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Amii
10-20-2011, 05:05 PM
Dear fellow Master Cleansers,

My name is Amii and I have been a member on these forums for two years now and have just completed my fifth master cleanse ever. I kept notes every day so that I could create a complete overview of my experience to share with you all. I noticed that not a lot of cleansers keep journalling past their first three ease-out days – I have kept notes for a full ten days after the cleanse, should you be interested to see them.

I've been as honest as I can about my experience in here and I hope someone somewhere will take something useful from it, whether that be to cleanse or not. I hope you find this journal insightful and don't just take away from it my weight loss results.

Well, here goes nothing:


DAY -2
Ease-in Day 1
I drink green juices in order to boost my nutrient levels as high as possible for the cleanse. Fasting cleanses you but it also depletes your nutrient stores, and I'm prone to iron deficiency anaemia, so all this spinach and pineapple is doing some good. This is very important to me because I've previously been one of the “minority” cleansers who experiences constant, grating hunger during the cleanse – which isn't supposed to happen unless you're making a mistake (such as leaving pulp in the lemonade, or not drinking enough, or still chewing something – I'm not doing any of these things).

I eat salad for dinner and generally feel okay about it all.


DAY -1
Ease-in Day 2
More green juices and salad, but I end up eating a potato salad with mayonnaise in the evening. Am I easing into the cleanse in the reverse order?? How strange. I'm relishing that potato salad though and I start to question whether or not I really am up for another ten days of no food.


DAY 0
Ease-in Day 3
Today I definitely screwed up because I eat salad, potato salad and animal products. I ate this on my last ease-in day. It tastes very good and I start to feel sad that I could have chosen NOW to cleanse (of course I hadn't chosen now, I'd been postponing a cleanse for about six months :p).

I drink the laxative tea in the evening and gag.


DAY 1
The Cleanse begins!

I take my weight, and measurements of my hips, waist, arms and chest. I have an uneventful day after the salt-water flush. I drink seven lemonades and don't seem to have any cravings, or temptations to quit. A good sign :)

I get my period today. Well, that's just great timing :(


DAY 2
I have my first mandatory “cheating” dream in which I swallow a crumb and then kick myself for breaking the cleanse – of course, I wake up and it takes me a few seconds to realise it was a dream and I'm still cleansing.

I feel sleepy and mellow, like I'm sleepwalking through the motions of the day. I'm not my usual chatty self at all. Similarly to my last fast, I'm not struggling with cravings or urges to quit, either. It weirds me out and makes me think that the temptation will hit on my later days, because my body sucks.

Because I felt weak today and really struggled with my lemonades, I drank a lot of extra maple syrup.. I say drank, I mean I sipped it in TINY amounts so it was going down in trace liquid amounts. I probably had an extra 7 tablespoons of syrup throughout the day, but I'm not bothered because it kept me going. I don't actually recommend doing this, though, because it might trick your stomach into expecting food and therefore creating new cravings to torture you with.


DAY 3
I didn't have any lemons so I had to go out to get some feeling very light-headed and weak and then when I was out I got taken to someone's house and had to help them do lots of jobs.. I was rushing back and forth, up and down stairs, all the while feeling very dizzy. I finally got home for a lemonade at 4pm. I've only had 6 today because it just tastes rank, I'm not sure if the lemons I bought are bad or something but it just tastes gross. Gross gross gross.

I was all up for cooking dinner for the family but in the end decided to let my mum do it and it smells really good. It's not tempting me to stop the cleanse, I'm just feeling a bit wistful over it.

I spend the evening on Youtube avidly watching cooking channels – I finally drag myself away at 2am.


DAY 4
I only manage to drink three lemonades and I wonder why I'm struck with awful cravings?

DAY 5
I'm not a happy bunny.

Haven't weighed myself so far since day 1 but just took tape measurements of waist, hips, thigh, upper arm, and forearm, and I haven't lost even a millimetre. My clothes aren't noticeably looser either.

It's bizarre because I'm sure I look a bit smaller. And I keep noticing I can feel my hipbones and those bones on my chest more, and it freaked me out. I've had my period since day 1 so maybe that's bloating my body - but I'm not in a good mood now, either way.

But then I weigh myself and I have dropped six pounds since day 1. I get all happy about that.

DAY 6
I go to University for a full eight-hour day of classes. I start off on a sugar high from the lemonade at 8am, and am giggly and hyperactive – my classmates ask me if I'm on drugs.

By 4pm, though, I'm unresponsive and have my head in my arms on my desk. I'm not feeling good. I feel low and exhausted and very nearly buy food on my way home from university – it is a very close call but thankfully I grit my teeth until I'm all the way home.

When I get home I have my third lemonade of the day and only make it to four by the night's end... no wonder I nearly broke.


DAY 7
I'm getting light-headed extremely easily and not in a good way. When I stand, even slowly and taking deep breaths, my vision clouds over and I have to hang on to the wall or nearest tall object.

I also start to feel very nauseas which could be interpreted as a heavy detox symptom.. or I could just be feeling sick of all that lemonade. Today I reach a new low – only three lemonades because the taste is making me physically retch and this has an effect on my basic movement.. I'm sluggish and slow and unreasonably snappy with those around me. When I go up and down the stairs, I have to cling to the banister just in case. To reiterate, I don't recommend cutting out ANY lemonades.


DAY 8
I realise today that not once have I had the infamous “hungry” problem this time around – I guess those green juices did count for something. Unfortunately, as I'm still struggling to get the lemonade down, I'm getting more and more light-headed as the cleanse progresses.

I do the salt-water flush for the first time in a few days and I cheer up then, surprise surprise.

I notice spiritual gains today because I feel no need to eat any of the nice food I can smell – I'm happy just to appreciate the smell. That's a nice growth for me.


DAY 9
I've been under the lemonade limit for six days now and feel very weak, so I drink my remaining maple syrup (which is the same energy level as having another seven drinks.) I also start adding double the cayenne pepper into my lemonade to keep my metabolism up, because I'm struggling to stay warm.


DAY 10
I've been cooking all day for my grandparents. I loved cooking and wasn't tempted at all, even though I was cooking for over 5 hours. It was just so nice and relaxing.

So... plans at this point are, I guess, to continue onwards. I think I will see how things look at 15 days? But I don't want to commit to anything. I'm nervous about this coming Thursday because I am out the house from 8am to 6pm without lemonade (college) and Thursday just gone was when I very nearly broke (day 6). So we'll see. I'm feeling good though right now, not exactly detached from food (I'm still looking up recipes for me when I eat raw, and cooked for my family to make them) but I'm not tempted to stop and I don't have any cravings really.


DAY 11
I complete day eleven but then give in to scaremongering about health problems caused by fasting. I don't know whether to believe it or not, but the damage is done and I cannot shake the paranoia out of my head, so I go out to buy oranges and go to bed feeling content that I completed eleven days.

Amii
10-20-2011, 05:05 PM
POST-CLEANSE DAY 1 (DAY 12)
I juice five oranges with water and drink them throughout the day. It's not as amazing as I've heard people claim, though. Hm. Oranges are overrated.

But I lost ten pounds during the cleanse, so that's a plus. I decide I want to live a healthier lifestyle from now on so I go out for exercise – taking it slow, I run just ten minutes of walk/run intervals. It tires me out. I must be very out of shape.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 2 (DAY 13)

Today I had 3 oranges' juice for breakfast but also had a 10 hour day at college so I moved onto smoothies rather fast, I bought 2 'Innocent' smoothies (they seem to be 100% raw) and had those, when I got home I made a sweet potato and onion soup and ate that.

Tomorrow I'll do smoothies in the day and a salad at dinner.. then after that it's back to solids for real.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 3 (DAY 14)
I eat a salad and it's amazing.

I also complete the first Couch 2 5k podcast run and am amazed at how hard it was. I decide I want to get fitter.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 4
Today, Burroughs says I can go back to “normal” food. I start off on a good note (smoothies) but I descend into cooked food by lunchtime. In the afternoon I have a potato. Hmm. The health kick didn't last long, did it?

I've promised myself that I won't weigh myself until one week post-cleanse. But my skin is looking rather nice (much clearer than before) which is an incentive to keep up the vaguely-good work.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 5
I continue with a mix of healthy raw and then cooked food. I don't let myself feel too guilty about it, figuring it will even out soon enough.

I complete the second run of the Couch 2 5k week 1.

The thought that I may have gained weight is stressing me out. I don't like the notion that even when I'm trying to eat better and exercising for the first time in ages, I may still be gaining weight. I figure I'm in a bit of a risky mindset.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 6
I go all out on deserts today and am overwhelmed by the sensation of sugar in my bloodstream – it's not nice. Why do we think sugar rushes are a good thing??

I get scared about damage to my metabolism and the idea that weight gain is inevitable – this isn't something I thought I would worry about if I eased out properly. I spend an hour reading up on starvation mode.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 7
My eating habits continue to decline as I end up munching on candy and hitting my highest calorie intake so far since the cleanse.. but on the other hand, I complete Couch 2 5k for a third time and then go out and run for an additional 19 minutes. I feel giddy with relief afterwards and realise that my body has become way more attracted to exercise after this cleanse.

I start to think about this in terms of my metabolism and end up back online researching this topic that, until now, I've never given two thoughts about.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 8
It's one week on since finishing the cleanse and I have gained back 2.6lbs. I'm not too disappointed with this. I go out for a Couch 2 5k yet again, and clock up an overall running time of 50 minutes throughout the day – and it's easy. I'm amazed and so proud of myself despite my crappy eating throughout the day.

But I still am obsessed with the idea of a slow metabolism and I scour the internet for self-help pages, reading everything I can about it. I can't stop thinking about it.


POST-CLEANSE DAY 9
Today is the day it all went to heck.

It went downhill the second I woke up (after five hours of sleep). I eat a baked potato for breakfast and drink hot chocolate. I then try and make up for it with a smoothie but end up stuffing myself with candy. At 8am I leave home and arrive at university for 9am, where I promptly buy two more candy bars and a pasta salad. I eat this stuff throughout my first three-hour class. At 1pm, I buy the same food all over again and repeat the morning binge throughout my second three-hour class. I feel uncomfortably full and sick but for some twisted reason I feel compelled to keep stuffing the food down. When I get home just an hour later though, I'm hungry again and I eat another baked potato.. and am still hungry. I am going carb-crazy and I don't like how chaotic my eating has suddenly turned. I calculate that I have eaten over 4000 calories today.

In the evening I find myself turning back to my old ways, considering purging the food out – and I start looking into water fasting in order to cancel out today's disaster.

I'm scared of how fast I have backslid from seven days ago when I was eating healthier than ever. I decide that if I were to give in to the ideas I have of “getting rid of the food” then I will only harm myself, others, and most importantly, I will not learn from this experience.

I start to wonder whether I did the right thing in doing the master cleanse. I decide that yes, I did the right thing because I have learned a lot about my body and my relationship with food during this fast. However, I feel that my aims during the cleanse were a little uncalled for and I'm leaving this experience unsure about whether or not I'll be returning, given the psychological stress I've experienced since ending.. particularly the triggering of my old anxieties surrounding calories and my weight.

I end my journal now at 11pm, deciding that the best course of action is to keep eating – but eat salads, smoothies, and generally healthy stuff. To keep up with the running and not to let today's fall keep me down.

Good luck to everyone attempting the master cleanse, and I hope you are doing it for the right reasons.

Amii

amoux
10-21-2011, 05:06 AM
Thanks for sharing this with us. It seems like the absolute key to not activating cravings after a fast of any kind is to break the fast extremely carefully - and slowly. It's probably worth planning the break at the same time as planning the fast - I'm certainly going to keep your experience in mind when I do a fast (in the new year).

And also I was going to say, one day of eating stuff you wish you hadn't is just one day - in the overall scheme of things, it really isn't anything to worry about. You're doing okay, and you can make new choices every day :-)

Amii
11-16-2011, 12:31 PM
1 MONTH LATER + UPDATE

It's been over a month since I transitioned out of the master cleanse and I wanted to update you all about how everything has gone, briefly.

- My state of mind calmed down.. I stopped panicking about my metabolism after the first 2 weeks.
- I didn't keep exercising OR eating completely healthy. I caught the flu at university after 2 weeks and ate everything I could then and was put onto bedrest for 2 weeks, when my new running habit caved.
- I am enjoying exercise more and feel more inclined to do it. When I'm walking around at night with headphones, sometimes I break into a run lol.
- My weight has stabilised 2-5 lbs higher than when I ended. It fluctuates as normal but I have kept at least 9lbs off. I credit my ease-out and sporadic exercising with that.
- I will be cleansing again :)

Have a good day :D