Hi Kristidoo,

I'm on day 7 of a very similar juice fast. Although it's my first, so I can't really speak with much experience, it sounds like you're doing it right.

The only things that look suspect to me are the salt water flush and the laxative tea. I read in my textbook Staying Healthy With Nutrition by Haas that not everyone tolerates the salt water flushes well. This may be causing you some trouble. Or the laxative tea is making you excrete more good stuff than you're taking in. Those are my guesses.

Also, I've been mixing my fruit juice with my veggie juice (not ideal according to food combining rules) but I think this may be giving me a better balance of nutrients and sugars than doing them separately. You may want to try that. Store bought green juice (with no added sugar) is very filling, I think it contains bananas... this settles my stomach when I get really hungry and rumbly.

Hope that helps,
Karmabytz

Cheer up. You are not starving. It takes far longer to starve. It takes far shorter for the mind to convince the rest of you that you are starving. I've been there, fairly recently too. The feelings of starving generally passed within a few hours. I'm trying to learn to greet those panic attacks with a fresh cup of juiced juice, and if that doesn't work I hitem with a glass of water, and if that doesn't work I try a fresh brewed cup of herbal tea, and when this doesn't help I repeat all of these, and if this continues to persist beyond just a few hours, I take this as a sign from the body/mind that it is perhaps time to regroup, time to end the fast.

Avoid the urge to compare, between yourself and somebody else, between one protocol and another, or even between the same protocol that you've tried multiple times. Life experiences are not easy to duplicate, especially between people who are otherwise quite similar but not identical... but also between experiences of the same overall person. Chances are pretty good that you are not the same identical person today who did the Master-Cleanse sometime in the past.

Also avoid the urge to think of your fast plans as though it is a sentance, like, a sentance to 12 years of school, or a sentance to 8 to 5 5 days a week 50 weeks a year ad infinitem, or a prison sentance that you must serve, that you must slog through despite it all. Juice fasting should not be about promoting these kinds of thoughts & feelings that persist beyond just a few hours of predictable food panics. Yes, there will be some rough times, but they should not dominate the overall experience. Fasting should promote feelings of being on the road to well being, to making improvements in your life, to feeling better about yourself, not worse, not scared, not starved. Good luck!

Epsom Salts . I tried a juice fast in November/07 and only made it 8 days because I was hungry. What I didn't do was take Epsom Salts at the beginning of my fast. I started another fast on Dec 27/07 and I am now on day 26. The first three days take one glass of water with 1 tsp -1 tbs of Epsom Salts . It helps get rid of the hunger pangs. Only take it for 3 days. Good Luck