I know this post is slightly unrelated to the overall topic of this blog, I felt the need to write a follow-up to my last post, The Cleanse!!!!! My friend and I only did the Master Cleanse for four days, instead of the intended five because she was starting to become sick. The two of us went into this thing with extremely different mindsets. I knew how it felt to give up solid food for an extended period and she did not. She did believe it would be as difficult as I had made it out to be when I initially explained what the cleanse entailed.
My friend, like many of us out there including myself, can sometimes suffer from some body image issues. She is a healthy weight for her height and a half marathon runner but she still considers herself out of shape. To add to the pressures women feel to look perfect, it is the beginning of bathing suit season. She wanted to lose weight more than anything else and because of this, she did not follow the steps the cleanse outlined for her. When following something like the Master Cleanse, it is imperative to follow EVERY step. She did not drink nearly enough of the mixture and by day four looked visibly sick.
Sleep is a huge factor when doing something like this. Sleep is already needed to keep the body going. As college students, it is the first thing to be neglected in favor of eating, coffee, and ‘all-nighters’. The lack of food made it extremely difficult to stay awake past 1 am despite my academic needs.
Here are some things I have learned from this last attempt to cleanse:
Refreshing but after the cleanse I can never fully appreciate it again
- It is important to have HEALTHY expectation. There is only so much change that the body can handle over a certain period of time.
- Choosing to ignore the guidelines set out by those who made the cleanse can result in discomfort and SICKNESS!!
- If you are unable to get a lot of sleep, do not do this. Try it in the summer when there is more free time.
- Try not to do this alone. It is hard enough to go without solid food but doing it by yourself makes the overall experience even more unpleasant.
- If you realize that you are hurting yourself STOP! A little weight loss is not worth passing out somewhere or doing some form of permanent damage.
There are many other ways to cleanse the body that do not involve removal of solid food from the diet for an easier way to help out your insides. I have not tried any others so I cannot give any examples but they are easy to find and bad cleanses are pretty easy to weed out.
Oh, if you like lemonade, the Master cleanse is not for you! I am still a little weary of the stuff and at times, I cannot stand the sight or smell of it.
That is enough of cleansing and fasting. I do not know about you but I am ready for some cooking! My next post will be about something sweet and scrumptious so tune in for a delectable treat!
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