Mastercleanse Lemondade Fast

This is the second year I am doing the much-talked-about "Mastercleanse" detox or "Lemonade Fast", based on a drink of purified water, Grade B maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and lemons. During my fast of 9 days last year this time, a buddy of mine had just graduated a top medical school and was staying with me. His thoughts on the diet after reading through the Stanley Burroughs guide were 1) what toxins is he talking about, 2) where is the science to back up the claims he is making, and 3) it's not that the fast may not be helpful, see how it goes. I reported to him over the course of the fast and he was surprised to see that one could subsist on this drink for multiple days. "It's not a no-calorie diet" he said "because the maple syrup contains calories".

The results were great: increased alertness, clarity, and vitality! The challenge was transitioning to a healthy diet afterwards. The inclination to revisit the problematic foods was strong and, given my limited nutritional knowledge and the many circulating theories on what healthy eating means, I lasted no more than a day before going back to the unhealthy foods.

I am grateful for the abundance of good pizza and meat, but I know that eating them on a regular basis is not sustainable when it comes to good health. This year, I am trying to find some credible sources that support cleansing ones body through fasting, in particular physicians who advocate the MasterCleanse diet.

Here is what I have come up with so far:

In his blog review, Dr. Ed Zimney calls it a master scam- he works for a drug company and obviously has never tried the cleanse to experience its benefits (list from personal experience below). The New York Times featured the lemonade diet in a recent article but the focus was more on it's popularity as a diet rather than its acceptance among medical and scientific communities.

Chuck Bluestein has compiled a list of Medical Doctors and other prominent figures in favor of the lemonade fast or fasting in general, including Lincoln, Mohammed, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Twain, and Pythagoras! Among doctors listed are Dr. Yuri Nikolayev, director of the fasting unit of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute, Dr. Charles Goodrich of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and Joel Fuhrman, M.D., who runs a fasting center in New Jersey.

This is reassuring but Chuck's information is optimized for search engine indexing and to sell related products at the bottom of the web page. What I would like to hear are thoughts on the MasterCleanse from medical journal editors, heads of schools, and other mainstream sources.

In the meantime, here are my thoughts on Day 2 of MasterCleanse Lemondae Fast:

I woke up this morning at 9 am from a heavy sleep. I really feel this there is a lot of baggage food floating around my system. The food that went in was no doubt in the first place a response to emotional/spiritual baggage.

I was happy to know that I am in a mode where I can focus on the deeper issues.

I do feel focused. No cravings for food in the morning. Felt a little hungry at 1 pm after a walk into town. Had two glasses of lemonade upon return. Felt weak and tired. Took a short nap during which the digestive system was very active.

Generally, I think the plusses of this process are fourfold:

1) Increasing water intake and flushing out your system.

2) Giving oneself a time away from the energies devoted to eating, from the questions of "what will I eat" to "have I eaten enough" to "when will I next eat" and the desires associated with them.

3) Creating a regimen that is easy to follow and you don't have to think too hard about-you are squeezing a lemon, adding a little maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and some water, then stirring the mixture with a spoon.

4) Allowing oneself to tune-in to his body, which in turn helps center the mind and spirit.