Day 1 - The Dr. Oz Cleanse

Every once in a while I get the urge to do something healthy or at the very least better for me than what I have been doing.  Thanks to a conversation with a fan friend last night, she brought up the Dr. Oz cleanse and I went to his website for more information.  I had done another cleanse in the past, the Master Cleanse, and that was truly painful.  The Master Cleanse, as one can read from their website, is for the best mind over matter individual on earth.  The recipe for the lemonade calls for distilled water, grade B maple syrup (not the type you put on pancakes, one that has not been treated with the extra additives but an authentic representation of what comes out of maple treats with buckets at the end of the taps), lemon juice and cayenne pepper.  Drinking the lemonade isn't so bad, but granted it's an odd tasting one with the added pepper element to it.  What the worst and truly painful moment was having to drink a specially made solution of distilled water and sea salt.  Distilled water is essentially tap water which is boiled then cooled to room temperature.  The sea salt is not as salty as regular table salt, but having to drink any kind of salt water mixture without any type of flavor or substance to cut it is truly terrible.  I made myself drink it because I said I would do it, but made sure to wash the horrible taste out of my mouth with regular water.  About twenty or thirty minutes later, IT happened.  A painful cramp seized my left side, and it was TIME for the bad stuff to get out of me.  And a whole lot of bad stuff came out.  Although there are a myriad of hilarious jokes one can make about bathroom humor, when it's happening to you it's not funny in the slightest.  After about an hour of this mayhem, I decided I was not cut out for this and my efforts towards a cleanse were noble enough but not to be. 

While the Master Cleanse has several devout followers and has taken a good twenty pounds off of some, I lacked the discipline in order to refuse all food and drinks (other than water) that were not on this method of self torture.  And the weight will come right back on once you have stopped drinking the lemonade and start eating normally again.  Still, I knew there were alternatives to the Master Cleanse and after the chat last night with my friend, she brought up another cleanse which is found on Dr. Oz's website.  As I had three days more or less to myself rather than having to face others or temptations of eating, I decided I would give it a try once again.  Dr. Oz's cleanses are based on two or three or even week long plans of cleanse, allowing someone to eat actual food if they choose, and they sounded far less painful than the Master Cleanse. 

Admittedly, I started the day off on the wrong foot with toast and Nutella.  But after printing out the list, I went grocery shopping for most of items.  I hate cucumbers, I will not eat those vile weeds.  This will also be a new experience as I have never had almond milk or coconut water under any conditions (that I know of).  So I drank the breakfast smoothie around 1 pm (better late than never).  It tasted alright, being that it was mostly fruits (raspberries, banana and spinach).  Around dinnertime I will indulge in the lunchtime one, another of my choice for a snack, and then the dinner one will be my late night indulgence.  Hopefully that toast and Nutella did not throw me for a loop.