YES I'M CRAZY (pre-master cleanse)

So it's the day before I take the plunge into the world renowned and holistic method of detox, better known as the Master Cleanse. For those of you who are not familiar with it, its an intense liquid diet with nothing more than a few organic ingredients, a laxative tea, and if you get really lucky a salt water flush or two (sarcasm doesn't transfer well into writing so I'll just insert here that its pretty awful). My old friend Becca got me started on it 3 years ago, and it's been there in the back of my mind telling me that times up for another attempt at it. Today I went to Sun Harvest to purchase all of my ORGANIC ingredients to ensure it works to its full potential. If you've never done it, or heard of it, there are many online resources to help you make an educated decision if the master cleanse is right for you. I read the original book and I highly suggest it to anyone so you can appreciate the science behind it and why it works. www.themastercleanse.org is a great site to visit for insights and do's and don'ts. This blog is simply my opinion and an honest answer of what it's really like to trudge through this insanity. If you don't like my opinion you don't have to read it, but I assure you it will be filled with hilarious personal experiences that will make your attempt at the cleanse not seem so abnormal.

The directions are simple, you don't eat or drink anything other than the lemonade concoction in the amounts of 6-12 8 oz glasses a day, supplemented with water, and the nightly laxative teas. The high caloric value in the ingredients keeps you from literally starving, as many think you will, which is just not true. I know people that have done it for months without so much as any kind of side effect (except for a thinner waist line, and new healthy outlook on life) Do you crave food? HELL YES! Is it easy? HELL NO! But the end result is so worth it.

Interested? Well first off the ingredients aren't cheap but in comparison to how much we spend on our food intake on a daily basis it more than balances its self out. One huge thing that can make taking on the detox easier is a support group, find a group of friends that you can share your experiences with and lean on for support when you feel like you can't do it anymore. I've got two other girls who are on the challenge with me Terry and Venessa. They are both diligent about wanting to try it. So we shall see how they do! :)

Curious about this magical concoction? The ingredients are as follows...

• 2 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice
• 2 Tablespoons Rich Grade B Maple Syrup
• 1/10 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper Powder – or to taste (as much as you can stand)
• 8 ounces (250 milliliters of Pure Water)

It actually tastes pretty good, and is very refreshing. If you have a huge taste aversion to lemons then organic limes can be used as well. I like the lime taste better but the enzymes in the lemon's are stronger so I'm sticking to the original recipe this time. I'm looking for a real thorough detox this time around. I've gained 20 pounds in 6 months mostly to blame for my insane amount of beer/fried food intake. Processed foods haven't helped much either. So this is an opportunity to start over again. Hopefully my liver can forgive me.

Other than the lemonade you drink an organic laxative tea every evening, which will kick start the bowels into poopin out all the toxins you have in your body every morning. Making bowel movement's every single morning is an important part of the process, if you find that you aren't moving your bowels (and if your diet is all liquids you can imagine what's coming out) then a salt water flush (aka SWF) is necessary. And those my friend are NOT fun. You have to do it on an empty stomach and chug a liter of water with 2 tsp of sea salt dissolved in it. Within 30-60 minutes you will have a come to Jesus meeting with your toilet. NO JOKE. But it cleans your system out like you would not believe. P.S. I've learned from experience do not even attempt to let even the smallest little "poof" "fart" "toot" or "fluff" out! YOU and your underwear will regret it (and whoever does your laundry).

So tomorrow is my first day, I'm going to savor my last few bites of my tuna sandwich and chug my first glass of laxative tea the brand I chose is called SMOOTH MOVE (ahahahah) which I hope is really effective because I don't want to do the SWF. There's a whole way to slowly break yourself down to a liquid diet before starting the cleanse it can be found in the book and on the website, but I simply began 4 days in advance by drinking nothing but water and decreasing my portion sizes to adjust my stomach to eating less. Lets hope it works, because last time the caffeine come down was brutal. Headaches galore. Well I'm off to bed getting up for work at 4 am tomorrow so I'll have my first glass down before sun up! Sweet dreams!