As some of you may know, I joined a small but very exclusive group of people last year. So exclusive that even Beyoncé is a member. It?s not the mile high club or the new dating app Raya, I?m of course talking about being a ?Master Cleanse Survivor?

If you don?t know what this Master Cleanse is, then you can read all about it here.  If you don?t have time to read the whole thing, then I will just let you know, that I survived 10 days on Lemonade alone! No food only water with lemon juice, maple sirup and cayenne pepper aka. The Lemonade Diet. Not only did I survive, but I worked out every single day, I managed not to kill anyone AND I did not gain double the weight I?d lost afterwards, yay me!

I haven?t really been able to write about it before now (I was a bit traumatised), but better late than never right! I mean what was the whole point of me going through those agonising days, if I?m not sharing my final results and opinions of this cleanse with you. I had almost forgotten about it, when a friend of mine tried to convince me to do it with her, again! I mean she almost had me convinced, must have been a serious case of graduation goggles. Thankfully I went back home and read through my diary of the cleanse, and decided it was time for the review!:)
Let’s do this…

REVIEW OF THE MASTER CLEANSE

I’m going to base my review on, how well all of the expectations for this cleanse were met. Going through all the great things, this cleanse supposedly would do for me and my body. As I’m not able to tell if my kidney and digestive system is cleansed, or if I have eliminated unusable waste and hardened material in the joints and muscles (I’m not a doctor, read full list of benefits here). What I will base my review on, are some more manageable and easy to experience/witness health benefits of The Master Cleanse.

Stops the Influx of Unhealthy Food

Well that will be a big YES! Since I was only aloud to consume the lemonade, “salt-flush’es”, laxative tea and mint tea. You do get some sugar in from the maple sirup, but your body and brain is burning that of pretty quickly, since that’s all it’s getting. So YES you do cut down on your intake of unhealthy foods, that’s for sure. You don’t stop dreaming about them though!
Verdict: YES

Improved Digestion

During the cleanse it’s pretty hard to tell, and I didn’t really have any issues here. I did do a liver cleanse that flushes out EVERYTHING in your bowels 6 weeks prior to The Master Cleanse. This might have played a part, but I couldn’t feel any changes from before and after the cleanse. I definitely didn’t fuck anything up in my system either, so maybe it would have helped if I’d had needed it.
Verdict: Maybe

More Energy

My body had never felt this tired and drained from energy. I was walking in slow motion, my eyes looked dead and even biking to work was tough! I did not feel any kind of rise in energy levels towards the end, quite the opposite. I did wake up feeling fresh though, but it only lasted a few hours, then I was back to tired and moody (not hungry, just mad or sad!). Did I feel more energized afterwards, yes. When I was able to eat and get nutrients in my body. I could actually feel how my body just absorbed everything in my green smoothie into every little cell. Maybe I was starting to hallucinate, who knows. It was the craziest feeling!
I have thought about doing the cleanse again, just to experience that once more. But I’m pretty sure it’s not worth it. It reminds me of the time I ran a half marathon on New Years day. It was really cold, windy and raining, I hadn’t been training for it, but I did it anyway. It was tough but I got through it! When I came out of my warm shower and got in to my bed for a little nap, I realized something. Never in my entire life, had this bed felt more comfortable then at that moment! I haven’t had that feeling in my body since, and I have often thought about how that awful run was the cause of my most precious moment and memory of lying in my bed. But is running 21.1K in cold rain with the wind against you (when your not in shape for it) worth it? Maybe, it’s only 2 around two hours, but would I do it if I had to run for 10 days? NO!
The freshness I felt in my body in the morning, is the same feeling I get whenever I quit sugar. No need to stop eating at all for that energy boost.
Verdict: NO

Mental Clarity

If feeling depressed and anxious about any life decision you’ve made the past 10 years counts as Mental Clarity, then YES. I was actually a bit concerned about this. Half way through the diet, my mind suddenly started turning things around in my head! “If this diet is supposed to make me think clearer, and all I do is question my existence? Then am I really soothing my true depressive feelings with food in real life?”. Then the anxiety kicked in, and then I had to call my mom!
It was actually a bit pathetic, because I’m generally a really happy girl! This might be the most important thing for me to remember, whenever I think about doing this cleanse again. The Master Cleanse did NOT make me happy, which is actually my general goal in life. Going against my values, and not gaining anything positive from it, is a bit of a bummer. It did force me to deal with my issues, in a different way than I normally would (with chocolate)! I realised how much of my life, evolves around food. Which friends did I actually want to hang out with, when not even a coffee was put in front of me to take my mind of the conversation. Who was actually fun and interesting to be around, when your not stuffing your face. Pretty sure I was the least interesting person to be around in those 10 days, but it did make me think a bit deeper about my relationships. I’m guessing that all kinds of extreme situations will make you question your existence and your relationships, but this time I’d put myself in this kind situation, and I chose to deal with it.
Verdict: No but a little yes

Improved Immune System

This one is a tough one to call. I was a pretty healthy girl, going on an intense cleanse, intended to cure all kinds of stuff inside my body. I’m not saying that there wasn’t stuff to cure, but it might not be serious enough for me to even notice. What I did notice was my period missing, but almost immediately after drinking my first green smoothie, my period returned as if nothing had happened. I’ve tried this before when stressed, as soon as a deadline was reached, my body would react to it. It’s really crazy, but in a good way, and I was never worried about it.
I also noticed that after the cleanse, my skin looked really glowing and my eyes were really shiny. While on the diet I looked pale, grey and well like a walking dead. But afterwards, all of the nutrients found it’s way in my body and restored all of the good stuff. I did eat a lot of chocolate as well, but I didn’t gain any weight immediately and my skin was still fine. This reminded my of a quote from Food Matters where Charlotte Gerson says something about, the cells in the body, not being able to get all the good stuff from your nutrition, as long as they were filled up with toxins. Her point being, that you needed to get rid of the toxins, before a healthy diet even mattered. I kind of see her point now, like this was happening, even on a smaller scale for me. Maybe I wasn’t curing anything major, but I did see how it affected my skin and eyes!
Verdict: I actually think so

Helps Start Healthier Habits

As long as you don’t quit half way and drive straight to McDonalds, then definitely yes! If not for the above mentioned benefits, that you actually feel, then at least because of the hell you went through. Going straight back to old habits after 10 days (or more) of fasting, was in my opinion, not an option. I appreciated food SO much more, and had to make sure that my body had what it needed. I would slowly go back to eating take-away and chocolate as well, but I did think a lot about my body having the nutrients it needed. At least for a few months haha. If it wasn’t my hobby as well, to care about these things, then maybe not. But all the time your not eating, your thinking about food, even the healthy ones! I had a dream about cheating on the cleanse with a rise cake, woke up seriously worried that I fucked it all up, but that was apparently my dream food, not to bad.
Verdict: YES

WEIGHT LOSS

Let’s get one thing straight, if you want to lose 5-10 pounds, please start with some healthy diet changes. I promise you that The Lemonade Diet is NOT worth the pounds off. I lost around 4-5 kilos (10 pounds). But I could have done the same cutting out sugar and junk in 20 days. I would have been able to increase the intensity of my workouts if I’d had food, and the number it did on my mood is worse than any diet I’ve ever tried. Don’t do it.
Verdict: Yes (but SO not worth it)

FINAL REVIEW:

Would I do it again, most likely not, because I’m generally healthy and happy. I don’t need anything this extreme, I’m not trying to cure anything. If I was though, I think I would give it another try. Master Cleanse before popping pills, would definitely cross my mind. To cure a headache no, but if I had other serious health issues or extremely overweight, I can actually see the point. This is easy in a way, because you don’t have to think about anything. The rules are simple! No looking at labels on foods to see if it’s too processed or full of sugar. I’m a sucker for natural healing and “miracles”, and I won’t write this off completely. I think there’s a reason it’s been around for so long, and that fasting is helpful for some people. But if you want to lose weight for your next holiday by the beach, there’s definitely an easier ways to do so!
On the other hand, I did read a lot about how this would totally destroy my metabolism, and that I would gain the water I lost times 2 when I started eating real foods again. Let me just tell you, that did NOT happen. As soon as I got back to normal foods, my body went back to normal too:) Don’t be afraid to try it out, you’ll definitely learn a lot about yourself and your relationship with food…

If you were considering doing The Master Cleanse yourself, then I hope you found this helpful!
At this moment I’m testing “The Model Diet”, and that is primarily for weight loss. When writing this and reliving this cleanse, I feel way more thankful of my salat leafs and that piece of fruit I was aloud to eat when I felt hungry;) #simplyfit #simplyoverthemastercleanse