Master Cleanse - 4-5 days of Fasting

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Well, I don't do too much personal blogging lately. I have a trip full of Steem Fest photos and nothing is going up any time soon. There's too much to do.

That said, i wanted to share one thing that I did. Before I left for Asia I made a decision to try a Master Cleanse when I got back. I made it back and so I started right away.

What's a master cleanse?

The Master Cleanse is a fast. From Saturday Night through Wednesday night I didn't eat anything. It's usually supposed to go for 10 days, but I'm running into early holidays and thanksgiving observed. So, I kinda lost my will to keep doing it knowing that I have to stop early anyway.

Anyway, every time I got hungry I'd drink some lemonade. It was made in a big glass. I'd put in two table spoons of lemon juice, 2 table spoons of maple syrup, and some cayanne pepper. As it turns out I actually like the drink. The other thing that amazed me is that I really didn't hate the whole thing. In fact, after the holidays I'll likely do multi-day fasting with some frequency.

Problem: I'm a big fatty

When I was young I was a wrestler. At the age of 18 I wrested at 140lbs. Not the most healthy weight for me. Actually after the season ended it took about a week to get to a more natural weight of 165.

These days I'm about 230. My frame is larger and some muscles are actually much stronger now that I'm an old man, but way too much of that is just fat.

I've been doing a lot of outdoor activity, and the weight is very slowly falling off, but I have a bad habit of eating more when I'm doing more work so it kinda cancels out.

I know I overeat and I thought this would be one of the best ways to control my eating and reset how much my body thinks I need. As my buddy Parker says "abs are made in the kitchen!" And he's right. So, I needed a way to be back in control of my eating habits.

It wasn't as bad as I thought

Every day I'd get up and drink one. Throughout the day I might have 5-6 more. At some points I'd get light headed or a little hungry. Something about the lemon juice seems to take care of the hunger. So, I'd down another glass and within 5 min the headaches and light headedness would go away. I missed food during it, and was certainly hungry at times, but this wasn't nearly as bad as I feared.

Also, consider I'm going from like 2500 calories or more per day down to like ~600. So, for this to be a little hunger inducing and mildly inconvenient wasn't all that bad.

I ate some yesterday

I lost some of my will since I have a family thanksgiving observed this weekend. So, I had to stop early anyway so I decided 4-5 days was a good test run and got myself some salad.

I'm sorta considering like a Ramadan inspired thing where I don't eat all day and then have 1 big meal at night. Might give me the weight loss I'm looking for, but also some of the regular sustenance that I'm used to.

Weight Loss

Normally when I do athletic activity to lose weight it's a snail's pace. This was actually pretty incredible. Each day I could feel my body noticeably change. This was literally the fastest weight loss I've ever done.

Planning on more

So, for now, I'm doing some hybrid thing and seeing if there are ways I can lose weight with this, but still eat some. That sounds like it would cover what I'd like it to, but I'll have to see. If that doesn't work I'll pretty gladly eat for a week or two and come back to a 3-10 day fast. 3 Days was pretty easy. 4-5 was getting a little harder. So, I could imagine once a month cycling in a 3 day fast.

Overall I feel pretty good, had noticeable weight loss, and learned that I have some capacity for food control that I haven't really experienced in a number of years.

8/10 will do again.



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Not eating at daylight and eating a Wokfull of foods at night time will not do you good @aggroed the lemonade fasting is better, just do not make it so sweet tho.

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Good stuff!

Fasting in its various forms seems to be coming more popular and one of the first posts I read on Steem was about a guy who crams all his food into a 6 hour window each day, 18 hours on water. I think going this route will mean less no salt headaches and could be made into a routine.

Good luck on removing the pies :)

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intermittant fasting its called... I tried it as well and it helps but its hard not to munch in front of the TV sometimes

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Sooner or later we all will see detoxification of the body is the key to cure ourselves without medication.

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Just go plant-based. Fasting is an eating protocol, not a diet.

Fasting for more than 3 days without medical supervision can have a disastrous effect on your health

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/alternate-day-intermittent-fasting-put-to-the-test/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-alternate-day-intermittent-fasting-safe/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-intermittent-fasting-increase-human-life-expectancy/

You can verify the citations of the videos below them.

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Damn .... no eating at all :/ .... I will probably be very dizzy and tired.
But may try it for a day at least and see how it goes :)

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I've wondered about these and am afraid of them because wont doing this alter your metabolism over time? I have a friend who does multi-day fasts. I know everyone is different and I am not going to judge. I don't think i have the willpower to do something like this though.

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Sounds quite intensive to me but glad you found the way and it actually works for you. I was thinking to reset my body too but not straight lemonade. Instead, more like juice cleanse but I guess they are way different..? Enjoy the Thanksgiving :)

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I tried this exact same fast last year (plus 1 litre of salt water in the mornings) and it was a great experience. I was also pleasantly surprised that the mixture tasted so good. I believe that it's the cayenne that's the actual appetite suppressant, but not 100 on that. I also thought that 5 days without solid food would be extremely difficult but it wasn't so bad and after that 10 days actually seems doable. Perhaps the greatest take away was just the self-control aspect and realizing that it's just a matter of being consistent with replacing bad habits with good ones. Thanks for sharing, you reminded me that I also want to do a full 10 cleanse in the near future, cheers!

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(Edited)

Hey aggroed! Have you considered intermittent fasting? Im already doing it for a year. Meaning I eat from 11am to 7pm. Nothing between.

I already did calorie counting before (and still do). I do about 1600-1800 kcal per day, most days. I already lost 58kg. Thats around 127lbs 👍🙏
If you wanna talk more about this, hit me up in discord 🤤😏

EDIT: should clarify, the 127 lbs loss was over 3 years.

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Hey, thanks! But Im happy with how I do it, I eat breakfast at 11-12am, and my 2nd and last meal at around 4-6pm. :D

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I'm on day 3 of what I hope is a 5 day juice fast. As I am reading your post I am drinking a large glass of lemon, apple cider vinegar water with a dash of sea salt and I woke up a bit hungry and grumpy.

I also am planning on incorporating salads after 5 days.

Maybe later today I'll be more excited, right now I just want some breakfast.

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You're an extremely strong willed individual to make it to day 3 of a 5-day juice cleanse!👏 @whatsup I wake up hungry and grumpy every day, especially before drinking coffee!☕😠☕

ACV definitely played an key role in my weight loss and overall health. After trying a couple different brands, I only use "Bragg's" ACV and just add it to a glass of ice water and gulp it down. Tastes like piss water but I got used to it.🥃

Good luck making it to day 5, though I believe you've got this! 🤜💯🤛

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I'm still doing fine! I actually now crave ACV if I don't drink it for a few days. :) I kind of love it now.

I also only use braggs. :)

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You're such a warrior @whatsup I barely made it through one 48-hour colo prep!😶🙄🤭

Isn't it strange how our taste buds get acclimated to Bragg's ACV? It's as if our bodies know it's good for us!

Reminder to self:
"Buddy up with @whatsup if ever on "Survivor" together"

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(Edited)

I also wrestled and had some moderate success at doing so. My weight class was slightly lower than yours. Wrestlers have an advantage with fasting/losing weight as we trained our bodies to be use to having a lack of food as many of us lose an abundance of weight for competition.

There's lots of benefits to fasting and allot of the top MMA fighters use that method. Below is GSP (A top semi-retired MMA fighter) talking about intermediate fasting.

Personally if I was going the one meal a day route I would eat that meal sometime after hours of waking up. The reasoning for this is because of our activity during the day will help burn the calories we consumed from our meal. Eating before going to bed doesn't have that advantage.

Good luck with your goals!

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Oh man, you as an athlete should be more careful about your sources. This guy is full of it.

Here are some scientific facts about I.F:

You can verify the citations of the videos below them.

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That guy is known as the best P4P MMA fighter of his generation and possibly ever. He is a two division MMA world champion (Only a handful of people in the world can say that) and a big part of his life has been centered around weight loss. I would give his opinion about fasting more weight than most others due to those facts.

I'm of the opinion what works for one may not work for others as our bodies may respond differently to a fast. So what GSP is claiming may very well be true for him and some others but if I or you done it we may not get the same results. I'm aware of the risks of fasting but with every article/claim of risk there is another saying its healthy which furthers my opinion of we are all different and fasting may be great for some but not so great for others.

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i mean why listen to a guy who has a proven track record of excellence in one of the most difficult sports of all time when there are some youtube videos from some channel that says something else?

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I sometimes skip my breakfast.... if that counts...
I don't think I could do full days with no food.. my cannabis intake would not allow it.

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Hi, @aggroed!

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the most important meal of the day😂😂

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Post 40 I'm finally gaining the belly fat and have thought about doing a cleanse not just for that but becuase my diet sucks off late. This is one I was considering, glad to hear the lemonade drink isn't terrible!

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Just go plant-based. Fasting is an eating protocol, not a diet.

Fasting for more than 3 days without medical supervision can have a disastrous effect on your health

You can verify the citations of the videos below them.

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Fasting more than a day is not healthy at all 🤨

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This seems a bit extreme. Hopefully, some balance will soon follow with the same desired result.

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This is so contemporary. Today i thought it would be great to just include a half a lemon in every berry smoothie and also decided to do that instead of coffee. After reading this post im more inspired. Never fasted before really. Maybe unintentionally. Good luck on the fast and thanks for the share.

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Neat stuff!

Congratulations on your appointment to the Board of Directors of the Steem Foundation.

Your willingness to assist the growing of our Blockchain, without expected recompense, is OUTSTANDING!

Post Script: Ah, fat? Comes with age. Glad you are being proactive though. Be well.

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