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" I&amp;#039;d gained 10 pounds over the holidays and I was feeling fat, sluggish, and gross. Obviously I needed a good cleanse. But which one? A juice cleanse? The Green Monster cleanse? The banana cleanse? I must come clean here and admit that I&amp;#039;ve never done a cleanse before. I eat pretty healthily, and I like to think all the red wine keeps my system chugging along well enough. I don&amp;#039;t like to follow health trends in any case. Gluten-free, my butt. Yeah, my butt. Bigger than it used to be, by the way. Hence the need for a nice, easy way to lose some weight quickly. So I asked my massage therapist\u2014okay, my girlfriend who happens to be a massage therapist and is the go-to gal for all things food and woo-woo. She didn&amp;#039;t miss a beat. &amp;quot;Try the Master Cleanse,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s been around for a long time and it&amp;#039;s the mother of all cleanses.&amp;quot; Strangely enough, even I&amp;#039;d heard of it, which makes it practically a legend. Created in the 1940s by nutritionist Stanley Burroughs, it became a fad in the &amp;#039;70s with the publication of his book, The Master Cleanser, and has been enjoying a digital-age resurgence. The Master Cleanse is a liquid diet that involves drinking nothing but a sweet lemonade-type drink for 10 or more days. And it promises the world: Detox your body! Lose weight! Feel better! Be happy! You also start every morning with a salt flush, which amounts to chugging 32 ounces of warm, salted water and staying very close to your bathroom. This, according to the dogma, will help detoxify your body. But main billing goes to the &amp;quot;lemonade,&amp;quot; which consists of 10 ounces room-temperature water, 2 tablespoons fresh organic lemon juice, 2 tablespoons organic Grade B maple syrup, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Tastes like sweet lemonade. It&amp;#039;s actually surprisingly filling, too. The syrup provides some protein. Proponents of the Master Cleanse sing its praises. Critics, including most doctors and nutritionists, point out that you lose weight because you&amp;#039;re starving yourself, and you&amp;#039;ll gain it all right back, especially since you&amp;#039;re likely to binge on doughnuts the moment your cleanse is over. Also, the actual science doesn&amp;#039;t back up the many claims made by fans of the cleanse. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a classic quick-fix approach that appeals to the need for immediate gratification,&amp;quot; says Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Center and founder of the National Exchange for Weight Loss Resistance. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no real lasting value. It&amp;#039;s a gimmick.&amp;quot; As far as the &amp;quot;detoxing&amp;quot; element of cleanses, science doesn&amp;#039;t really cotton to that, either. The kidneys, liver, and GI tract do a perfectly good job of detoxing our bodies as long as we take care of them, Katz assures. &amp;quot;The idea that we can use a program to detox our bodies is mostly nonsense made up by people with something to sell.&amp;quot; Ouch. Okay, I get it\u2014quick fix. But I was still interested in trying. I&amp;#039;m an essentially thin woman, just with a little extra paunch in the middle due to overeating during the holidays and normal, age-related metabolism changes. Wouldn&amp;#039;t a &amp;quot;quick fix&amp;quot; work for me? I thought it might. And trying the Master Cleanse didn&amp;#039;t require me to buy any equipment, a book, or cartons of special $8 drinks. I could do it at home for the price of some organic lemons and maple syrup. Simple and cheap. What did I have to lose? Besides those 10 pounds, I mean. So despite the experts&amp;#039; advice, I decided to try the Master Cleanse. I&amp;#039;m stubborn like that. Katz did say that a temporary fast can help reset your eating habits, like rebooting a computer. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a potential fresh start, but the only value lies in what happens afterward. Will it result in more thoughtful, disciplined eating?&amp;quot; Well, yeah, because I eat pretty healthily already. And not very much in any case. If I could drop a few pounds quickly, I could probably manage to keep them off. I already knew I couldn&amp;#039;t go 10 days on a liquid diet. As a stick-figure-skinny high school student, I would try to fast for 12 hours in solidarity with my more bounteous girlfriends, then unfailingly end up shivering on my bed with a crushing headache. My dad, the giver of my tall and thin genes, would hand me orange juice and lecture me gently. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t do that sort of thing, Jules. You don&amp;#039;t have the body fat.&amp;quot; Of course, now I have some body fat to work with. Nevertheless, I told myself I&amp;#039;d try the Master Cleanse for one week. Scratch that. Five days. Did I do it? Ahem. First, my cogent observations. First and foremost, when in Hades does anyone find the time to do a cleanse? Scheduling five days during which you do not eat food or drink alcohol is like trying to nail down a lunch date with President Obama, e.g., next to impossible unless you move mountains. I quickly realized that entire weeks of my life were taken up by various social engagements that revolved around food and/or drink. Successfully adhering to the Master Cleanse would mean temporarily shutting down my social life. Eek. My next observation: How do you fight temptation when you are surrounded by food? It&amp;#039;s not like I&amp;#039;m a monk on some remote mountaintop, where I might simply be able to lock away my one bowl and one spoon and drink nothing but lemony water for 10 days. I&amp;#039;m a mom with teenagers. That effectively means I have two kids plus all of their friends, their friends&amp;#039; friends, and one or two others who have snuck in with the crowd. I have 12 boxes of breakfast cereal on my kitchen table, there in constant service to the ravaging appetite of my 13-year-old, 5-foot-11-inch boy-man. My daughter&amp;#039;s friends wander into my kitchen, grinning happily, waiting for me to offer them food, which of course I do. And when they leave, it&amp;#039;s as if the African ants have stripped my kitchen to the studs. In other words, my life is about food and the feeding of people. My pantry is full. My fruit bowl overfloweth. My refrigerator is the hardest-working appliance on my block. And I work from home, probably four steps away from this kitchen. Not eating its food requires a certain discipline and willingness to deprive oneself that I don&amp;#039;t normally embrace. My third and final observation: Who are these people who claim to successfully live on nothing but lemony water for 10 days or more? There might be one or two totally disciplined, absolutely unwavering sorts who can sit around the dinner table and fight their hunger pangs. But I don&amp;#039;t think most of us are that rigid. Or at least I&amp;#039;m not. I tried to start the Master Cleanse three times, and three times, I failed.  My first attempt lasted until 5 p.m., at which point scheduling issues got in the way. It was game night with a bunch of other parents. We play Cards Against Humanity, eat, drink, and shriek with laughter while our kids huddle upstairs looking for the number of Child Protective Services. I knew I wouldn&amp;#039;t be able to get through the evening without a sip of wine, and that booze would knock me down after not having eaten all day. I also knew that with wine, my resolve to ignore the bounty of temptation on the table would vaporize. So I preemptively nibbled a slice of cheese and a cracker\u2026 and then ate the whole round.  Attempt two: I fell to temptation. My walking buddy showed up at the door that morning bearing coffee. What was I going to tell her? Thanks for buying me that coffee for nothing because I can&amp;#039;t drink it? No. That would be uncivilized. Third attempt. See: all of the above. I got up, made the kids breakfast, drove my daughter to school, went about my errands, made the lemony drink, and sat down to work. Then I remembered the yogurt in the fridge. And the blueberries. And the walnuts I&amp;#039;d splurged on because they&amp;#039;re so healthy for you. I mean, superfoods abound. And I thought, This is stupid. I&amp;#039;m starving. All I want is a little dish of yogurt. Is that going to kill me? I also noticed that my increased exercise regimen was starting to work ever so slightly\u2014 as indicated by how slightly easier it was to button my pants\u2014and I resolved to toss this Master Cleanse idea on its ear. You try it and send me pictures to prove you&amp;#039;ve actually done it. I won&amp;#039;t believe you anyway. For now, I&amp;#039;m back on the exercise routine I let go of during the holidays\u2014interspersing six-mile walks with flow yoga. It&amp;#039;s not a quick fix, but science says that combined with healthy eating, I should be able to lose those 10 pounds and keep them off. So much for the Master Cleanse. I can vouch for the saltwater flush though. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/healthy-eating/advice/a17148/master-cleanse/>