Master Cleanse Done

That's it. I did it. I made it through the whole Master Cleanse, not eating solid food, only drinking the mixture and water and laxatives and tablets, and now I'm on the other side. It's been tough, especially in the last few days of being in San Diego and being with friends in the evening, when I'm the hungriest, and not being able to eat. But my willpower carried me through and here I am. There have only been a few times in my life I have been more proud of myself.

However, I can't just jump back to my normal diet, as the book says:

Due to the massive changes in your body that happen during the Master Cleanse, exiting requires a careful process. It’s not good to just drop the cleanse and go back to eating the same foods you were eating prior to starting the Master Cleanse. This will wreak havoc on your body and even make you sick.

Since your body has adjusted to the Master Cleanse, some important steps should be followed to help your body come off the Master Cleanse properly. Here are some important guidelines to follow:The first day of ending the cleanse you should avoid all solid food. Start drinking orange juice and water. Drink slowly and let it settle. More water never hurt anybody, so drink plenty. Orange juice is good for helping your body adjust back to digesting regular food.

On the second day, continue drinking orange juice and lots of water. Now you can add in light soups. It is best to use vegetable soup as this is healthy and very light, and you can also eat Rye wafers. This food will be easy on your stomach and will help it to adjust back properly.

On day three you should continue with soup and drinking plenty of water. For dinner, you can add in fruits, vegetables, and salad. These foods are still easy on the stomach and very healthy.

For the next couple days follow this plan and ease yourself back into a normal diet.

Don’t rush it; let your stomach calibrate itself. Also, avoid meats and milk for at least 5 days. Milk can irritate your stomach during this process and meat is very hard for the stomach to digest.

Finally, when your stomach adjusts to solid food you should consider eating some yogurt. The Master Cleanse eliminates a lot of waste and bacteria that are bad for your body, but you will also lose some good bacteria that are actually beneficial to your body.

I can do orange juice and more water and vegetable soup and salad and fruit but I can't do yogurt. I'll probably live.

I can get orange juice but it doesn't say what kind to get. The kind I'm used to, as most people are, is chock-full of sugar and I can't imagine that's a thing I should want. But I'm not sure how unsugary or organic the orange juice is I can get. But I'll do what I can. And I assume that bottled water is fine, or at least it has to be since that's about my only option as I'm out and about.

The present plan is to go to Target on the way to the convention so I can get orange juice and so I can also use a scale to see how much weight I've lost, just for entertainment. Then it's on to the rest of it. I'm not looking forward to what seems like continuing on the cleanse but I've come too far to screw it up now... or make myself really sick.

Also, I'll continue blogging through the end of my entire experience with this, which will be through the recovery days (until Sunday) at least.

Day 10

This is it. I'm almost there. I've almost done it. Just counting down the hours now. Though it's not really even the cleanse that I'm concerned about being on, now it's the next four days of getting my body adjusted back to a normal diet; it's like four more days of being on the cleanse (getting to eat vegetable soup and fruit doesn't quite make up for it). But I knew this was what it was going to be like and now I'm almost through it.

Cost, Part 3

Juicer from Target (to replace the one I forgot at home): $12
A third bottle of maple syrup: $17 (and, so I can be completely done with it and so I don't have to buy another bottle for just a little bit, will affect how much I consume on the last day)
But thanks to Jen for bringing by a bag of lemons from her friend's tree (though after I bought more from Whole Foods)

Why I Actually Have No Problem With Starvation

If you know me, you know I had anxiety problems in 1996. I've had it under control since then, just a very low-grade attack maybe every once in a while, sometimes years apart, only in times of really high stress but nothing anywhere how bad it was that year. Back then I was having anxiety that eventually led up to an emergency room visit and resulting in therapy and medication (Xanax then Paxil and some Desyrel then later Ativan). The most significant symptom of those attacks was that my stomach would get upset and I would have no desire to eat. I've found that it's usually been the case that when I'm not feeling well I lose my appetite, whether it's an anxiety attack or a cold or flu or whatever. Back at the beginning of the anxiety attacks, which were linked to stress I had at work, I wouldn't be able to eat during the day (I worked the night-shift) but once I got to work and afterwards, I could eat just fine. But they started getting worse and worse and I ate less and less, even being unable at any time of the day or night, and I lost a lot of weight. I don't know exactly how much since I didn't weigh myself at the beginning or the end, but I know I got past the last notch on my belt and that's really thin. It probably gave me more anxiety knowing that my body was wasting away but I just couldn't bring myself to eat during most of those days; usually it was just water and maybe a bag of M&M's (not my favorite candy but for some reason it was the only thing that was even a little bit appetizing). My friend Kat, who I used to party with, would tell me "You look great!" and I was like, "But I'm gonna die." Eventually I stabilized and got better and I gained all the weight back very quickly, and probably more than I had lost. So it's always been my mantra that as long as I'm feeling okay, I don't care how much I weigh. I do admit that I was having some very low-grade attacks in the first few days of the cleanse, as my mind was associating my stomach being upset from not having anything in it as having an attack, so that became a catch-22 but I could identify it and knew that I wasn't freaking-out for real (despite that manic e-mail from Cousin Jason). So not eating is not a big deal for me. I can do it (though, of course, it's not my preference to do so if I don't have to).

Day 9

A particular reason that I'm overly excited to go to San Diego this time is that I know when I get back I'll be done with the cleanse and that I'll also have my body adjusted to my usual diet (which will be different from that point on). It probably wasn't the best idea to do the cleanse during the San Diego con but it's just made it slighly more challenging, not impossible.

I lost my water-bottle on the subway. I figured I might since it was hanging out of my bag. By the time I realized it was gone, the train was long gone. I got some bottled water, which the book rails against at great length, but it was either that or be dehyrdated and I figured non-filtered water would be better than nothing, since I wouldn't be able to filter any for at least another three hours. There are probably worse things (and I'll probably go back to bottled water on Thursday, my first day of getting my system adjusted to a normal diet, since that will be most convenient and since the book doesn't say anything against it).

The bottle of maple syrup hasn't come open or fallen on its side and yet I can still smell it. Though that could also be the smell of it -- and the toxins -- coming out through my body.

What my brother smelled the other day in the apartment might have been the discarded, moldy, squeezed lemons that had been sitting in the trash during the hot part of the day.

Sometimes it makes me wonder if in these diets where you eat horrible things, the secret is that in eating or drinking this crap, it's supposed to make you throw up what you've taken in and that makes you consume less.

Secret #1 (in the interest of being totally honest on this): My sex-drive wasn't affected early on (when I needed it) but later on it went away a little bit, though that could have been for a number of reasons (having other stuff on my mind, being too busy to think about it, etc.)

Secret #2: I shit myself only once. I thought it was a fart but then a very tiny bit of poop came out. It was all water so it was wiped off easily and I cleaned the shorts I was wearing. Yeah, you've never done anything embarassing either.

(This was written at the time it says it was posted but it was actually posted a day later.)

Day 9

Almost done with the first mixture of the day (probably only two today) then heading out to San Diego and the last day and a half of the cleanse. At this point I'm more concerned with the four days after that and trying to get my system back to normal but maybe that's the easy part. Maybe.

I still have a few things I want to write up for here so maybe I'll get some stuff written on the train.

Beginning

Here's how I started:
At about 203 pounds. I'm going to do my best to take another picture and weigh myself when I get to the end of this (Thursday or so).