Binary Blonde

So, 10 days, 12 lemons, 20 limes, a couple of teaspoons of cayenne and almost 4 bottles of maple syrup later, I am done with my first Master Cleanser experience. I just finished my last limeade and am feeling great. I know I could go longer, but that is for another time. This first cleanse was a great experience and a wonderful time to learn what works and what doesn’t. After feeling this great, now I know why many people go 2 weeks, 3 weeks, even a month on this cleanse. Of course, there were ups and downs, but the bottom line is to detoxify and that’s exactly what it did… and well!

I am so happy I did this and, also to know that I could. There were moments of weakness where, when I opened the fridge for my maple syrup and glanced at some yummy food or another, I wanted to just stop and eat. I am glad I didn’t, as I know how good it can be when you don’t give in and make it past those parts.

Tomorrow, I will drink only fresh orange juice. Thankfully, we have a juicer, so it will be minimal work to juice all those oranges for an entire day. I will also prepare for the soup I will be eating on the two days following. I found a great recipe for vegetable soup, so I will use that as a guide.

The end result of this cleanse is sorta contradictory to me, as I feel it made me obsess about food even more, but it the best of ways. It made me realise just how much pre-packaged/frozen food I eat. So, in a way, the cleanse has made me take a step back and look at the big “food picture”. Because of this experience, I will be eating fresher, better and cooking more from scratch. Especially snacks and desserts (carbs), which are the main pre-packaged culprits in my life.

As I mostly skimmed over any, uhm, details about what your body goes through during the cleanse, and I really don’t plan on revealing everything of that matter on my blog, I would be more than happy to answer any questions personally via my contact form. Or, you can try The Raw Food Site forums, which is a much better resource for answers to questions regarding The Master Cleanser.

Okay, so I’ve been told that I might be skimming over the daily details of the cleanse a little too much in these last few days. I feel like I would be repeating myself too much if I spelled out the entire cleansing "ritual" each day, so to compensate, here is my entire regimen. I’ve done this each and every day since I began the cleanse, and today is my last day. I won’t be drinking the laxative tea tonight, either.

Morning:
On an empty stomach, and before I drink any of the lemonade, I drink a sea/salt water flush. This is not water from the ocean, but a concoction of sea salt and purified water.

The sea/salt water flush consists of:

• 2 teaspoons uniodized sea salt (I use Redmond RealSalt)
• 32 oz. (4 cups) purified water

The flush makes me feel somewhat nauseated and I usually can’t even think about drinking anything for about an hour after doing this. It literally "flushes" everything out of you that the laxative tea loosened the night before. From the third day on, I’ve made a cup of peppermint tea after drinking the sea water to ease the nausea associated with it.

Afternoon:
I drink the lemonade (now limeade) throughout the day and supplement it with as much purified water as I think I need.

A serving of lemonade consists of:

• 2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed juice from a lemon or lime
• 2 tablespoons Grade B organic maple syrup
• 1/10 of teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 10 oz. of purified water (cool or warm)

Organic ingredients are preferred. I drink at least six 10 oz. servings of the lemonade by the time I go to bed. The Master Cleanser book recommends between six to twelve. I’ve concluded from an earlier post I made that each serving of lemonade is roughly 100 calories.

Evening:
Before bed, and after I’ve had enough of the lemonade, I have a cup of laxative tea (Smooth Move from Traditional Medicinals). Sometimes, if I feel like it, I have another cup of peppermint tea before the cup of laxative tea.

I was hungry a good part of the day, but that was my fault, as we stayed out longer than I anticipated and I only brought along one serving of limeade. That stuff is pretty amazing. As soon as we got home, I made a glass and as I started drinking it, I felt full of energy again and no longer hungry. I can see how people go for 15, 21, even 40 days on this cleanse and not be any worse for the wear.

I am sticking to ten days, though. Maybe, if I decide to do this again, I’ll do it for longer. I’ve read on The Raw Food Site forums that it’s a great cleanse to do before pregnancy, among other things. So, we’ll see..

Anywho, it’ll sorta be strange to eat again and feel full. I think the best physical feeling from this cleanse, for me, is I don’t ever feel too full. Like, when you eat too much pasta too fast. That feeling. There’s nothing even remotely like that feeling with this cleanse. Ahh, I will miss that.

Though, I think I am more looking forward to actually chewing something again. Lime pulp is okay, but there’s nothing like chomping on a great mouthful of salad or crunching through a carrot or mushing a tomato in your mouth and.. well, you get the picture.

Ahh, to chew again. Only another 3 days until I can chew again. Even though it will be soup veggies, I will relish every last chew.

The first day I started the Master Cleanser, I wrote down my goals for doing it. Since I’ve come so far and only have 1 more day (after this one) of the actual cleanse, I’d like to list my goals and reasons for doing it.

1. Detoxify.
2. Ease my caffeine addiction.
3. Get rid of or, at least, ease my asthma, which is mostly caused and set-off from my MCS (see below).
4. Get rid of or, at least, ease my allergies.
5. Ease my multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS).
6. Nix my cravings for refined sugars and carbs (read: sweets).

A bonus would be to detox from my time spent in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina doing pet rescue. I’m sure I was exposed to some crazy shit down there while I was trekking through those houses and working in filthy conditions for months. I also wasn’t able to eat as well as I usually do when I lived there, and I hope to get rid of any stuff that junky food left behind, too.

A common “byproduct” of the cleanse is losing weight. That is not one of my personal goals for doing the cleanse. Being vegan, doing yoga, and eating healthy foods affords me a weight and body image that I am mostly content with (though, firming up that weight would be nice, but the cleanse doesn’t do that, exercise does).

However, it’s pretty impossible not to lose weight while on the cleanse because of the small amount of calories the cleanse provides (about 600/day). Either way, I don’t have a way of tracking any weight loss as we don’t have a scale in the house.