I am, of course. And not in that lame, reality tv way.
I attempted the Master Cleanse this week. Ten days of syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne, supplemented by a quart of salt water first thing in the morning and some wonderful, cramp-inducing laxative tea. I tried and failed. To my credit, my generous friends B and Q assure me, I made it almost two days on the "lemonade." I like to think of myself as a ~fairly~ hardcore person in that I rarely do things half-assed, so I'm still feeling pretty lame for not being able to make it even two complete days on this cleanse. Some people do it for 40+ days. After something like 43 hours, though, I got absolution from the two people closest to the process, and dove into a rice cake. Exquisite. Then B made delicious tacos with brown rice, beans, red peppers, and his famous guac. I feel human today for the first time in two days. Most, but not all, of the online info I got about it exclaimed about how much energy the cleansers had. How light and clean they felt, how acute their thinking was, and so on and so forth. I felt like my calves were full of concrete, and I had almost no energy. My head felt like it was stuffed with hot, wet, cotton balls. Fully seed-of-doubted, I decided yesterday afternoon that I was going to the gym. After all, the master cleanse is supposed to be enhanced by exercise. You're supposed to exercise while doing it, though that sounds counter-intuitive. Anyway, I really really value my time on the treadmill. Saturday I ran fourteen miles and lifted weights. Add a hot shower, some soft clothes, and a good meal to that and I call it heaven. Yesterday, I went to the gym, hopped on the treadmill, and started to walk. I thought I'd be able to do at least a slow three miles, maybe at 5 (I usually run at about 6.5). I couldn't even run for a minute. I was immediately fatigued and felt like I was going to fall over. Then I tried to lift weights with approximately the same result. All I really wanted to do was stare into space somewhere warm. A bit teary-eyed, I fled the scene of my humiliation. That's when the absolution and rice cake episode began.
Thus endeth the fast. I completely suck. I AM the biggest loser. But I can think clearly again, and I think this might be a ten mile day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
The fact that you are even admitting this in public says a lot, though. You can't be that ashamed. The key must be in how little sugar you like to eat and not wanting to pile on the maple syrup. I'm not a medical doctor, obviously, but I don't think the cotton balls thing is normal! I will say, though, that if technically you consumed the same amount of calories as you would have with food, you should have a large part of the energy to workout available to you. That baffles me. Somehow you weren't able to "unlock" it, it went somewhere else. Maybe to the liver? DO individual organs suddenly say, "My turn! Gimme all of it and the rest of you organs and muscles be damned!" I wish I know. THis will always be a mystery.
I don't know, dude. No food + at least 12 Tablespoons of sugar = (I'm pretty sure) sugar crash. That's another way to explain that dastardly head-splitter I had. Also, I still think you underestimate the amount of food we eat. Replacing that all with calories from sugar? eh? I think maybe it's just not for me. My tongue never got remotely filmy or slimy, though maybe I just didn't last long enough. Of course, airing shame is one of the most famous coping mechanisms! I'd only keep it to myself if it was something so bad that even my friends wouldn't necessarily know about it. Secretive much? Moi?
Yeah, one of my friends did the master cleanse (you can read about it in her livejournal HERE if you're interested--it's entertaining if nothing else) and if I remember correctly, she had problems with energy-swings and stuff too, and at one point, her legs felt ridiculously heavy and she was having problems with the muscles being jittery and achey. So you're no freak (at least not for THOSE reasons ; )...
Hell, I give you credit for evening trying. I think one swig of salt-water would've been the end of it for me.
"Biggest Loser"? Put down the hyperbole and back away slowly, asenath. First of all, if I manage to run 7 miles I can't stop patting myself on the back. And I eat meat. Healthwise, I've got you beat in the loser category by quite a wide margin.
Secondly, while I understand your disappointment in not completing what you started, I think it's just a case of the laws of chemistry winning again (in much the same way that gravity usually does).
It sounds like the syrup and lemon juice are rough attempts to balance out metabolism in the Krebs cycle while on the cleanse. If you have any kind of unusual metabolism (like I have) the excess sugar, or the slight dehydration from the salt water, or too much acid from the lemon juice could simply fuck up your processing of lactic acid--made worse during exercise--and give you some nasty acidosis for awhile. That's my bet. And there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do about it, since it's just your body chemistry.
In other words, it's not a question of will (unless you can will your tissues to oxidate at a different rate), and you ain't no loser. If somebody else can do that cleanse, it just means they have a different metabolism than you.
Being a ginger, you probably do have an unusual metabolism. And three hearts. And psychic powers.
At least you didn't start hallucinating, like I did when I fasted for 52 hours with my church youth group to raise money for African orphans (or something). I vaguely remember watching The Shawshank Redemption with the other kids in the church basement. One of the adult counselors started freaking out during the hanging scene because his brother apparently hanged himself when he was a teenager. After that, I don't remember much but swirling colors. Church was way more twisted than I ever realized back then.
Sounds like GC's on to something. I bet some of whay your were feeling was your liver expelling some icky stuff, but the rest was going 60 to 0 in 1 second.
I just need to add that the title was not, in fact, hyperbole, by an attempted (albeit lame) reference to a reality tv gimmick about weight loss. I also like g's explanation. It's compellingly scientific and I'm easily dazzled into silence when people start talking about things oxidizing and so forth.
My lack of TV knowledge once again makes me look foolish. I try, you know. I really do.
My conviction that you shouldn't knock yourself for not continuing the cleanse stands, though.
(And queercat's post above is hilarious. You should write a short story about it, q.)
Post a Comment