Comments on: The Master Cleanse experiment

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:09:25 +0000

Great blog about the Cleanse. I’m doing it now (on day 4) and feeling tired and sluggish and sleeping a LOT during the day as I get so tired that I feel the need to lay down and rest. Mostly I miss chewing, and savory, salty crunchy things. But whenever I think of giving in and eating, I think of all the junk still inside me that needs to be flushed out, and how good I’ll feel when it’s over! Npot sure I can make it the full 10 day minimum, but I’ll try.

By: Teri

Teri — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:32:10 +0000

I don’t really know if the cleanse qualifies as a starvation diet… by my calculations, I was consuming at least several hundred calories a day just from the maple syrup! I guess a related question would be how much of ‘starvation’ involves calorie absorption, how much involves nutrient deficiency, and how much involves the digestive system being fully utilized.

That’s an interesting insight about the allergies! Thanks! I figured science would have discovered an easy cure to allergies like this by now, if it was permanent :)

I don’t believe I lost any muscle mass- as I said I was trying to walk around more, and it didn’t seem to be getting more difficult as the cleanse progressed. Also, during my cleanse I continued doing yoga, and even progressed a bit (to full backward bends), and I don’t know if I would have been able to manage that with significant muscle loss.

By: beth

beth — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:25:04 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I was wondering why you were doing it and kept meaning to ask.

I wonder if the allergy claims might be related to immune system suppression during starvation. Here is one paper on the subject (note that for them, “long term” starvation is past 3 days): http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001116170/en … presumably it’s temporary.

My biggest concern about the weight loss would be loss of muscle mass, especially since the lemonade contains no protein. Do you think you’ve lost strength/muscle? This would also be also counter to the usual advice of gaining muscle to help with long-term weight loss goals (muscle requires more calories to maintain and gaining muscle is usually associated with losing fat). Also, I’ve heard (but do not have a cite to back up) the idea that if you lose muscle mass, you are more likely to gain back fat.

I know it’s not the same thing, but you may find this study interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment discussed with more info here: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html

By: Teri

Teri — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:19:35 +0000

I’m glad you’ve found it useful! :)

By: Derrick

Derrick — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:48:59 +0000

Very well informative! Way to go, Teri! You’ve got a great willpower. I was going nuts when I couldn’t taste anything so I don’t have much confidence in myself succeeding in this. I love it when people share their experiences like this, and I myself have done it only with things that are psychoactive rather than biologically beneficial. I think it’d be a great idea to compile people’s experiments like these into a book. I’d certainly buy it!