Good Morning to all! I am finally over my week long sick. Man it hit me hard. Thankfully I am feeling much better and ready to start my day. As I said before I am doing a modified cleanse. This will start out with a couple weeks of pre cleansing my body and getting it ready for a drastic change. I will spend the next couple weeks adjusting my diet to slowly eliminate unhealthy foods so my body doesn't go into shock mode.
I have learned a few things over the course of my last 2 years.
Lesson 1: losing weight is an addiction. An obsession of sorts.
Lesson 2: nothing is worth making yourself miserable over.
Lesson 3: Cleansing is not the "over the top feel good" solution.
Lesson 4: nothing is going to make your weight fall off unless you are willing to work for it.
That all said. My modifications are tailored to fit my lifestyle and ability. These are by no means a solution to your personal style or needs. Do it how you choose. I will document how I feel, what I eat, how many calories I ingest as well as my weight. You will likely get "TMI" but what the heck..
Now for the good stuff. I was sadly surprised that after being sick I woke up to a sickening 184 on the scale. Holy Crap!!! How do you gain weight while sick? I didn't eat much of anything. Grrrr. Oh well. I am about to change that.
Have any of you looked into the Master Cleanse? Holy Cats! That is one strict cleanse that is about 850 calories a day. NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Now I am going to use the juice as a filler only because I love how it tastes but strictly that.. NO WAY! I would starve to death and be so miserable that my loves would all abandon me.
Yes.. That was my first impression of the cleanse. Being me I just had to try it out. Surprisingly it isn't bad. Super easy to follow once I set myself up on a written schedule and found methods that work for me. Those methods include a cup of coffee in the morning. My goal was to maintain about 1250 calories a day in food and beverage. This did not include any exercise deductions or additions. If I wasn't determined to keep my coffee I am sure this cleanse would still be doable. Who knows. Here are the details of the cleanse I did.
MASTER CLEANSE
Per day limits
64 to 96 ounces of juice( recommended)
Half your body weight in water
RECIPE
8 ounces water
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp organic grade b maple syrup
1/10 tsp cayenne pepper
I like to make mine in 16 ounce batches. If I make the whole days worth the cayenne pepper steeps and gets VERY spicy by the end of the day. My suggestion is to either:
A: mix your lemon juice and maple syrup together in a separate container so all you have to do is shake and measure each portion. No water or cayenne to this mixture. Add those when ready to drink. I have heard of people freezing these in cubes so all they have to do is pop a cube into their bottle. I have NOT tried this.
B: mix your lemon juice, maple syrup and water into your bottles and add your cayenne when ready to drink. This would be handy if you are working or out for the day. No supplies to tote except your bottles and bottle of cayenne pepper. I do this when we are traveling. This is where I freeze the lemon juice. I find I have enough juice melting as I need it. Stored properly in a cooler it is likely to still have a frozen piece at the end of the day. Just keep it as cold as you can.
I really dislike drinking plain water so this is what I do to get my water in.
I use a 16 ounce bottle filled with my juice mix. Once I drink half the bottle I fill it with 8 ice cubes equal to 8 ounces of water. You will know when your bottle is full to the top again. Now I have added water to my day and the juice is still good. I drink another 8 ounces and fill it up once again with ice cubes. By the time I am done with this I have consumed 2 servings of juice and 16 ounces of additional water.
If you are using the 2 hour clock schedule it would look like this:
8am: 8 ounces of master cleanse( first half of 16 ounce bottle then add ice cubes to the top)
9am: 8 ounces water (another first half then again fill with ice cubes)
10am: 8 ounces of master cleanse (now I just drink on this until noon)
11am: 8 ounces water (technically this is the last 8 ounces in the bottle)
Now I make a new fresh bottle of straight master cleanse and start the morning process again.
12 noon: 8 ounces cleanse
1pm: 8 ounces water
2pm: 8 ounces cleanse
3pm: 8 ounces water
Again another fresh bottle of master cleanse
4pm: 8 ounces cleanse
5pm: 8 ounces water
6pm: 8 ounces cleanse
7pm: 8 ounces water
9pm: smooth move tea( this gives you 8 more ounces of water)
This plan will give you 6 servings of the master cleanse and 7 servings of water. This is 2 servings less than what the recommend of the master cleanse. I use those 2 extra servings in where my hungry times are. Usually around 2pm and 6pm. They do recommend that you don't drink the cleanse to late in the evening or you will be up all night going potty. You also have to save room for your nightly cleanse tea. So.. I was surprisingly not as hungry as I was when I did the blueprint cleanse diy version. I am guessing it had something to do with the cayenne but I could be wrong.
Now on to how I plan on modifying this sucker. I find that 850 calories is sufficient for my old activity level, however, now that I am walking every day in find I need a tad more energy. (Hence my 2pm hungry time)
I truly believe that you need more nutrients than what lemons and maple syrup can give you. Yes you can survive on it but is it really that healthy? Unlikely. I might sub the master cleanse drink 3 or 4 times a day with some fresh veggie juice. I really have become quite accustomed to Joe Cross Mean Green juice so that's what I will use mostly. There are many free recipes online to choose from. I look for ones with minimal kale (bitter to me) and minimal beets (taste like dirt) minimal fruits (generally higher in calories). I might even add in some vegetable soups. Not really sure yet. I am still in the planning stage. I find that having a set plan allows me better success.
I did go and get my very first colonic. Holy hell that was intense and quite uncomfortable. I had cramping and hot flashes thru most of it. Almost passed out once. Ended up sniffing peppermint oil to relax me. It was needless to say something I will NOT be doing again any time soon.
Then I was told to try the bisacodyl stimulant that doctors prescribe for pre colonoscopys.
The instructions say to take 1-3 pills before bed. I took 2. Holy hell again. 6-8 hours for results. I took them at 9:45pm with 8 ounces of water. I woke up at 11:45pm with the most intense cramps. What happened to that 6-8 hour thing. Only took 2. I thought I was giving birth. It was so awful I laid in the tub letting the hot shower run on me til the hot water ran out. Then I just laid there. I had 3 massive incidents where I was barely able to get to the toilet in time. Soaked the bathroom in the process. I finally got back to bed around 4am with minimal cramping. This product definitely works but it is very painful. I have been putting my body thru hell so I figured I had better get some help. My nutritionist told me to get probiotics.
This is what I got. They have to be making a difference in my system but I don't feel any difference nor has anything changed.
All of these experiments are probably not good for me but researching is what I need to do to gain knowledge. My goal is to start my cleansing on October 1, 2014. Wish me luck!
