So yesterday was my last day of a 14 day Master Cleanse and today I’m drinking just orange juice per the directions I covered yesterday about how to end a Master Cleanse.  Today I thought I’d wrap things up with some facts, figures, and observations.

Facts And Figures

Over the course of 14 days, here is what I consumed:

• 85 oz – almost 3 entire jugs (32 oz each) of maple syrup
• 60 lemons
• 30 limes
• 21 tsp cayenne pepper

I started out at 180 pounds and ended up this morning at 163.5, so I lost a total of 16.5 pounds or about 1 1/4 pounds a day.

Observations

I had the same experience as my previous time in regard to hunger and desire to eat.  I found it easy to manage the hunger by drinking more lemonade.  I found it hard to manage the “not eating” part.  Eating is so ingrained in us, and the process of eating is such a large part of our lives.  I found that I was thinking about eating quite a bit and missed the ritual and process of actually eating.

My system of making all the lemonade in the morning really works well.  I like having all the squeezing done right away in the morning and it makes it that much easier to follow through with drinking just the lemonade.

I really feel I benefited from the extra days past day 10.  As I stated, day 11 was my Master Cleanse turning point.  I feel renewed and energized following the cleanse.  I also feel mentally in a better place and I want to work to keep myself going on this good path.

Going Forward

I think that now more than ever it is a critical time.  It will be very easy to slip back into bad habits and lose some of the benefits of the cleanse.  Here are my plans and goals for myself:

• Eat healthier and more raw foods.  I plan on bringing a salad to work for lunch as often as I can.  I also want to eat more raw organic nuts and other raw, simple foods.
• Regularly do strength training.  I am pretty good about getting 1-2 bike rides in every week, but I haven’t done much with strength training.  I plan on doing push ups and sit ups on a regular basis and try to build some muscle.

Now it is your turn – if you are thinking about doing a Master Cleanse, go ahead and start planning for it now.  If you completed one, or if you have no plans to do a full cleanse, then write down some goals and plans for yourself.  Let me know what you think too.