Master Cleanse: Day 5

June 21, 2008: Day 5

8:00 am
I was expecting to wake up at 6 this morning, because I drank the tea at 10 last night. Every other night I woke up having to use the restroom 6-8 hours after drinking it. Instead, I woke up at 7:45. I did not really feel the rushing urge to go, but I decided to get out of bed anyway. As soon as I stood up, I began to feel it.

A couple days ago I mentioned that I had stunk. Well, as the days have gone by, I have progressively gotten worse. I hope that it is just in the mornings that I stink this badly. I really hope that the showers take that stench away. If not, boy am I in trouble. There was a girl that I have started to take an interest in at the book club last night. Oh well, I can’t do anything about it now.

I did feel hungry this morning, but I hope that the SWF will do its job today, and flush those feelings away.

Today’s weight: 245

6:00 pm
Well, I have spent much of the day on the raw foods diet website reading the comments and questions that people wrote about their MC experience. It was interesting, but ended up wasting most of my day. Many people exercise during their cleanse. It helps some people lose more weight, while others it does not help at all. Some people had actually lost 18 lbs in 6 days. That is amazing. Some had not even lost 1 lb in 10 days. I guess it goes to show you that everybody has a different body, and just because something works for one person does not necessarily mean that it will work for everyone. There were some people who would quit after one day because they saw no change. The people who were doing this cleanse as a quick solution to lose weight, because of desperation, were usually the ones who would quit. I guess it shows that if you are desperate enough to lose weight by basically starving yourself then you will get discouraged really easily. Some people were even upset that they “only lost 10 lbs.” They would see what they called success from other people, and compare their results, and become dissatisfied.

There were people who began this as a way to detoxify their body, and they were willing to take as long as necessary until it was done. They did not care about any weight loss. I am one who would like to say that I am doing this strictly for getting healthier, but there is that underlying desire to lose the weight. But, I don’t care if I don’t lose another pound. Well, maybe I do. I just want to be healthier. It would seem odd to have not eaten anything in 10-20 days and not lost more than the 4 lbs that I have already. That is just my logical side. But realistically, the body starts to adjust to the amount of calories consumed. If I were consuming 1350 calories on a regular basis, and change my caloric intake to 1000 per day, I would lose 1 lb in 10 days (because 3500 calories is 1 lb). However, I cannot expect to continue that weight loss. If, after those 10 days were up, you were to jump back up to your previous caloric intake, you would gain 1 lb in 10 days. I do not know how long the body adjusts, it may be less than 10 days, so those figures are not concrete (other than how many calories are in a pound). What I am trying to get at is that when people start this cleanse, they see immediate water weight loss. After a few days, they do not see as much loss. This is when some people give up. They will gain the weight back immediately if they go straight to eating what they were before. That is why it is so critical to change the diet after the cleanse. If you slowly increase your calories, you will have less of a possibility of weight gain. Let your body adjust to a slightly higher caloric intake, then move up from there.