CLEEEAAN!!!

[chibiragdoll]

So, I'm doing this thing called the 'Master Cleanse', popularly known as the 'Lemonade Diet'. While it's not a lose weight diet, that is a minor benefit of it, which is why so many people use it. It's primary purpose is to enhance the overall health of the user, which is something I feel I sorely need. A lot of people continue this for up to 40

Comments

[aprivatefox]

Concur with above. This is more or less on par with a liquid fast (which healthy people can, and do, do), but with a particularly unpleasant liquid. Health benefits are questionable, though some fasters report a sense of self-control and/or spiritual wellness that I see no reason to doubt.

If you want to increase overall health by changing your diet, the best data I've seen so far seems to be "Eat real food." (That is, avoid things that cannot be reproduced in ordinary kitchens by ordinary people, using ingredients that haven't been substantially modified from the form they grew in). Corollaries to this are "Eat less meat," and "Don't eat too much." Recall that we evolved in an ecosystem, and we are animals adapted to eat food - including the trace Bad Stuff that's in it - and not die. Like potassiumman said, your kidneys and liver are awesome for that.

[stadred]

I agree with the above 2 posts. I'd like to add that it doesn't look like you're getting nearly enough calories with that diet, and definitely not enough of the nutrients than an omnivore needs to function daily. The laxative effect of that salt water shake gets dangerous quickly. You look like you'll be taking in enough fluid to stay hydrated. However, you'll also be flushing nutrients out as well as not taking enough in. No wonder people would lose weight on that type of diet. I'd ask a doctor to take a look at that recipe. I'd like to know what a professional thinks of that, because in my opinion, going more than a day on that is dangerous. Please don't go through with that diet. Like, seriously. Please don't follow that. If you're that worried about your diet, go to a professional nutritionist, and she/he'll help you out.

[aprivatefox]

Ouch. I hadn't previously considered the laxative effect of the salt-water. That moves this from "generally not useful but probably unlikely to cause damage" to "potentially a Very Bad Idea(tm)."

I'm not going to say that you shouldn't do things like fast, because there are decent reasons to do so (though I'm not sure I'd put any of those down as nutritional; most of the arguments in favor of fasting are emotional). But this is looking like an increasingly ill-considered plan by the folks who wrote it. It's certainly not something to do over as long a term as they propose doing it - the risk of malnutrition appears relatively high (though, hey, with that many lemons at least it won't be scurvy).

[infinitenesmith]

I often use the lemon-maple-cayenne combination as a natural laxative when needed. It works very well, but I only use it as a laxative. That said, if you feel the need to fast just to lighten up a bit, to clean out what's been hanging around in your body, 10 days is a lot to do at once, especially for a first fast, and more especially when you're pumping yourself full of things that have a laxative effect