigh self.

Woke up with the dawn feeling terrible. And I couldn't see (see Day 4). I made myself all the day's lemonades and did the SWF (productive) and staggered through the day.

I am pretty sure the crappy way I felt is due to, evenly split: lack of adequate sleep, toxics still being flushed out, and doing too much while detoxing. There is a chance that I did not have enough nutrition because I drank only 5 lemonades. 4 of them were made not with maple syrup but with borassus palm syrup, because I couldn't find the maple at short notice, stuck in Sesetan, Denpasar.

All the details you didn't want to hear, but really these journals are more for the authors:

The only phone charger was in the car, so I had to make sure I had lots of driving time (oh, the irony). Got a hair cut and a manicure since I was back in civilization. Bought a t-shirt. Lied in a chair nursing a club soda at a low-class beach restaurant for about an hour, daring myself to nap. Saw old friend. Did an interview in Sanur. Saw a message from the cook asking me to pick up some stuff she can't find back in our area. SIGH. So I went shopping and packed everything in ice in cardboard boxes in the back of the car. Could not BEAR crossing town at rush hour to get to the night's art performance in Seminyak, so I parked the car in a good neighborhood and got a 'GoJek' to take me most of the way. We drove 25 minutes (I'm pillion on his motorbike) and it cost me all of $1.25 (Rupiah20,000). He had dodged crazy traffic like a hero the whole way, so I did the unthinkable and tipped him $3.25.

The art thing was worth it. But I was living on fumes. Amazing that everyone was guzzling the free cocktails and eating the pupus that waiters were bringing around on trays, and yet I didn't really mind nursing 2 waters throughout the evening. How I got through all the conversations I had, I don't know, except for the fact that if you are in the company of good, positive people, you will derive benefits. Good people are good for ya. It was truly uplifting and distracting to listen to people and chat about art and related stuff. I know this is way too much info, but for all I know Abbey Lee is the only one reading.

I still had to deliver some letters to a guy in Gianyar, so, once another GoJek got me back to my car in the Renon district, I had yet to drive to rendezvous with that guy. Delivering letters to a guy: I sound like a CIA operative. No, just some charity stuff. Jeez, I was just dying to get home to my bed, and that goal kept me from falling asleep at the wheel. Thank goodness no one else was on the road at that hour. I got home, unpacked the groceries and collapsed into bed next to sleeping husband.

Lemonade tally: I am pretty sure I had only 5 but I drank a lot of water. Except for the leftover lemonades I'd brought along from Day 4, these were made with organic palm syrup.

DAY 6

52.5 kg on the messed up scale
waist 28
muffin 32
hips 38.5
Left thigh 21 right thigh 21.2

Well, I didn't die. Got more sleep than the night before, that's for sure, but probably only 6.5 hours. Mood actually pretty good this morning despite tiredness. By end of day, feeling pretty shitty.

Dang, I am so regular, I "went" this am as soon as I got out of bed, but of course I still chugged the SWF.

Lemonade tally: 6

Having that phenomenon of smell sensitivity. OMG, the bedroom BO smelled weird this morning. My husband's breath is disgusting, and of course he just laughed when I mentioned this and remarked on how bad mine is. I am sure I am exuding all kinds of weird toxic miasma. Super low energy. This is the hardest cleanse I've ever done.

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Blem

To Abbey Lee:

Thanks for the support and good cheer!

And thanks for that link to Chiomi's youtube entry about being on the mc for 40 days. What a change! She's cute and she still has a good butt, even though I know what she means. How she crammed for and did the MCATs while on the MC, I'll never know, except that it's a fact: we do get more energy on the cleanse, and she IS about 30-something years younger than I am.

My daughter in law did a month-plus-long intense toxic cleanse (not the MC, this was the same as the Narconon program that addicts use to amazing results) while she was studying for the New York bar exams and also single-handedly planning her wedding.

But it's funny how Chiomi says she treated herself to "a calamari" and "a chicken sushi" for completing the MC. I envision one little calamari ring on her plate and one little (cooked, I hope) chunk of chicken on top of a perfect little mound of rice. Because we eat so little when we come off the cleanse! Suddenly a spoonful of soup is the most amazing taste extravaganza!

So I looked back at some of your more recent Cleanse entries on other people's journal entries. Are you on a cleanse right NOW? If so, how many days? Is your husband off of his IF? I did IF/keto with a bit of occasional cheating on the keto aspect for one whole year and it was fantastic.

You may be right about the family aspect of the Mediterranean diet. One shared trait of all those regions is the family meal angle. But I also think there is a lot less car culture, and people are walking off the calories.

I was having my bulletproof coffee every morning and then this massive, extended salad-centric lunch from 11 to 1, and another go at veggies at 4pm and that was it. I gotta say, there are not enough raw veggies in the Neapolitan diet. On this visit, I would have to ask for an insalata verde (salted lettuce in olive oil and lemon juice) off-menu. But, dig, they are usually starting the day with an espresso or a cappuccino. There are some parallels with IF. How's the man looking? And he didn't go all 'roid rage' on you, right?

Those poodles are smart dogs. Only some kind of herding dog (I forget... maybe the Australian Shepherd) is smarter than a poodle.

Yesterday, I visited a friend who has a big standard poodle, but she doesn't wash him or train him and he's a jump-on-the-new-friend kind of untrained dog, which is irritating, especially in a dog as large as him, big paws going right up onto my clothes. As we were chatting in the living room, he kept coming over to me to put his stinky head in my chest. I like dogs (I keep a Bali street dog - oh, excuse me, a Bali Heritage Dog - here, who is at the other end of the spectrum of dog intelligence by breed, but he learned one thing: no jumping on people) and so how could I ignore this earnest creature vying for my attention? I had to acknowledge his efforts at friendship by rubbing his ears and saying nice things to the lad, but omfg, the stench. By the time I had to leave, I sent him a "no jumping up on me as I make my exit" vibe, and he GOT it. Smart cookie.

You are so nice to be cooking for your dog. Actually, we sort of do that here. Our BSD gets fish and rice. And we have to take out all the bones for him. I tried to sneak a carrot into his food the other day, and when I walked by his dish, there was a perfectly licked-clean dish with a perfect piece of carrot sitting there! For a half-wild dog, this guy is ridiculously finicky.

My daughter feeds her cat wild caught tuna, and that cat's fur is fluffier and softer than any chinchilla coat you've ever felt. Wow, that is one healthy cat.

Ciao, Bella. Glad to be back in touch.

Blimey

DAY 7
9+ hours of sleep; oh thank gawd!
woke up with elevated mood and feeling halfway normal again.
I'd peg my mood at 7 or 7.5 out of 10.
Of course, Day 7 is notoriously a "toxic" day, so I have no idea what's in store, but for now I am happy because I started to make up for my sleep debt.
53 kgs per the insane-o-scale
waist 28
muffin 31.5 yay, losing it
SWF productive
5 or 6 lemonades. Honestly, I just don't feel like drinking one until noon and that messes up my timing.



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DAY 8
Slept well.
Felt GREAT, mood 9 out of 10
52Kg
tomorrow I'll take measurements; must run on errands.
SWF ridiculously productive (I thought it would be just bile by now)
Body feels light! Pants loose.
OMG, finally made it over the hump with this, possibly my most uncomfortable time doing the cleanse, ever. No true cravings, no desire to chew; food smells were amazingly delicious but I did not hunger for eating.
6 lemonades throughout the day. Tried to keep up the water intake as well. It was a bit tough, as I spent a lot of time in the car and all my lime and lemonades were in mason jars (not a lot of red lights on the way). I had a little grocery shopping to do for the man of the house and participated in a gallery talk (which meant I was standing and sometimes talking). At least this time I got a driver to take me to the capitol city. Did not mess up my energy level or stamina by getting the driver. Whew. A good day.

Bali Lemon

DAY 9
50 kgs
waist 27.2 "
muffin 31.25"
YAY!
hips 38.5"
left thigh 21"
right thigh 21.2"
Slept just under 7 hours; kind of my normal, even though I'd like more hours during fasting. Trouble was, my knees ached horribly and I could not fall asleep for over an hour.
OK, woke up happy and this is great. Gotta say, the biggest boost is just feeling so light on my feet. Who would believe, without experiencing healthy fasting, that the sensation of an empty stomach would be so satisfying? I am ready to get back to a nutritious diet, but of course I still have tomorrow and the ease-out regimen.
Mood 9.5 out of 10

SWF effective only after chugging at least 2 or 3 cups of spring water when nothing happened. Then the dam burst, so to speak.

Lemonades 6 or 7




Waistline Ticker

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DAY 10
Yay! Got that happy, Day 10 feeling! Mood 9.9 out of 10!
50 kgs
bust 34
waist 27.7"
muffin 31.5
hips 38
left thigh 21
right thigh 21
It really doesn't get much better than this, but I can feel that my body now needs a little toning, which always happens miraculously on keto dieting, because I can get a little autophagy to set in, which tightens up my skin and other body tissues.
https://youtu.be/10jNZleNH9w
SWF effective
5 or 6 lemonades... jeez, I hate drinking UNDER the requisite 6, but I was busy getting ready for house guests and just couldn't get to the kitchen often enough.