Detox!

Ok, Round 2 of the "lemon detox diet" / "beyonce detox."

The reason I did this the first time was because I felt ridiculously bloated after every meal, and when I ate out often I'd develop hives on the sides of my hips where the "love handles" are. Looking it up, it sounded like the bloating was caused by decreased function of the liver and the rash was from toxin build-up in my fat deposits. (If your liver gets backed up due to ingesting lots of preservatives/alcohol/etc, toxins get backed up in your body, causing water retention and toxin build-up. Toxins are stored in fatty deposits, so since the first place that I gain weight is in my love handles, the toxins were concentrated there, causing the rash.)

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I'm going to do a summary of the important points about it, and how it worked for me below, ignore if you're not interested:

This detox is supposed to flush the toxins from your body. It's designed as a fast, where you eat/drink nothing but lemon water with maple syrup and cayenne pepper for 7-10 days. (Although there are modifications that are supposed to enhance the detox involving laxative tea in the morning and salt washes at night.) After the stuff permeates your system, the toxins are supposed to ... "purge" from your body in a watery black tarry form.

This thing is super popular these days, mainly because of how much Beyonce slimmed down on it for the movie Dreamgirls. She supposedly lost 20 lbs in 14 days. But it's NOT designed as a weight loss solution, although one of the side effects is slight decrease in water weight/retention. Because of the restrictions on your diet, anyone who loses weight on this will just gain it back again when they go back to their regular eating habits. In other words, if you really do need to lose weight, this is just a good enhancement, maybe to try near the beginning of a diet regimen to cleanse yourself before entering into the real deal and maintaining a no-preservative diet. As for me, I only intended to slim down my bloated areas a bit, and for that it worked perfectly.


Standard "Lemon Detox Fast" :

Ingredients:

1. 8 oz. spring water
   
2. 1/4 or 1/2 fresh-squeezed lemon
3. 1-2 tbsps Grade B Maple Syrup
   
4. A pinch of cayenne pepper
   

The acid in the lemon is the main cleansing mechanism, don't use lemon juice, the point is to eliminate preservatives from your diet. The maple syrup in the recipe is designed to be your source of energy and nutrients, thus Grade B Maple Syrup which is less refined than Grade A. Cayenne pepper speeds up your metabolism.

That's it, that's all you can eat for 7-10 days.... Good luck, don't die. I'm not advocating this, don't sue me from the grave.

Personally, as much of you are well aware, there is no chance in hell I could ever accomplish anything resembling a fast. I have to eat constantly or my starvation mechanism kicks in and my stomach starts digesting itself within 4 hours. Although the maple syrup does a good job keeping my energy up, my stomach can't break the habit. Plus I'm a meatatarian, I get uncontrollable cravings if I haven't eaten meat in a day. (Anyone remember those incidents when I ran out of meat in college.... opening and closing cabinets in a frenzy... eying my leather belts with a bit of drool leaking out the side of my mouth....) So basically I do a modified version, and only for a couple days.


My Lemon Detox Mod:

Rather than combining all the ingredients, I put the pinch of cayenne in a separate shot glass of water and drink it first. I find the cayenne makes a musty flavor in the lemon water otherwise. (Note: don't try making the drink with hot water... trust me it is nasty.)

Rather than living off this, I calm my stomach by constantly eating watery fruit and veggies (usually a whole honeydew, but grapefruits, cucumbers, bell peppers, etc. work just fine.) For dinner I have yummy mommy food, (she's the best cook in the world, I swear) but I ask her to make things that have few preservatives, like buck-wheat noodles MMMMM. Usually I cave and have meat anyways, (the first time, I ended up eating a chunk of prosciutto the first day... completely defeats the purpose but since I'm not attempting to perform the true lemon detox fast feat, it's really not a big deal.) I probably end up having about 6-8 glasses per day. I also make sure to take a multivitamin every day just in case. Don't want to get sick because I'm depriving my body of vital nutrients. I never experienced the purge effect though... probably need to do it for at least 4 days for that to happen.

Warning: this may be a bad thing to do if you have a high performance job. Not eating tends to make people tired and dizzy/out of it. Plus you'll have to go pee every 10 minutes or so, and if it's true about the semi-uncontrollable purging.... that could be bad at work. In addition, all that acid isn't the best thing for your teeth. I'm no expert on teeth so I don't have a clear solution, but I personally find that it feels better if i have some lower acid fruit occasionally. Drinking water also may help, especially before going to bed, otherwise you may be brushing the top layer of enamel off your teeth.

After doing the detox last time, I felt a big increase in my energy level and I was much less bloated and uncomfortable after meals. At night after eating big meals, my waist stayed nearly as slim as it was when I woke up, and the love handles and thus rash disappeared. The effect lasted for months, and I think it maintains itself as long as I don't eat lots of fast food or restaurant food i.e. preservatives.

Now I'm starting to bloat up a little again, so I thought this would be a good time to do another one as a quick maintenance. I'll let you know how this ones goes, and if I can get around to it, before and after pictures to give you an idea of the effect.

I hear that it's a good idea to add this to your daily diet by having a glass before sleep. I should really try it.

Let me know if you have any questions/comments.

**Anecdotal Update from Night 1**
tingsqrd: i got dark soy sauce in my haaaaair
tingsqrd: ::licks it::
tingsqrd: wait NO SHOULDNT
raccoon unit: WAHAHA
tingsqrd: BAHAHA OH NO
raccoon unit: hilarium!
raccoon unit: you spill on purpose
raccoon unit: so you can cheat on detox
raccoon unit: *lick lick*
tingsqrd: bahaha i reaching for something and dropped giant thing of oil and giant thing of dark soy sauce... caught them both with forearms but soy sauce LEAK
tingsqrd: BAHAHA EWIES
tingsqrd: licking soy sauce GROSS
tingsqrd: .... ::licking...::
raccoon unit: oh but so salty
raccoon unit: wahahahahahaaha