Cleanse Yourself

After a month of good-bye dinners with friends, hungover brunches at the local diners following those last precious nights of college craziness, and constant drinking leading up to graduation, my body hated me to say the least. I was determined that the month spent at home would be for detox and include strict dieting and exercise to get my health somewhat back on track before venturing out into the real world.

By Abby

I’m proud to say that I have kept my diet and exercise up for the past week and a half and am already feeling ten times better. While looking into all sorts of diets, I came across one that was particularly interesting, the Master Cleanse Diet.

Remember when Beyonce looked bangin’ for Dreamgirls? Well she lost twenty pounds in a matter of weeks doing this “cleanse,” so it garnered a lot of media attention and was even written about in The New York Times. To be honest, for 2 seconds I considered trying it for fabulous results, then realized what actually went into it.

Basically, you don’t eat for a minimum of ten days and only drink a lemonade concoction. Maybe to some that doesn’t sound so bad, but for someone who has a habit of trying fad diets off and on throughout her college career, I know that when I don’t have food for any extended period of time, I am NOT a pleasant person.

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The Master Cleanse is not supposed to be considered a “diet” per-say, and prefers to be considered a cleanse for your body and internal organs. Well, I would venture to say that most people who are willing to put themselves through this kind of torture are most likely doing it for the slimming reasons and not the internal cleanse crap.

Think drinking lemonade everyday doesn’t sound so bad? Well…it’s a bit of an altered version of lemonade. Here’s the recipe for a day’s worth of fasting juice:

60 oz water per day (or 10 oz per glass)

12 tablespoons Organic Grade B Maple Syrup (or 2 tbsp. per glass)

12 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (or 2 tbsp. per glass)

a little over half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or 1/10 tsp. per glass)

Yummm, sounds appetizing, right? I hope you caught my sarcasm there, but in all honesty, people have done it and praise the benefits. For a detailed look at one girl’s journey on the cleanse, check out her journal to get a day by day blow of what she went through.

I think I’ll stick to my healthy foods and exercise for now. The idea of absolutley no solid food for 10 days is a little too daunting for me to tackle right now. I’m still trying to deal with graduating college and really should avoid anything that would make me more unhappy.