The Beginning...

So, what got me into this whole Master Cleanse thing? Two weeks ago I was at the salon getting my hair cut. My stylist and friend, 'M' was telling me about how she needed to lose weight in order to fit into a dress for an upcoming wedding. She was planning on doing the "Master Cleanse." I said, "the master-WHO?"

I'd never heard of this and as soon as she described it as no food for 10 days, just lemonade, I said, "No thanks! Not this chica!" But of course, I was still curious to hear about what she was planning on putting herself through and wanted to learn more. She mentioned that this was the method Beyonce had used to lose 20 pounds in preparation for her role in DreamGirls. She seemed to have done a lot of research on the topic and encouraged me to do the same.

So, when I got home, I googled Master Cleanse and lo and behold, it was everywhere! As I read and read, I became more intrigued and ended up ordering a used copy of "The Complete Master Cleanse: A Step-By-Step Guide to Maximizing the Benefits of the Lemonade Diet" by Tom Woloshyn on Amazon.com.

It arrived a few days later and I read it cover to cover. I was fascinated by all of the seemed health benefits and positive testimonials but still, didn't think I could do it.

I put the book down for a few days and went on trying my current diet of cutting back on carbs and not eating after 8pm.

I am an average-sized woman. I'm not obese. I'm 5'6" tall and am a size 8. I exercise regularly- at least 4 days a week. My workouts consist of boxing, running, weight-lifting and pole dancing. With each of my 2 pregnancies, I had gained 80 pounds and lost most of it both times. Every winter, I slowly gain about 5-8 pounds and come summer, I work extra hard to eventually lose those extra pounds.

This spring, I noticed I had gained closer to 8 pounds over the winter and as I tried to work harder and lessen my carbs intake, it didn't seem to be working. For 15 days prior to my hair cut, I had gone on a moderate diet of simply being more conscious of what I was eating and switching all breads and pastas to whole wheat only as well as cutting out all sweets and snacks after 8pm. After 7 days, there wasn't a single change in my weight or appearance. On days 8-10, I simply got frustrated and thought to myself, why bother cutting all these things out if I could have stayed doing what I was doing and stayed the same weight?!?! It was maddening. So I quit the diet.

So, it was quite timely that 'M' mentioned this Master Cleanse diet to me because I was at my wits end trying to lose these pesky 8 pounds the old-fashioned way of diet and exercise.

A few days later, I picked up the Master Cleanse book again. I read the how-to's over and over and started to imagine what it would be like to actually go through with it. I started to look at my calendar and see if there was a "good time" to take 10 days to do this thing.. and of course, there wasn't. There was a barbeque here, a party there, dinners out. No good time.

I told myself, this was not something I could really plan out. If I was going to do it, I would just have to do it. This was Monday.

After work, I drove to the whole foods supermarket and purchased all my ingredients in preparation for the road ahead which would begin that evening.

At the checkout counter, the cashier took one look at my purchases and said, "Master cleanse, huh? Let me know how it goes."

I asked her if there were a lot of people that come in buying everything to do it and she said yes, all the time. She added that lots of people have great success with it but that she could never do it herself and wished me luck.

And so my journey began.