Master Cleanse Day 4:

I have been having diarrhea since yesterday, so I decided against the SWF once again... today was a bit of a rough day since I ran out of maple syrup in the morning and couldn't find any at the Jinqiao Carrefour near where I was teaching. This means I went for a long time on just mint tea until quite late in the afternoon, when I picked up some more syrup at City Shop on West Nanjing Rd.

I was hungry and had a bit of a headache again, but surprisingly I was no hungrier than I would have been on any regular day when I skipped lunch. And once I had some more lemonade in me, I felt better.

I was able to find cayenne pepper at the Jinqiao Carrefour, by the way! Probably the only place in Shanghai that stocks it! It is a LOT spicier than the chili pepper I had been using, so the lemonade really had some extra kick!

I am considering beginning my transition back to a regular diet tomorrow, by introducing some orange juice and vegetable broth. We will see how I feel about it in the morning...

Master Cleanse Day 3:

I skipped the SWF today. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was tired and wanted to sleep in, and I just dreaded the nausea that would follow. Instead, I just drank a cup of my laxative tea in the morning.

I felt absolutely no hunger today. However, the lemonade is starting to taste less and less delicious and more and more like plain sugar water. I am not hungry, but I miss food and texture and flavors.

I have been thinking about how long I want to keep going. A friend invited me for lunch and I had to turn him down; another friend invited me for dinner and I asked if we could get together for an afternoon tea instead -- how lame!

Overall everything is fine. I do feel constantly thirsty, which is probably a good sign, and my tongue has a fuzzy film on it that I have read is a sign of the detoxification happening. Other than that, I don't really have many symptoms other than feeling colder than usual.

Master Cleanse Day 2:

I was really dreading the salt water flush this morning. I woke up 2 hours early this time, but I went into it really feeling like I wouldn't be able to keep it down. I reduced the amount of water a bit to 800ml to see if it would make things easier but it really didn't!

I finished the water but threw a lot of it up a few minutes later. After that though, the flush worked just as it had the day before. The only difference is it took a bit less time for the elimination to end.

I went to yoga after a cup of lemonade and things went well; I imagined I would feel weak by now but I really don't! I wore extra layers for the cold and really felt fine all day. Another glass after yoga, one for lunch and 3 spaced out in the afternoon and evening. Hunger is not an issue but boredom is... no chewing, no textures, no different flavors... just the same stuff I drink day in day out. The lemonade already seems less delicious and I am starting to wonder what it's like to be on this diet for such a long amount of time. But in terms of hunger it really isn't a problem. I felt energetic all day and taught a 2hr class with no problem, standing up for the whole time.

In the evening a slight headache came on again. My muscles are a bit sore from yoga and I am not sure if it's because I was without practicing for more than 10 days or whether it has something to do with my body being a bit undernourished. It's probably a bit of both!

Master Cleanse Day 1:

It is recommended that you spend a few days easing into this cleanse. For example, eating only fruits and vegetables for one day, liquids like blended soups on the next day, subsisting on orange juice for a day and then beginning the fast. However, since I maintain a largely healthy diet and am not going for anything too extreme weight-loss wise, I jumped right into it once I had secured all the ingredients.

My last meal was a bowl of oatmeal.

The evening before I began the fast/detox, I took a cup of the laxative tea as my dinner and went to bed.

The Salt Water Flush:

In the morning, I woke up an extra hour early in order to do the SWF. I have to say, I completely underestimated the difficulty of drinking one liter of really salty water on an empty stomach! This was seriously and without exaggerating on of the hardest things I have ever physically done and imposed on myself! It was awful and I spent much of the day dreading having to do it again the next morning. The water is astonishingly awful to drink, and your stomach immediately begins to reject it. I was nauseous, and the amount is also really huge on a stomach that is shrunken from not eating.

I managed to drink about 800ml and kept it down, although I was too uncomfortable to really fall back asleep! I kept a bucket by my bed just in case and waited for the purge...

The Purge:

The purge is actually not as bad as I had imagined, and in many ways it feels very cleansing and liberating. The salt water went through me pretty fast, so in about 1/2 an hour I was confined to the toilet... eliminating. It took longer than I thought to end so I plan to do the next SWF even earlier!

The Lemonade:

The lemonade is absolutely delicious and I can't believe how filling it is! Since I am not trying to lose weight, I was definitely planning on allowing myself more than 6 cups each day. I bought ingredients for around 8 cups/day. However, I really did not feel like I needed the extra cups at all!

My Progress:

I was able to go to yoga in the morning as usual, having had a cup of lemonade before my class. However, I am used to doing my yoga on an empty stomach, so I think I was already used to that part! I felt pretty hungry after yoga, but I always do and as soon as I got home I had my second cup of lemonade. As the day wore on I felt very tired, though I wasn't really hungry, just sleepy. This probably also had something to do with just getting my body back on a non-vacation schedule! In the evening I had a bit of a headache, but this is a common side-effect of the detox and I was able to just sleep it off after having my laxative tea.

My sleep was pretty light and I also felt pretty cold throughout the day. It was a cold day and the heat in our office broke. Other colleagues were cold too. But I can't help feeling that the fast made it easier for me to feel cold. I drank a lot of mint tea and warm water throughout the day and it helped me stay warm. Overall though, I felt fine and wasn't hungry until my husband described on the phone all the delicious things he would be eating! Ha! 

When Life Gives You Lemons: me on the master cleanse

I am back from Chinese New Year, having had a great holiday in rural Hunan with my husband's family, filled with good food, the Chinese spirit "baijiu" and round upon round of mahjong. While I had a great time and opportunity to rest, my body and digestive system were a bit out of whack when I returned. The drinking, eating a diet of mostly meat and fat with almost no fresh vegetables or fruit, inhaling second-hand smoke everywhere and having little opportunity to exercise really took a toll on me and my digestive system.

I returned to Shanghai eager for some yoga and cleansing and, coincidentally, a friend of mine had just completed a 10-day master cleanse which he tweeted all over the social internetsphere, with photos of his newly skinny body. I have fasted for a few days at a time in the past but never so strictly, or following a regimen like the one in the master cleanse. Needless to say, I decided to give it a go!

What is the Master Cleanse?
The MC is a detox diet created by Stanley Burroughs in the late 1960's. It is basically a liquid diet consisting of teas and a lemonade drink that Burroughs claimed could clean out the system and prevent diseases. The cleansing aspect was what really appealed to me, but cleanse also took off in popularity when celebrities started using it to loose weight.

What do you drink/consume?
The lemonade is the main source of calories and nutrients in the program, and you are allowed 6-12 cups of it daily. Other than the lemonade, a salt water flush is taken each morning in order to clean out the digestive system, and a laxative tea is taken before bed. Throughout the day you are allowed to drink plenty of water and/or mint tea.

Lemonade Recipe:
2 tbsp. lemon juice (I basically just squeeze half a ripe lemon)
2 tbsp. grade B maple syrup
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 cup of water

The lemonade cannot be prepared in advance or else, according to Burroughs, the enzymes in it die. Grade B maple syrup has more nutrients and should be used rather than Grade A; the lemons should be organic and the water the best quality possible (not tap water, not distilled water). I don't know what they cayenne is for but assume it has some antioxidant properties; Burroughs doesn't recommend using any other kind of pepper.

My lemonade ended up being a bit different. Grade B maple syrup is simply impossible to find in Shanghai, so mine is Grade A. Also, my lemons are not organic and I didn't have cayenne, so I am using chili powder.

Salt Water Flush (SWF) Recipe:
2 tsp. non-iodized sea salt
1 liter of warm water

This is simple to make and sea salt is available in Shanghai. However, it is the most awful thing I have ever consumed (more on this later).

Mint and Laxative Teas:
I bought the mint tea at an import store for the convenience, rather than chopping up mint leaves every time. The laxative tea I bought at a Chinese drug store. Mine are not organic, though Burroughs recommends that they be.

I will write about my saga on this fast in the next few days!