update and..Master Cleanse?

I know someone who's done it. She lost about ten pounds but then gained some back. She also was having stomach problems for a bit afterwards.

I have done the master cleanse. No horror stories. I tried drinking 6-8 glasses per day. It's hard in the beginning with the cayenne pepper, but your body gets used to it fairly fast, and I actually began craving the juice. There were days I only drank 2 glasses as I didn't seem hungry. I did the MC for 28 days, and have lost 30some pounds. Once off, I began eating bad again and gained it all back. What I did like about it is the fact that I stopped craving certain foods, like fast food, sweets, etc. I hated the salt water flush. 32 oz of super salty water... YUCK! However bad this is for you, MC really cleanses. What came out of me, and please I am not trying to be disgusting here, were black strips of toxins that reminded me of the texture of apple peel. Overall, MC does make you feel pretty darn good. You need some tremendous willpower to do it.

Good luck if you go through with it.

Um... honey why do you want to torture yourself?

The human body needs to eat. It's ok to wean yourself off fast food and stuff slowly if that is what you need to do to succeed. You don't have to set yourself up for a crash and burn by doing something like this. You're still going to crave fast food during and after the cleanse. You may lose weight but when you start eating real food again, you're going to gain it back. You may even gain more.

Ok, Negative Nelly stuff out of the way.

Here's an idea for you - Do your cleanse. Keep track of your weight lost (which is why I am assuming you are doing this because a healthy body already filters out toxins) and keep track of your weight gained after.

Then try doing weight loss a healthy and SLOW way. Teach yourself how to do this journey in moderation - no cutting out your fast food or junk food cold turkey. Just keep track of what exactly you are eating in your MFP diary for a week. The second week, start trying to stick to your daily calories. Have your Double Whopper with Cheese for dinner - but have a yogurt or some granola for breakfast, some fruit for snacks, a healthy lunch (or healthy snacks all through the day cause I have no idea how many calories are in one of those burgers lol). Do it for, say, two months. Then compare notes on your weight loss and gains. If the fad stuff works for you and you didn't gain a smidge when you started eating (or go on fast food binge-fests) then ok. Have at it and I will not say another word. But, if the slow way works better, then I'm going to do a happy dance for you 'cause you will have figured out how to balance what you want with what your body needs.

I get rid of my late night cravings by budgeting calories for them. I keep a hundred or two or three for the end of the day when I am really craving chocolate or something (or I exercise to get enough calories for them) and then I can eat it guilt free. Meaning, I didn't blow my diet just because I had that Magnum ice cream! Yay!

You CAN do it healthy and you CAN retrain your body to want the right foods. It takes time and effort and will probably never be easy. There is no shame in doing it slow. Eventually you will have mixed enough good food in that you will switch entirely from junk to healthy and hopefully you will be like the numerous healthy people here who say they can't even eat the crap food anymore.

I have not done the Master Cleanse but I have done Neera Natural Detox and Cleanse, an improved version of it. It is improved because it contains Palm syrup as well as a higher grade of Maple syrup which gives a full complement of the minerals needed as nutrition to sustain your body for the 15 days needed to complete the cleanse. I have asked others who did the Master Cleanse and then the Neera Natural and they all agreed it was easier on Neera Natural because they weren't as hungry. The trick with the cleanse is to drink it all day long so your metabolism stays active. It also works as a meal replacement, maybe dinner, to help with weight maintenance. The Master Cleanse and Neera Natural were not developed for weight loss, they were developed to give the body an opportunity to relax and repair. The weight loss is just an added benefit. I think the reason people get weak is because they don't drink enough of it, and the added water as well.

Out of interest, how does feeding your body maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper enable it to relax and self-repair?