The Lemonade Diet

Curious to know what detox Justin and I have been doing since I posted about it last week?  Now you get to find out!

I thought about posting this before I started this detox, then I thought too many people would think I’m nuts (or more nuts than I already am!), so I thought maybe I’d chronicle my adventures as I experienced them, and then I thought better of that and finally I decided I’d just wait until it was all over and tell you about it then.

So here I am, on the other side of a very empowering week, alive to tell you the tale!

I had done this detox once before, about three and a half years ago, and Justin had joined me on it about 5 days after I started.  He did a total of 7 days, leaving me at a total of 12.  We dropped so much weight and felt better than we had in a LONG time.  This literally flushes your system out.

Here’s how you make your lemonade: 8 oz of water, 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice, 2 tbsp organic grade B maple syrup, and 1/10 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste – I did a bit less than that).

I know the cayenne probably sounds scary, but it’s really not bad.  It just tastes like lemonade with a kick.

But here’s the real kick:

That’s ALL you consume for the duration of the detox.  NOTHING else except plain water if you want.  No food, no other drinks, nothing but the lemonade.  See what I mean when I said you’d think I’m crazy?

A friend of mine had introduced me to this several years back – she’s one of my go-to people when it comes to natural living, and a research-a-holic like myself, plus she cured her dad’s cancer (maybe someday, with her permission, I’ll tell you that story…), so I put a lot of trust in her knowledge.  I was definitely intrigued by this lemonade diet when she told me about it, and she had done it twice with great results.  So I decided to give it a try too.  At that time it was mostly for weight loss.  Well, at about a pound or two a day, it’s definitely a good method for weight loss!  Unfortunately, though, a lot of it is water weight, which comes back once you start eating normally again, but a lot of it does STAY off too.  This time, I was aiming mostly for detox.  Now that I’m on this paleo kick (and I intend to stay on it) I felt like with the new year I just wanted to flush out the old and give myself a clean slate to work with as I embark on healthier eating habits.  So January 1^st (after brunch with some friends to ease some hangovers….) I went home and sent some lemons through my juicer and made my first serving of lemonade.

At first Justin wasn’t going to join me.  I don’t blame him.  Have you seen how that man eats?  But, around the last week or two of December, he decided he’d give it a go (so long as I promised it wouldn’t be any longer than 7 days!), and I’m soooooo glad he did.  What a trooper – the night of day 5 he and a friend packaged up some fresh deer brats and then cooked a few to sample, and he had enough will power to avoid sampling them too!  I was pretty impressed, and proud of him!  He has made this SO much easier for me too, being able to do the buddy system and all.  And I felt like I had support, and we could support each other.  We both were down 5 pounds by the second day.  FIVE POUNDS.  I had to tighten my belt on my pants.  Justin’s face was already looking thinner and younger.  We were pretty pumped!!  Today I’m seeing numbers on the scale that I haven’t seen since high school.  That’s a pretty awesome feeling.

So.  For those of you reading this who are intrigued and might think about trying it yourself, this post is for you.  I’m going to tell you what we experienced and what to expect.  For those of you not, go ahead and read on just to confirm that I am, in fact, crazy.  I don’t mind!  :)

The first three days suck.  Not gonna lie.  Especially by day 3 you’re thinking thoughts like, “I’m starving myself.  What am I doing?  This is stupid.  I should quit.  I can’t believe I’m doing this.”  Every single freaking commercial on TV is about food.  All you’re thinking about is food.  Anything your friends want to do with you is get food.  All you want to do is cook something.  And you’re in the damn kitchen the whole time squeezing those damn lemons with the refrigerator right there tempting you with everything else inside.  Ugh.  It’s awful.  Honestly it was worse the first time I did it over three years ago – this time I was braced for what to expect and it wasn’t AS bad.  But what’s worse is having a kid who still needs to eat real food, so I was still cooking and smelling food and being around it, watching him eat while we can’t.  BUT, just keep drinking, it staves off hunger and all you have to deal with is the annoyance of not getting to eat FOOD – this probably sounds like a starvation diet, but it’s really not.  I wasn’t “starving”.  That’s what people in third world countries are doing, and I couldn’t compare it to that.  It’s more annoying and frustrating than anything.  Our stomachs would grumble, but we’d drink more and they’d stop.  You do question your sanity by day 3, though.  But.  Day 4 is pretty amazing.  It’s like you made it over a hump.  I don’t know what it is, but my friend said the exact same thing – she pushed through those first 3 days and suddenly it was no problem.  She didn’t care that she wasn’t eating food.  I felt the same way each time I did this.  By day 4 I just didn’t care anymore, it was exciting and motivating to stick with it, actually, seeing how much weight I was losing and how much will power I was developing.  And, oddly enough, I felt AWESOME.  Not just in the fact that I felt a stronger sense of will power in me, and a sense of pride that I was able to do this, but I had so much ENERGY, which doesn’t seem logical, right?  I hardly felt hungry at all, I felt clear mentally, I felt like I was really cleaning house inside, life is GOOD.  It’s weird.  It still baffles me.  I mean it’s lemonade, that’s it, that shouldn’t be able to sustain you like that for that long…

But it does, and I’ll explain how!  I bought the book when I did it the first time, and reading that was very important, I thought.  I don’t recommend doing this detox without reading it first.  Only now there’s this handy website, The Lemonade Diet Site, that pretty much has all the info you need right there!  Although they still recommend reading the book too.  Here’s the first paragraph on their site:

The Master Cleanse Diet, unlike many fad diets of today, has survived the test of time for over 60 years. Celebrities and nutrition gurus alike are raving over the immense health benefits and spectacular body transformations that this diet offers. The Master Cleanse Diet or Lemonade Diet created by dietician Stanley Burroughs in 1941, not only supports healthy weight loss, but helps to eliminate toxins and congestion; cleanse the kidneys and the digestive system; eliminate waste and hardened materials in the colon; increase energy, remove cravings associated with drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and junk food; and even alleviate some chronic diseases

Since I’m wanting to convert our eating habits to follow the paleo lifestyle at home, detoxing the old junk out of our systems from years of fast food, refined food, preservatives, and, well, junk sounded like a great idea to me!  Great way to kick off the new year, too!

I’ll quote the site further.  Here’s what the lemons are doing for you:

Lemons are packed with Vitamin C - an energy booster and a very powerful vitamin, especially when it comes to increasing our immune system's response. Lemons are used in naturopathy for dissolving kidney and gall bladder stones, washing out the bladder & colon, as well as ridding the body of calcium deposits.

Besides for these wonderful properties, they are also a diuretic and have an antimicrobial effect. When used in conjunction with the other ingredients in the lemonade diet, lemon juice can flush out toxic substances in the body while helping to destroy bacteria in the intestines, bladder, and colon.

Squeezing some lemon juice in my water might be a regular habit from now on!  Those are some great benefits!  How about the maple syrup?  Read on:

Grade B Maple Syrup is very high in vitamin content and is recommended by the founder of the Master Cleanse Diet for use with this cleanse. Grade A syrup is not recommended because of the refinement process that it goes through which severely depletes the vitamins and minerals in the syrup. Grade B Maple Syrup includes B2, B5, B6, PP, Biotin, and Folic. The main minerals present are: calcium, potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, and iron. Amino Acids, the building blocks of all proteins, are also present in Grade B Maple Syrup.

This should sound a bit familiar if you read my pancake post :).  The syrup is what’s really pumping up the calories in this drink too, which is what’s keeping you from feeling like you’re starving!  So far, you’ve got plenty of nutrients, calories, and beneficial ingredients to sustain you for the duration of the detox.  Doesn’t sound TOO scary anymore, right?

What about that cayenne pepper?

The main medicinal property of Cayenne comes from a chemical called Capsaicin.

When taken internally, cayenne soothes the digestive tract and stimulates the flow of stomach secretions and saliva.

Dr. Richard Schulze, reknowned medical herbalist, says that "If you master only one herb in your life, master cayenne pepper. It is more powerful than any other herb." Because of their amazing ability to regulate blood flow, cayenne pepper has been used successfully by health care practitioners to reverse heart attack symptoms, and even save patients during the onset of a heart attack. The ability to regulate blood flow (and literally increase it within seconds) makes Cayenne Pepper a vital ingredient in the Lemonade Diet for speeding up the release and elimination of toxins in the blood stream.

There’s one part I haven’t mentioned yet.  The salt water flush.  The site calls this an “oral salt water enema”.  Use your imagination.  Basically you drink a quart of lukewarm water with 1-2 teaspoons of uniodized sea salt.  Salt lacking iodine prevents it from absorbing into your blood stream and instead goes straight through you.  Literally.  This is something we did on the morning of day 4, once our stomachs were good and empty and ready to handle the flush.  Then allow yourself an hour for elimination to take place.  Good times.

After that hour you’re good to go about your normal day!  And man I felt GOOD.  This flush helps to clear out the plaque and debris from the walls of your colon, and also help flush out parasites that may be living there too (yuck!).  It was an awesome feeling the rest of the day.  That’s when I REALLY noticed my mental fog lift.  My skin was glowing, I felt and looked healthier, and my energy picked up.  It’s not really the best way to spend your morning, but it’s an awesome way to spend the days following!

And that’s pretty much it.  That’s how Justin and I spent our first week of 2013!  On day 6 I officially cleaned out our pantry and refrigerator so I no longer had temptations – I got rid of the pasta, the breading, the biscuit mix, even the cereal.  And it felt SO GOOD.  I felt even more motivated to take on this new lifestyle, so excited to be healthier at home, and more than anything ready to experience the health benefits.

As of now, Day 7, transition day for us (we had oranges for breakfast, the lemonade the rest of the day, and we’ll have homemade vegetable soup for supper), I am 12 pounds lighter than I started and nearly 2 inches are gone off my midsection.  Justin is about 14 pounds lighter.  Pretty awesome!

I’m ready to eat again though! Haha :)