When I turned 21 a few weeks ago, I was intoxicated for three days straight. So I decided to try the Master Cleanse, a detox diet during which you eat no food and drink a mixture of lemon juice, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and water. The 10-day fast was on display at Whole Foods and is also known as the Lemonade or Beyoncé Diet, after the singer lost more than 20 pounds on it for her Dreamgirls role.
The Cleanse has its own aesthetic appeal. As an avid yoga practitioner, I’m intrigued by non-attachment. And the prospect of losing 10 pounds was motivation unto itself. I’m also not new to diets: I lost 15 pounds one year in high school and another 12 two summers ago. But I did it by skipping bread and dessert, patiently shedding the weight. For students, it’s hard to accept the fast’s terms. Even after I explained the rules, friends would ask if I was going out. “Wait, you can’t drink?” they would ask, appalled, when I refused. But alcohol wasn’t the real sacrifice. For 10 days, I couldn’t eat.
For the duration, all I consumed was a Nalgene of salt water each morning to “flush” my system, six glasses a day of the lemonade mixture, a special digestion tea before bed and three cups of peppermint herbal tea.
Yes, the Cleanse has a sort of magical, transformative quality. By the second morning, my stomach was as flat as it was when I prepped my beach bod for a week of surfing in the Dominican Republic. Watching the weight fall off so fast proved addictive.
On day three, supposedly the hardest, I felt euphoric and bright-eyed, though it was hard to think or remember things I’d just said. By day five, I slipped on jeans that I hadn’t worn since late-night sorority recruitment binges. I spent class combing Cleanse blogs about breaking the fast and scouring restaurant menus to plan my post-Cleanse feast. I also came across message board threads about sex on the Cleanse. The consensus? Go for it, if you don’t feel too gross, as long as you don’t, um, ingest anything else besides the lemonade. Halfway through the Cleanse, though, my tongue was heavily coated in a whitish film, so I would recommend nixing the frenching.
I lost six pounds the first six days but barely lost anything the next two days. I even started reducing the maple syrup in each drink and only drank the minimum amount. It sounds vain and not detox-spirited, but it’s incredibly frustrating to give up food, be hungry and not see immediate results.
The seventh day, when people often report quitting, was the hardest. Surrounded by pizza and sushi, I wanted to tear out my hair. In the bathroom, the soap smelled so good I actually wanted to eat it. I asked my fellow editors if I could lick their chocolate bars and tuna makis (one “Lemonhead” wrote on a message board about licking a cracker in desperation). All I could think was, I’m never doing this again.
The eighth day was supposed to be the best, but by evening I felt very depressed. I hadn’t seen my friends in over a week and didn’t know how to spend my remaining time. I just wanted to go to bed. In the early morning of the ninth day, I had my first food dream (supposedly common on the Cleanse). I was at a barbecue laden with watermelon, hundreds of bagels in every flavor and a smorgasbord of grilled meats, all of which I adamantly refused. Then I woke up. Finally, I lost another pound.
An amazing thing happened later: I walked by a diner and the food actually smelled disgusting. On the last day, I knew I’d successfully completed the detox because I somehow felt like I could keep going. But really, where is the virtue in giving up food? In college, giving it up means giving up so much else. This diet is all-or-nothing: no shortcuts, no cheating.
I broke the Cleanse with a glass of orange juice and, when that felt okay, tried Flattop vegetable soup. The first sips were some of the best I ever had, and my tastes were incredibly sensitive: the cherry tomatoes were too sweet; every ounce of oil rankled. The next day, I picked up fresh fruits and probiotic juices at Whole Foods. Still full from my first meal, I was actually thinking I might try this again. Just not in college – unless I have a dress two sizes too small and nowhere to go for 10 days.
