hello all!
i just wanted to document my experience for others who may be going through something similar. i made some bad choices so maybe others can learn.

1) i started the cleanse while i had a mild stomach bug. i didn't feel like eating and was having diarrhea already so i thought what a great time to start. thought i'd get a head start. nope. wrong. i couldn't move for 3 days and my physio said that you need to exercise while on the cleanse. so here the muscle started to melt away with the fat. i was getting weaker. next time i start when well.

2) i didn't use a straw to drink and didnt' rinse my mouth afterwards. the enamel started to melt away and my gums started to recede exposing the roots of my teeth. i didn't know and thought it was just a coincidence. nope. wrong. i stopped maybe 5 days ago and they are minimally better. very scary! i'm still struggling with this.

3) my period came 2 weeks early and i developed bleeding hemorrhoids. i was going to stop so as not to risk anemia but just supplemented with stinging nettle and dandelion tea. nope. wrong. i should have stopped right then but i continued. after 2 unsuccessful attempts i was on a mission.

4) i started in the winter. to me i want to be in harmony with my surroundings and drinking lemon and orange juice in the winter on the west coast is not being in harmony with my surroundings. you need salt in order for your liver to make the components of vitamin D that the sun would otherwise prompt. next time i do it in the spring at the earliest. you need either salt or sun. very important. the swf flushes, it doesn't nourish.

5) my partner wasn't doing it and i had to smell and see his meals all the time. wrong. next time we both do it. it will be that much easier. also, my sense of smell grew so strong that his breath was unbearable to me. stank badly. i had to keep airing out the room and asking him not to talk :) i must have beed a real case.

6) my pH was so acidic it was scary! even eating Sugar never made my pH so low! how can this be avoided? perhaps it was my stress level which is more than likely. next time i do it in times of low or no stress.

so when i started to feel better after day 3 i began my stretching exercises which i thought was enough but when i went to my physio he said i turned into a bowl of jello! i lost a lot of muscle!!! i lost about 7 lbs, i don't have a scale and don't care very much about fat but losing muscle is just not right. you must exercise! amd drink more than 6 glasses a day.

the good thing for me was that my lymphs which had been perpetually swollen ever since i was a kid have never been better! i also used essential oils to assist drainage applied after a hot bath (lime, juniper berry and cypress mixed with sweet almond oil applied to my lymphs in my neck and underarms, thighs and buttocks) and then i rested with my feet up to get the blood to flow to some of those areas. my Acne improved somewhat after getting slightly worse and i cleansed my bowels. however, having said that, it still at this point and for me was NOT worth the loss of muscle and gum.

i would do it again as i did gain a new respect for my will power but next time i do it right!

some tips, i took a hot bath and had a good sweat everyday. i drank lots of re-energized distilled water. every time i had a craving i said to myself 'it will be there when i come off my cleanse' and the craving disappeared. it was a help knowing that beyond 2 days of not eating if i jumped and ate something quickly it would hurt like hell. i did that before when someone mentioned japanese food and i thought i was going to die on the toilet. i knew i had to come off slowly no matter what so that prevented me from caving into weak will.

one of the reasons i know it was a bad time for me to do it was that i kept craving french fries and the like of which i don't even really like. i wanted to come off and be a raw vegan and now i'm delving into everything but. everything tastes so good that i feel like a kid in a candy shop. the whole experience was one of deprivation and not cleansing for me. not much has changed and that is very disappointing. another reason the summer is the best time to do it. i am naturally a raw vegan in the summer but in the winter i want warm comforting (often poisonous) food.

ok, so after day 9 on the mc i jumped off when i learned that my gums receded because of the acid and Sugar in the drink. i had had enough. considering all i had been through this was a success for me in terms of will power, i could have done it way longer. i came off slowly on grapefruit juice for 2 days and broke it with miso soup, a pear and then some raw yoghurt to replenish my microorganisms. i'm feeling better these days. but i wasted away. that had never been a problem for me in the past.

thanks for listening! best of luck to everyone. but also, not everything is for everyone all the time.

any comments? similar experiences?