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I am on Day 7 of the Master Cleanse (1 cup water to 2 tbsp Grade b/grade 2 Organic Maple Syrup, 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1/12 tsp cayenne pepper - about 6-12x per day). I have done this for years, about 3x per year. I have usually lost about 6-10 pounds over the 10-14 days cleanse. I have been eating about 75% lacto-paleo for about 6 months and I havent been able to go all the way. I am going from a vegetarian mentality to paleo, so its been a slow process of re-education and changing food habits. Anyways, I have been feeling the need to cleanse and I wasnt sure how to do it Paleo style, so I am doing the Master Cleanse, which has been part of my life for about 7 years. I am finding this time that I have only lost 1-2 pounds in 7 days, which is weird... What I want to know is: 1. WHen I break the cleanse should I do the 1 full day of orange juice, then add a brothy veg soup for a day or two and build on veggies first then after 4 days or so add meat. Or if I should come off and go straight to fat and protein. I am worried about stomach problems... 2. When on Paleo, what is a better way to cleanse/detox your body? I know this is not paleo, but I didnt know what else to do. I dont thinkm I could go more than just one day on water alone.

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If you are going to do the Master Cleanse - do it as written. It is effective and as you add back foods you will know how fast to add them. Link to the MC booklet online: healthandlight.com/mastercleanse.pdf – Paleo Doll Apr 4 2011 at 14:31
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This is junk science, based on starvation of yourself and wasting your muscles. Please avoid. marksdailyapple.com/colon-cleanse-scam – Brad Apr 4 2011 at 16:09
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When you go several days straight without sufficient calories your body starts to break down muscle. How much do you value your lean muscle? – Risssa Apr 5 2011 at 3:16
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seriously, you do NOT waste your muscles. I haven't done this fast in years, but i've done it a few times. You are not hungry. You should be drinking enough of the maple syrup water/cayenne/lemon that you are not hungry. I was working a service job where i was so busy I was moving on my feet for 8 hours straight, nonstop, and when i say nonstop, i mean forget about sitting down for even a minute, and lets hope you can remember 5 things at once. I did this job while on the fast and had plenty of energy. My body was most certainly not eating muscle mass. That's just an uninformed assumption. – tartare Apr 8 2011 at 12:09
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incidentally, cayenne pepper also has an effect on insulin sensitivity. Are there better ways to regain health than doing this fast? Yes. Absolutely. A person could eat well over an extended period of time. Am I saying people should go do this fast? No. Do I think it may be a particularly bad idea to switch so abruptly from fat burning to sugar burning or vice versa? Probably. Would I advocate long term subsistence on sugar? Never. Am I going to listen to you spout off about something you are completely inexperienced with? No. Sorry. I know at least 15 people who've done this. – tartare Apr 8 2011 at 12:19
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11 Answers

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Chances are you are not losing a lot of "weight" because eating paleo there is a good chance that your body has retained less water then normal. So that 6-10 pounds you were losing is 99% water weight.

You simply do not have the water weight to lose, thus not going to see the scale go down.

Personally I never got the idea of a "Cleanse" eating paleo is a cleanse of all the crap out of most peoples diet. I look at diet it a very straight forward approach.

If what ever you are doing now you can not maintain for the rest of your life, there probably a good reason to not be doing it now.

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My friend used to do this cleanse then gain any "weight" he lost right back as soon as he ate food again. He went Primal/Paleo in January and within 6 weeks reshaped his body and dropped 25 lbs on the scale (probably more now).

He's not going to do the cleanse again. He is doing it every day by eating real food and avoiding toxins.

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Master Cleanse is pretty much just forced starvation of your body. It makes sense you'd lose more when you were eating SAD then on Paleo simply because your body has fewer "toxins" to rid itself of.

When I started eating paleo I lost about 8 pounds right off the bat (most likely similar "bad food weight"). But now its slowed down and I only lost 2 pounds this last week.

Just do yourself a favor and eat real food.

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You want ""master"" cleanse????

Go Paleo Detox... http://paleodetox.com/ ;-)

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Thx! Will check this out! – Almost Primal Apr 4 2011 at 13:24
Is it like the Whole30 program? – Almost Primal Apr 4 2011 at 13:28
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This is $350 worth of spam. You don't need to pay ANY money to do Paleo - there's plenty of resources out there for free. – Oranges13 Apr 4 2011 at 13:42
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Oh come on!!! The program has been developed by Chris Kresser from the blog The Healthy Skeptic. – Daniyal Nawaz Apr 4 2011 at 14:53
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If you want to do a "cleanse" I would suggest that you instead go zero carb for a little while (by which I mean the only carbs you'd eat are vegetable ferments, leafy greens, or fatty ones like olive and avocado) with an emphasis on organ meats, bone broth, and fermented foods. This will cut off any weight you need to lose, help starve out bad bacteria in the gut and elsewhere, and improve digestion. Over the long term, zero carb can create certain problems but in the short term, it seems like a good way to deal with several issues all at once and rebalance gut flora.

Meat is first, veggies are last. Meat is virtually the only toxin free food since it defends itself by running away, not producing goitrogens, lectins, oxalates, or whatever which virtually every vegetable does which is why we must cook them (except cucumbers and lettuce I guess).

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These "cleansing" and "detoxing" regimes are based on pseudoscience in my opinion. If someone can produce some evidence that they actually cleanse, or even a reasonable hypothesis as to why maple syrup and cayenne would have cleansing properties, I'd love to see it.

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I really don't think you need this detox thing. I eat no grains, seek to additional fiber in a suppliment and I have much better bowel movements than when I added fiber to my diet. Fiber is a market pitch to sell something cheap for profit. You Veg side is still holding you back

btw- any detox or start of a diet when have a quick 10-20 lb loss- it is all lower tact waste- not a bad thing but it is NOT weight loss that counts- it is weight lost that Jenny Craig or WW shove in front of you as some kind of BS proof.

Enjoy the journey

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hmmm, a lot of vehement denouncement of any potential real benefit of the Master Cleanse here without a lot of experience, I have to say I understand that to some extent, seeing as how i was a total skeptic years ago, when i worked with a lot of restaurant people who did this cleanse. Seemed extreme and unnecessary to me and I mocked it a bit. Finally, I tried it myself and I have to say I had extremely positive and long lasting results. I was fortunate in that the place I worked served organically farmed local meat and veg, and after my cleanse i found myself back on my preferred high fat high protein diet (though not paleo at the time). I honestly didn't do it for weight loss but I lost 20 lbs from about 147 to 127 in the 6 months immediately after the fast (I'm 5'7"). I stopped having cold sores, which I've had since i was a baby. On about the 6th day of the fast, I had more energy than I could ever remember having since maybe childhood. I felt amazing. My skin felt like a baby's ass, and I've always had what I would consider really good blemish free skin. Frankly I think the big benefit of this type of cleanse is no solid food intake for days combined with taking a laxative tea or saltwater flush daily (read, you'd better do it when you can spend your mornings in the loo). I think this really does let your body get rid of stored up gut junk - I have always been a healthy eater and fortunate in this respect, but honestly I had stuff to uh get rid of 7 days into this fast having eaten no solid food.

I think it's a valuable thing for a lot of people, and while I disagree with a lot of the fast inventor's premises, I honestly do think it can have real benefits. There, I've said it.

To the author of the question, not sure about the oj, I would say first day of oj then a good broth, could even be a meat broth, i would however be very careful and slow with the reintroduction of dairy. good luck.

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marksdailyapple.com/colon-cleanse-scam – Brad Apr 4 2011 at 14:24
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like i said, i've actually tried it, and it did good things for me. Funny that lots of folks here would swear by intermittent fasting, though freak out at the notion of a longer fast. I guess sine Mark Sisson said it, it must be true. – tartare Apr 4 2011 at 18:43
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Fasting is best when all your ducks are in a row. Long term fasting is a-okay on occasion but it's probably more healthy and more sustainable for a newb to jump right into the diet, heal, and then toy with fasting. But point taken that the master cleanse is really a long fast with some sugar water in the morning. – No more. Apr 5 2011 at 15:29
agreed Andrew. Actually, it's a salt-water-make-you-poop-flush in the morning and sugar water all day long :) – tartare Apr 8 2011 at 14:25
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Gee, sugar water. That sounds healthy. Great for insulin sensitivity, eh? – Alix Apr 26 2011 at 7:11
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I have done the Master Cleanse several times with excellent benefits - it is alkalinizing for the body and does move old stuff on out of the body in my experience. I expect I will choose to do it again sometime in the future. But as for using it to segue more deeply into Paleo - I would suggest more reading here and on the Paleo/Primal blogs about the science of digestion, the way raw versus cooked food and vegan versus meat & fat are used by the body to motivate you to go "all the way'. As for coming off the cleanse - do it as written and then add in all your paleo foods. You may find it easier to be all the way paleo after the cleanse. It is a rest for the mind and gives a break from the old foods. I am a recent convert from years of trying to make the raw vegan diet work for me and am now happily on day 27 of the Paleo Solution Experiment - and really doing well. The Master Cleanse is a faster cleanse for the body - from lack of food, but eating easily digested excellent meat, fat, veg and some fruit will clean you out too.

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Had to register because this post is right on point for me. I'm on day 5 of a Master Cleanse and intend to transition to Paleo in some way after that. I can't imagine going directly from a grain-based diet into Paleo -- for me, I want to start from a very clean place (esp. colon-wise) before I start in on a meat-based diet. I agree that coming off the Master Cleanse in the intended way, and then transitioning into Paleo, sounds like the reasonable way to go. That's what I plan to do in (X) number of days. Haven't decided what X is yet. Master Cleanse is intended for 10-40 days. – Pale-O-Girl Jun 16 2011 at 15:39
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I would suggest very highly against doing anything like the Master Cleanse, anymore. Most detox programs are actually forcing your body into starvation mode. There's also no scientific evidence that it removes 'toxins' from the body. Most of the effects come from a mixture of the way starvation works on the body, and a placebo effect. Almost all the effects claimed by these programs have been found to be either questionable, or outright false, when put to study.

Most weight loss on these programs is water weight, which is why you would see such a flux in the amount of weight dropped, as you were likely carrying less water weight at the time. Other weight is lost because these diets are usually extremely low calorie, to highly unsafe levels.

While there hasn't been any real evidence of harm in the short term, in the long term such diets can lead to nutritional deficiencies, and in some cases can very well be fatal. If you are eating healthy, your body will regulate itself eventually, and bring itself into balance. Detox programs are at best pointless, and at the worst, dangerous. The Master Cleanse is one of the ones that can be very dangerous.

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IF has been more cleansing while eating delicious Paleo type foods than any established cleanse I have ever done, and I've done a lot of cleanses, including the MC...all others really messed up my metabolism and made me sick, while IF is bringing me vibrant health!

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