my strange diet…err..fast…err..cleanse
my journal of the the “master cleanse” experience

jan 1, 2007

10:00 pm - my first day wasn’t so bad. better than I thought it would be. I figured I would be weaker from hunger; after all, I’m a pretty slight guy. I felt kind of hungry all day, but I felt energetic also, so it didn’t bother me much until around 6:00 pm. that’s normally when I have a drink (ok, drinksssss) and start to smoke more heavily, and I got a little cranky around that time. I decided to clean the kitchen to cope with the frustration. I threw out all the junk food, high fructose corn syrup laden goodies and empty carb-carrying foods in the fridge (recycling all of the containers) and all of the cookies, fritos, ramen noodles, bush’s beans etc. in the cupboards too. I even cleaned all of the pooled-up, hardened pork grease and crumbs under the stove hood, telling myself (whilst gagging) that must be what the inside of my arteries look like. I meant to take my blood pressure last night, so tonight will have to do. 140/81. HR 50. we’ll check it out again in ten days. the laxative tea hasn’t been working. I drank it last night before bed, this morning and then again tonight. I will try the oral salt water enema tomorrow morning. I wanted to wait until my stomach was completely empty before doing that – trust me, it’s empty!!!!!!

jan 2, 2007

6:00 am - pretty sure my bowels are empty now. I doubled the tea dosage and had the green apple splatters last night. good thing I had a book to read cuz I spent some time on the shitter. I just woke up again and decided it wasn’t worth trying to sleep again, so had my salt water enema and now I’m waiting for the effects.

11:00 am – yeah, that saltwater thing works well. had me going for awhile there. it took about 1 ½ hours for it to get all the way through me. whew! glad to be past the first part though; all I crap now is miso soup. I went to the recycling center to drop off the byproducts of my born-again, health-tirade, fridge enema. I have an old chevy truck that’s really bouncy and tends to get the lower intenstinal tract stimulated to say the least. but I made it home and now I know better than to stray too far from the casa. my beloved is a floral arranger and has just asked me to pick up an arrangement that is too heavy for her to carry. I will be picking it up from –where else- harry winston. I hope I don’t crap my pants there. that’s the stuff legends are made of. (never end a sentence with a preposition unless you really really mean it)

1:00 pm – success. no crappy pants. quick story - once I crapped my pants in a coffee shop in santa fe. I was wearing shorts and it wasn’t a solid stool. beloved gave me a ride home in her car. that’s when I knew we were in love. also why I never go to santa fe anymore.
kinda needa nap now. I’ve been daydreaming about a turkey sandwich. yesterday I had the avocado fever. right now sushi sounds good.

10:30 pm – k, woke up from my nap, stemmed some roses, delivered the flowers and got fucking arresting. that’s better than getting arrested fucking, but nonetheless purely shite. you want the ultimate test for the “master cleanser”? found it! take a guy that’s already nearly underweight, addicted to cigarettes, is an alcoholic, and generally pissed off while the sun is shining…k?k?k?k?…then deprive him of food, smokes and booze, arrest him, put him in a cold cell for four hours without his magic lemonade or decent water, give him a flea-ridden blanket and a idiot’s translation of the bible that has been urinated upon, and then offer him a quarter-pounder with cheese. that’s the test. I figure if I can pass that one, I can ride this mother home. after nearly starving, freezing to death and reading most of the old testament in second-grade english, i got out of the klink to find not only my beloved sweetie, but my son, my nephew and my brother and sister-in-laws waiting for me. the sun’s down so at least I’m a shade more tolerable now. they drop me off at home and proceed to our favorite mexican restaurant. asses! I’d rob a nun for a brisket taco right now. at least they bailed me out. the band had planned to meet at the house for rehearsal. I’m ½ hour late. the drummer has already left, the bassist smells like a chicken fried steak cuz he just threw down at luby’s and the dogs have broken into the trash and scattered all over the kitchen. I’m at wits end, so I make a magic lemonade potion and it sets me right. it really made me feel better. strange but true. not that I wouldn’t love to tear the ass out of a double bacon cheeseburger right now, but it somehow got me through. now I’m having my herbal laxative tonic that will undoubtedly be calling the colonic dogs-of-war in the wee hours of the morning. sticka fork in this one!

jan 3, 2007

7:45 am – I went to bed last night then got up a few times to expel more miso soup from my ass. got back in bed and started to feel faint and weak. I felt my blood presure drop and beloved said my pupils had dilated. she brought me my magic tonic for strength and I drank it quickly. it made me feel better at first, but then the weak/faint sensation came back even worse. I think I waited too long (incarcerated) and then drank it too quickly. then, as I clung to dear life aboard the s.s. nightmare thinking “this fucking day will never end”, my florence nightingale brought me a cup of chicken broth and some of my son’s stage 2 pears-n-mango babyfood. glad to be alive and cared-for and not wanting to break the fast, I paused to gain composure. i took my blood pressure which was 137/72. good. I decided not to waver and she promptly took the broth out of range of my newly-acquired superman sense of smell.
now that we’re caught up, I awoke at 7:00 am to the familiar rumbling in my tumbly and the warm, bubbly sensation in my bowels. I hit the shitter at 7:01 and expelled something that looked like algae. it was hot and uncomfortable to say the least. I remember thinking, “it feels like I scrubbed my %¤#&!§-with a wire brush and then shit cedar branches.”
maybe I should ease up on the cayenne.
still burning as I type this.

11:00 am – borrowed some of my son’s diaper ointment after my shower and it’s suprisingly soothing. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…aveeno! by the way, you can get more juice out of a room-temperature lemon than a refridgerated lemon. and for some reason, it tastes better. fyi

9:45 pm – pretty uneventful day. went to whole foods to re-supply around dinnertime when les miserables are shoveling their entrees into a cardboard box. it smelled good in there. my beloved had tomato basil soup and grilled vegetables; my son had stage 2 green beans and rice; I had water. we ate by the fish tank. I was ravenous, but my determination continued to outweigh the pangs.
this tea sucks. the licorice root reminds me of the raccoon piss I used to use when I ran a trap line as a youngster. just think…twenty years ago I was using a freshly cut alder branch to dispatch a beaver I caught in a foothold trap along the banks of the sebasticook river. today I’m fasting on lemonade in dallas. whooda thunk?

jan 4, 2007

9:00 am - wakey wakey big mistakey. time to shit some more water! I added more salt to the oral enema this morning. waiting for it to hit the delta. think I’ll do some jumping jacks. I’ve been cold a lot. even when other people aren’t. they say that’s normal

10:00 am – the extra teaspoon of Sea Salt made the difference. it went right through me and came out like a true enema. something to do with humans’ ph levels or salt levels all being different? whatever, I’m a three-teaspoon man. keeping a book by the shitter.

jan 5, 2007

1:28 am – this is technically the 5th day, but since I’m just going to bed now, I’ll call it the end of the 4th. went to yoga tonight. it felt great. my joints seem more flexible already. also jammed with the band. we sounded great. beloved says my voice sounds so much better cleared of crap and cigarette smoke. never better in fact. that’s pretty flippin sweet, but I think she just wants to get laid. warning – lemon cleanse puts libito into hibernation as well. this must be the secret of the monks.

11:30 am – I think my stomach has shrunk as much as it can. it hardly growls at me now. I think I’ve stopped producing grellin since my digestive system has gone into an engine stall to cleanse. kinda like a self-cleaning oven. the door is locked and won’t be doing any cooking for the next ten days while we do a deep clean. you should see the foulness that comes out of me. color of fudge – heavy as mercury. in fact, I’ve learned from my reading that some of it IS lead and mercury.

7:00 pm – feeling great. days are getting easier.

jan 6, 2007

4:28 pm – day 6. hmmmm. I’ve been in such a great mood since day 1 (every pun intended), but today I ventured out into dallas with beloved and mini me and it quickly put the kibosh on my natural lemonade high. it seemed everyone was in a sour mood; and they’re in such a damn hurry – moving faster than a saltwater enema! believe me, that’s fast.
speaking of enemas - what an impressive amount of shit coming out of someone who hasn’t eaten in 6 days. I’ve been to three local grocery stores to resupply for the Master-Cleanse (master cleanse for future reference. also SWF (Salt-Water-Flush) is saltwater flush and BM is bowel movement, but you won’t catch me using that one cuz I like to type “shit”, “crap”, and “feces”) organic lemons are in short supply and grade b maple syrup is 86ed in all three stores. lot of people seem to be onto this thing. you think that would make for happier folks all around? hmmmmm, must be crappy new year’s resolutions. nobody likes those; that’s why we break them. maybe soon the entire highland park cheerleading team will quit attending yoga at my gym! cheerleaders and yoga = oil and water. welcome to the inside of my head. come on in. (we had the preposition discussion, yes?)

jan 7, 2007

10:30 am – tongue no longer white. breath still toxic. I’ve found that drinking some water to hydrate as soon as I wake up and then doing the SWF (Salt-Water-Flush) half hour later helps push all the saline through in a more expiditious manner. eczema in ears and on forehead eyebrow area is gone. just so you know, I’ve had the eczema for about four years and have tried just about everything to rid my body of it to no avail until now. just my little testimonial for the day. now I’m going to church.

7:00 pm – did a 3-mile nature hike today with mini me and beloved. I had plenty of energy throughout and even carried mini me on my back. I spent some time looking at the different leaf and moss varieties with which might be best to wipe my ass lest it became suddenly neccesary to drop trousers behind a tree. the moment never overtook me though there was some leakage while climbing the steep hills. just kidding – my sphincter is like a torpedo tube on a submarine: fire when ready.
have I mentioned cravings yet. well I was talking about one of my cravings last night: lettuce wraps. so I put them on my list of things to eat when I break the cleanse. well what did my beloved make herself for dinner tonight? ….you guessed it. Though tempered in my fits of hunger, I may not be able to curb the urge to hang her by her toenails. I can’t even begin to tell you how good sauteed portabellas and garlic smells when you haven’t had food for 7 days. bitch! just kidding I love her and it’s yet another test for this mountain of a fasting…err…cleansing man. peace.

jan 8, 2007

high noon – feeling a bit sluggish today. yesterday I switched maple syrup brands because they were out of my usual, and this one doesn’t seem as sweet. I also had another case of the weak-legs-feeling-like-I’m-going-to-pass-out thingy last night. same deal – I was laying in bed on my right side talking to beloved when it swept over me again. I was laying on my right side in bed talking to beloved the last time it happened, except this time I wasn’t fresh out of lock-up. guess I can’t blame it on the highland park police dept this time. anyway, I had two teaspoons of unsulphured blackstrap mollasses and was fine. that stuff tastes really great. perhaps because it’s the closest thing to food I’ve had in a week, but it sure tasted like the popcorn balls mama used to make at halloween. anyway, beloved says that when she was pregnant, the doctor told her not to lay on her right side because it raises the blood pressure.
I went to sleep on my left side, sucking my thumb and thinking about mama’s popcorn balls. what a strange and mysterious feeling - hmmmmmmm…I hope I’m not pregnant.

11:45 pm – we went to the movies to see the new bond flick tonight. it was a monday night, and we were the only people seated in the theatre, that is until three teenagers came and sat in the seats directly in front of us and ate their chic-fila during the previews. I could smell the tasty bits of chicken and the polynesian sauce. little shits! anyway, on to my movie rating. it seems in mr bond’s latest dormant perioid between actors, he started taking steroids, doing gymnastics and watching steel magnolias and a few episodes of oprah. well done movie, but not the bond I remember. I had to get up and go to the loo twice during the movie. I missed the ending. when I left, bond was in venice giving some tart cpr, and when I came back, he was standing over some bloke saying, “bond - james bond”. I’m writing in british slang because I’m still coming down from my english action movie high. “god save the queen!”, he exclaimed as he cartwheeled down the escalator and out of the mall.

3-2-1… and it’s day nine

9 jan, 2007

9:30 am – just had my SWF. so while I’m waiting for it to hit me - a little anecdote: my hunger pangs hadn’t seemed to subside as I read they would. I was skeptical about continuing past ten days as I smelled the chic-fila being consumed by the kids in front of us at the movies last night…that is, until I got a message from, what could only have been, the ghost of stanley burroughs. here’s how it went down.
last night, as usual, I let the dogs in from the park before going off to bed. when I came back in, I noticed that one of the dogs was chewing on something he had brought in with him. I walked closer to get a look and it was a dead crow. this was no fresh kill either; this thing was prolly three-weeks dead. it had a few feathers still clinging and what meat still attached was grey and slimy and clinging to the skeleton. worst of all – the smell. I would say the most hair-curling odor I have ever breathed, and there are some worthy competitors, ie. a bat fermented in a beer bottle, the autopsy of a man killed with a screwdriver and left face down in an open sewer for two weeks, and driving past the feed lots in amarillo. all particularily unpleasant odors from my past, but this took the cake. absolutely foul (yes, pun intended). thank you, ghost of stanley burroughs for giving me the stomach to endure.

3:00 pm – just returned from the “roy’s health foods” with my probiotics, natural beeswax ear candles, organic coconut oil, powered egg whites, great northern beans, all-natural peanut butter, elderberry tea, buckwheat noodles, sprouted multi-grain bread, vegan black bean burgers and a red onion. w-w-w-what’s h-h-happening t-t-to me!!!
I gotta eat. thanks for the intervention stan, but I’m bailing out after day 10.
10 jan, 2007 (d-day)

10:00 am – I made the final decision this morning to end the cleanse on 10 since my tongue is looking good and I haven’t had the ass mollasses in a few days. looking forward to orange juice day.
this cleanse seems to be becoming popular. the end caps at whole foods are stocked with master cleanse kit baskets, stuffed with lemons, The Master Cleanser book, maple syrup, smooth move tea and cayenne pepper. it’s good to see folks getting healthy and the dallas sewer system getting a needed rest.

5:30 pm – got a haircut today as the mark of the new me. I had been growing my hair for three years. what a change. I’ll miss it, but not as much as I’ll miss the ole saltwater flush. time to move on I guess. this is my story.


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my final shpeel – I very glad I did this, and I hope you enjoyed reading my progress journal. The Master Cleanse made it easier for me to quit smoking, made me aware of the saddening state of my body, gently coaxed my mind and body into working together, gave me a disciplined regimin for ten days and provided me a healthy goal to accomplish. I now feel better than I have in 20 years. rejuvenated. I understand that this isn’t the end, only the beginning of a new lifestyle – the beginning of the rest of my life. thanks again stan!

here are a few tips for any future cleansers:

1. stick to the plan. stanley burroughs undoubtedly did a lot of research with the cleanse and devoted a great deal of his life and love to getting it right. don’t become deviant and customize the plan to fit your needs and schedule and then ask why this or that isn’t working like the book says. buck up and do it right and you won’t have many questions, just regards.
2. remain positive and optomistic. reflect on the world around you with joy. I know from experience that the darkness and doubt will drag you down. don’t roll with those who can’t share or respect your newfound joy; they’re not worth it.
3. remain calm. if you enjoy exercising daily at the gym or lifting weights, good for you – now stop it. this is about letting the body repair itself. to do this, it needs to have as few outside stresses as possible. keep the heartrate and metabolism low for optimum healing. physical stress will only hinder progress in the cleaning of your organs.
4. do yoga. do yoga. do yoga. I believe it’s important to be mentally centered and calm as well. yoga will help your mind and body work together on this cleansing task, open your joints and organs for the blood to clean, and, believe it or not, will help your bowel movements become more frequent and successful.
5. visit curezone.com. folks on there are going through the same program and can sympathize. great support system. there are also people who have done this cleanse many times before and have a lot of good advice and answers. my special thanks to pepe and zoe for being so wonderful, helpful and supportive.
6. do research before jumping into this. read the book! more than once. also google “master cleanse” and you will have days-worth of reading. from FAQs to journals of those gone before, it’s all helpful information. arm yourself with knowledge so you won’t be second guessing yourself and you can help others in need if desired.
7. the mix: use organic lemons and organic grade b maple syrup. don’t skimp or substitute. drink at least 64oz per day. squeeze fresh whenever possible so you will get the benefits of the live enzymes in the lemons and it will taste better. if you need to premix, don’t do it the night before, get up early and make your elixir in between sprints to the bathroom. use as much cayenne pepper as you can stomach. gradually build up if neccesary. I started with a ¼ tsp per quart, and, by the end was using a rounded tsp per quart. it’s like swallowing a giant pipe cleaner and pulling it out your ass. I say “come big or don’t come at all!”
8. SWF: the dreaded salt water flush. this was ironically my favorite part because it was the only thing salty I got to taste for ten days and was what allowed me to feel and see the results of my efforts. I understand that most people don’t like it. well, tough shit. do it. quit being a pansy and belly up to the bar! chug it like gatorade, pretend it’s vegetable broth, plug your nose – do whatcha gotta do, just do it! it’s important to wash out the bowels and leave a new surface for the magic lemonade to attack that day. it’s like showering on the inside. start each day fresh.
9. regular water. important to drink lots of water. this is something that’s not stressed enough in the book. spring water or purified water. no tap water. drink at least half your body weight converted to ounces every day. ie: 180 lbs = 90oz I drank an average of 1 gallon per day and my precleanse weight was 175. I’ve heard a lot of people complaining about headaches. more water. there are toxins trying to leave the body and there aren’t any buses at the station because there’s not enough water in the system. there’s no reason not to drink it. don’t be lazy or whiny. you won’t get “waterlogged” or sick. sip it slowly all day. do it!
10. find a rhythm. mine was: wake up, drink a glass of water if my lips were dry (dehydration), wait ten minutes and then drink a quart of warm saltwater while squatting with my back against the wall, check my e-mail and attend the Master Cleanse Support Forum , then spend about twenty minutes on the shitter with a good book, take a shower, dress, make my lemonade and get on with the day.
11. the constant crapping and wiping will leave your ass sore. try blotting instead of wiping. I also used hyland’s homeopathic diaper ointment on my cornhole after each shower. instant relief.
12. brush your teeth throughout the day. the natural enzymes will be stripped from your body during this cleansing process and your teeth will be constantly plaque-covered as well as the white coating on the tongue and the horrible taste. keep the mouth flushed and clean constantly as this will help expidite the elimination of toxins. tongue scraping and saltwater gargling also recommended.
13. love thy neighbor, even if they cook out every night. don’t be a food hater. you shouldn’t expect people to stop their daily routine for your “insane diet”. if you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to be around food and food smells, by all means, avoid them. go for a walk when your cohabitants are cooking or eating. personally, I faced it head on. I even cooked for people while on the cleanse. all you have to do is take pride in your resolution and others will too. jot down all the healthy things you would like to eat when you are finished cleansing. I even wrote down recipes to try. mind over matter!
14. keep a journal. I learned a lot and laughed a lot from reading other peoples’ journals prior to starting my own program. keep your own. if for nothing else, it will serve as a reminder of your tricks and your routine. the next time you do the master cleanse, you’ll be an old pro.
15. breathe deeply
16. keep a book by the shitter
17. stay out of jail

end note – I’m not a doctor or naturopath. I never even finished college. I’m just a musician, father and husband trying to lead a healthier lifestyle. these are my findings based on my own experiences, information forages and common sense. this is not qualified medical advice.

thanks for reading. happy cleansing. peace. NC


http://www.noahcaveny.com


http://www.myspace.com/noahcaveny


links:

//www.curezone.org/


//www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=265174#i


//www.curezone.org/blogs/m.asp?f=770&i=51


http://www.laureece.com/


http://www.natures-fix.com/


http://www.risingstarlc.com/pdindex.htm