the lemonade diet

[shanti]

has anyone tried this diet (lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper in water) and if so, what have been your results? i just heard of it today. it's supposed to be a an internal cleansing diet.

[redqueen]

1. Holy crap

that sounds awful! I think it would work for me -- it would make me too sick to my stomach to eat!

[shanti]

well

you also have to drink a quart of water with a teaspoon of sea salt in it every morning. now THAT is the worst part, imo, but it's supposed to totally cleanse you of toxins. the salt water part must be done first thing in the morning, but you have to be prepared to sit on the john for awhile as it gives you watery runs. cute,huh?:-(

[amazona]

6. whoa!

That sounds a bit iffy to me. Way too much sodium unless you are running a marathon in the Sahara Desert or something. What does it profit to have a clean colon if you're dead of heart disease? I thought I'd heard 'em all but that's a new one for me.

One of my friends would abuse OTC laxatives to lose weight and I'll be honest with you, while in theory it seems like you would have to lose weight, she never looked as if she did -- she stayed a permanent 10 or 15 pounds over. So I wouldn't be too confident that this diet would even be that effective unless it nearly killed you?

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

2. Well

There are better cleansing diets than that out there, if you look. This one you're referring to doesn't sound like it'd be that great, and you could only do it for a couple days or you'd get sick.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. I've done it to cleanse while fasting but not as a "diet"

I've done 7 and 9 day fasts where that is all you have. It does work to cleanse and serves that purpose. I've not used it as a diet per se because when one fasts, they do lose water weight and shrink their apetite as a result but within one week of fasting can simply gain it back by returning to their usual eating routine.

Fasting is not for the weak willed...about day 3 or 4 you can get a massive headache that you need to move through to stay with it.

[latebloomer]

4. I did it for about a week once

It also involved drinking some kind of colon-cleansing powders mixed with water. The maple syrup keeps your blood sugar up-- you swig at it all day.

We read about it in a book my husband bought about preventing prostate cancer.

Seemed like a pretty good cleanser, though I'd like to try fresh-squeezed organic juices instead.

Warning-- one morning I mistakenly put twice the salt in the water, and instead of it acting like an enema it also served as an emetic-- I was blowing it out both ends! Not fun.

[amazona]

5. slight variations I've tried

When I was more active in my eating disorders, I would drink lemon juice (freshly squeezed, thank you!) in water. This would be breakfast. You'll lose weight whether you need to or not but you'll be hungry. As far as cleansing, I think simpler is better -- no sugar, no pepper, save those for another day.

In any case, I wouldn't do the maple syrup (or the blackstrap molasses, which was the ingredient in my day) except when I was trying to maintain weight - such as, I was ill and had really already lost too much weight and was trying to get my health back.

Another variation I have tried is 1 tablespoon cider vinegar (instead of the lemon juice) plus 1 tablespoon natural local honey plus enough hot water to make a mug of tea. I guess you could throw some cayenne pepper in there, why not, as bad as it tastes anyway, who would notice. This was supposed to stop my hair from falling out, and this it did (although it wouldn't work for male pattern baldness, it is for female hormonal hair issues) but LORD it tasted so nasty that if my hair starts acting up again I might just let it go! This too was supposed to be breakfast. I wouldn't call it cleansing -- again, too much sugar for that -- but it served its humble purpose.

I think it depends on WHY you are cleansing how effective this diet will be. If it's to lose weight, lose the sugar. If it's to regain health, the syrup or a good local honey or blackstrap molasses is probably fine although perhaps not the health foods they were once claimed to be.

I know, all fad diets and fasts are bad, evil, etc. but sometimes we must indulge ourselves. :-)