Just saw this online ad while I was surfing the Web a while ago, where a company was gonna pay up to more than $6,000 for overweight men to give them sperm samples for a clinical research… Eight sperm samples in a six-month period… but only if you’re healthy… and overweight… with a BMI (body mass index) of 27-35…
And I said to myself – where the FUCK was this ad six months ago?!
This was what I did, and this was what happened…
First of all, a BIG disclaimer: Do your research before you do this – this is called the Lemonade Diet or Master Cleanse system, and you can easily google it. Make sure you know the advantages and disadvantages, the pros and cons, the positive and negative feedback before you try this… what may work for me may not work for you, so please do not sue me if you suddenly experience anything you’re unhappy about… I’m sharing this because people have been asking, and I would like to make it more convenient to me and them by just linking to this note on Facebook 
I’m no expert on this, and I won’t claim to be, but all I’ll do is tell you what I know about it, what I did, what I felt, and what the results were.
WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO DO:
Without going into all the scientific mumbo jumbo, this process is supposed to cleanse your system, by getting rid of the toxins that accumulate in your intestines through the years. A couple years ago, someone once told me that the crap in your system contributes a lot to your weight… it wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized he was inadvertently speaking literally.
The benefit of this system is that it cleanses your body, gets rid of the toxins, and makes you less susceptible to diseases and other sicknesses. And the side effect of this is, of course, losing weight. You’ll be losing 1/2 to 1 pound each day with this if you don’t cheat.
(For those in the know, treat this as kind of like Glutathione, wherein its primary purpose is to essentially make the liver healthier, and the side effect is skin whitening, haha… you know what I mean!)
WHAT IT DID FOR ME:
I did this diet when I took a two-month vacation to Santa Fe, New Mexico with my brother (June 23 to August 21). I was 210 lbs when I weighed myself on the first day of this thing (June 29), and six weeks later I was 174 lbs (August 15). So essentially I lost 36 lbs total in six weeks before I went back to normal eating.
WHO SHOULD NOT DO THIS:
If you have a heart condition, or have acid reflux disease, or pretty much have an ailment that prevents you from drastically changing your eating habits, DO NOT DO THIS.
Ingredients for the Lemonade Diet
INGREDIENTS:
(Note: This is my daily preparation)
(2) Lemons or Limes *
(14) Tablespoon maple syrup **
(1/4) Teaspoon cayenne (red) pepper
(2) Liters water (preferably 2 1-liter bottles)
(Optional daily) ***
(2-3) Teaspoon Seasalt
(1) Liter water
(1) Glass herbal laxative tea
Adult Diaper (hehe)
* Do not use bottled or canned lemon/lime juice. Use “freshly squeezed”, as in squeeze it yourself
** Use “genuine” maple syrup, not maple-flavored sugar syrup, etc. And see if you can get Grabe B syrup – if not, it doesn’t matter
*** You can prepare this if you want the full cleanse effect (and if you can handle the taste… I couldn’t, so I didn’t do it everyday). Use Seasalt, not iodized salt, and only drink that seasalt solution when you have nothing else to do, because you’ll be making frequent trips to the toilet every 15-30 minutes. You can drink herbal laxative tea before you sleep so you won’t be interrupted by continued bowel movements. And the adult diaper? Well, this is just in case the bowel movements do not wake you up 
DIRECTIONS:
1.) Mix the lemon/lime juice with 14 tbsp maple syrup and ¼ tsp cayenne (red) pepper in a large container, then pour 2 liters of water in it. Stir and mix well. If it has seeds, you can remove it.
2.) Pour the solution into 2 liters worth of bottles (i.e. 1 2-liter bottle, or 2 1-liter bottles, or 4 500-ml bottles, etc).
3.) This lemonade solution will be all you will drink for the whole day. NO SOLID FOODS, NO JUICE, NO SODA… and NO CHEATING!
4.) You are allowed to drink regular water during the day but nothing else.
5.) I found it best to prepare this the night before so you can refrigerate the lemonade solution. Do it before you sleep.
6.) It is best to drink the lemonade solution when you feel hunger pangs. Otherwise, just try your best to make the 2-liters worth of lemonade last you the entire day until you sleep… drink regular water to pace yourself.
7.) Do not watch the Food Network or Cooking shows, hehe.
WHEN AND HOW OFTEN SHOULD I DO THIS:
You will need to prepare and drink this solution during the weekdays (Mon-Fri), and eat regularly (but sensibly) during the weekends. I myself ate only chicken/turkey breast, soup and cantaloupe. And try your best to avoid eating RICE or BREAD.
The minimum time to do this is 10 days (two weeks), and the maximum is 40 days (eight weeks). I did it for six weeks and lost 36 pounds total (210 to 174). Your results may vary.
WHAT DO I DO AFTER THIS:
After you have finished this diet, you would need to eat very sensibly and watch what you eat, otherwise, the pounds you lost will come back REALLY fast. I stuck with my chicken/turkey breast, soup and cantaloupe meal for two weeks following this and I only gained back about 2 lbs before I started doing P90X.
Continue avoiding rice or bread the best you can, and stay away from soda. Consider this as a starting point, a blank slate, and what happens from here is up to you.
CAN I WORK OUT WHILE DOING THIS:
I would strongly suggest against it, especially if you want to do some strength training and rigorous cardio. This diet won’t give you enough protein, carbs, calories, etc and your body will need it when you work out. Hence, if you try working out rigorously while doing this, you might crash or your body will start eating into your muscle mass coz it can’t find anything else to eat…
So what can you do? I walked about 2-5 miles a day when I did this… walked, not ran…
IS THIS A STARVATION DIET OR A PLACEBO DIET:
Since you’re basically supplying your body with the needed nutrients and nothing else, it isn’t technically a starvation diet. As for being a placebo diet, you don’t need to “think” you will lose weight in order for this to work – your body will do it for you. As I said, weight loss is just a side effect, not the purpose of this diet…
IT’S TOO HARD or IT TASTES GROSS or I DON’T SEE ANY CHANGES:
Iif you begin to feel sick or it starts affecting your work or daily activities, consider STOPPING the diet. The first week will be the hardest, so if you can “survive” the first week, the rest will be easier… As for the taste, it is like sweet lemonade with a pepper aftertaste, nothing you will barf (at least, I didn’t). As for the changes, as I said, your results may vary. If you are more than 30 lbs overweight, you will see MORE changes than if you were only 10 lbs overweight.
LAST WORD:
Again, try this at your own risk. Do your research. Google it. Hell, try to contradict or debunk me, I don’t care. I know it worked for me, and I’m telling you what I did. If it works for you, congratulations. If it doesn’t, at least you tried. If you think it’s too hokey to try, then don’t. It’s a free country.
Post a comment if you have any questions or if you think I missed something. And GOOD LUCK!
Finished Final Fantasy VII, yay! Read my thoughts about it in my forums (if you haven’t finished the game and you are currently playing or planning to play it, then don’t fuckin click on the link! hehe).
Awesome episode of Smallville last Tuesday. I think the most awesome thing about it, apart from Christopher Reeve’s character giving Tom Welling’s Clark Kent a fantastic amount of revelation about his past, was the music in the background. It was the theme from Fortress of Solitude by John Williams, altho it was rearranged to include the 8-note intro to superman fanfare before the commercial break, while it was closing up on Reeve’s face. That part gave me shivers. Call me a sentimental geek, but the Superman theme gives the Star Wars theme a big run for its money…
Anyway, I’ll be putting up a couple DVD reviews this weekend – hopefully jumpstarting my movies section and prompting me to do regular updates. Tagalog Word of the Day would also be coming back (altho it would realistically be the Tagalog Word of the Week). I’m watching Airheads right now (believe it or not, I haven’t watched this thing yet) … seems cool, the intro song is “Born to raise Hell” … by Motorhead, I think… or it sounds like em, anyway…
Oh, did I mention that this is the eight straight month that I haven’t smoked a cigarette? Yeah, go me!
I skipped gym today coz I still had some pain in my right leg from last Tuesday’s cramp attack. I’ll resume on Sunday, when I have gotten enough rest and ready to get into the gruelling workout once again.
Anyway, I got a bit of good news today. I just learned today that what I thought was a temporary contractual job until the end of the month has become a long-term employment venture. Yep, I seemed to have joined the American workforce once again. It may have come under some dubious and unexpected circumstances, but money is money, and a job is a job. I am being paid good so far, and with this extended little venture, there is a possibility of being paid better. Things seem to be looking up – I’ll treat this as an early birthday present, if nothing else…
Well, today really sucked at the gym.
I had a really painful leg cramp, the first one I had since I started working out again. This one hit me in the middle of the treadmill like a sledgehammer. One moment I was jogging with gusto, the next this excruciating, stinging pain was hitting my leg from all sides. I nearly fell off the damn machine… I had cold sweats after I got off, not only because of the pain, but also because of a little embarrasment at my brief moment of vulnerability.
I dunno what brought it on … perhaps it was caused by me wearing my leather shoes to work and walking a couple of blocks with it. I felt a very slight, throbbing pain early in the day, but I shrugged it off, coz I often get those sensations after I’ve walked a bit on bad shoes. Well, now I learned my lesson – I’m gonna wear my rubbers to work – rubber shoes that is…
Gah, I hate Macs … the missing right-click really drove me crazy yesterday. I mean, my God, how anyone can survive without a two or three button mouse is mind-boggling…
Anyway, it wasn’t a bad first day … I just spent almost the entire day trying to accustom myself to the Mac environment. Good thing they were using Adobe Photoshop 6 – familiar territory to me. But Quark Xpress is another matter, altogether. I was used to Adobe Pagemaker in the past (it was still called Aldus Pagemaker, back then), not to mention the extended amount of time that I lst used an industrial-strength layout and publishing tool. Quark Xpress had a familiar interface, but the controls were another matter… and it was troublesome to use it without the manual (which, according to my new co-workers, wasn’t available, since my predecessor apparently installed a warez copy of it…) so I had to click and execute everything I see just to check out what it does…
My workstation consisted of two Macs – a G4 and an iMac – both running Mac OS 9.1. So as you can imagine, it was a PC guy’s worst nightmare. And the fact that the G4 crashed every now and then while I was using Photoshop didn’t help matters, either. And the way it crashed was no better than Windows – sometimes it’ll just freeze, and I had to reboot. It was an awful interface (or maybe I’m just not used to it). But I began to appreciate Windows more and more as I labored through the Mac’s uncomfortable environment. But the mouse … jesus … the mouse…
So anyway, I’m going back to work on Monday. his was only a contractual job, so it’s not yet a regular thing (and I was debating on whether to be delighted or anxious). Besides, it’s not liek I had anything better to do. The only hassle was that I had to reschedule my workout a bit, coz there was no LA Fitness branch near that part of the city.
Speaking of workout, my friend Ion just sent me a training routine so that I can achieve the Incredible Hulk form (without the green paint and the funky hairdo). Well, I doubt I’ll be Lou Ferrigno ANYTIME in my lifetime, but it’s a start. I hope to be big and buff by Christmas – something I have never done ANYTIME in my lifetime…
Some things to add to my chicken breast obsession – Sunflower brand crackers and Lucky Me Instant Mami (La Paz Bachoy flavor).
I remember the Lucky Me Instant Mami very fondly when I was in college. It used to be my staple meal every night at the dormitory, especially during Thursday and Friday, when my allowance has slowed down to a trickle … it was cheap, it was tasty, and it was filling. What a hungry college student needs
I have a new fascination this week – chicken breast sandwiches.
I bought one from Subway after my workout today, and man, it was the next best thing to a burger that I can eat, without having to worry about the fat. Hence, I will make it a point to go to Albertson’s tomorrow and buy a few pounds of chicken breast. Then I’ll chuck them into the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine (yeah, I have one of those), and make myself a mean chicken breast sandwich. This’ll make my diet a little more bearable.
Alice entertained me while I was working out this afternoon…
Alice in Chains, that is, as I brought my CD walkman to the gym today with Nothing Safe on it. This was the first time I brought some music to a gym – ever. And I was surprised to see that I was missing out on a lot. My session at the treadmill was actually longer today, because time flies when you’re listening to tunes. Before I knew it, I was on the damn machine for close to 100 minutes! It’s gotta be a record for me. And all of it because I was listening to the now-deceased Layne Staley belting out killer vocals for Man in the Box, Got Me Wrong and What The Hell Have I? It was weird – I never listened to rock and roll or metal while working out. I liked it! And I just realized one thing from this experience.
We usually buy CDs only to listen to one, two or maybe three songs in it, and totally ignore the rest of the songs, often not even listening to them. Well, when you’re running on the treadmill and just listening to whatever music is currently on, this gives you the opportunity to listen to ALL the songs in the CD because, hey, it’s not like you got anything better to listen to while getting a sweat!
Anyway, tomorrow, I think I’m gonna bring my Soundgarden compilation … or maybe a couple Counting Crows CDs… or better yet, some Aerosmith … ah, choices choices…
I just came back from the gym (my second day of resuming my workouts), and my whole body is sore. I feel like I just ran an 8-mile uphill marathon, and then got hit by a semi truck at the finish line… then got massaged by a drunk sumo wrestler, and then dragged back to the starting line by the said semi truck, with bobby pins littered across the ground and sharp, jagged rocks lining the sides of the… Okay, maybe it wasn’t “exactly” like that, but you get the idea…
For the past couple of days I have also changed my diet – no more semi-daily runs to Carl’s Jr. or Burger King for a Superstar Burger or a Whopper, no more take-out orders from Pizza Hut or El Pollo Loco, no more snack runs to 7-11 or Albertsons for Cheetos, Doritos, ice cream or soda, and no more nocturnal pig-out rituals where I sit in front of the computer munching my Cheetos or gobbling my ice cream at 3AM in the morning… This was like, well, war. I thought that, since I could convince myself to suddenly stop smoking last week, maybe I could convince myself to not eating a lot either. And lemme tell you, I thought not smoking was hard. The sudden diet change is excruciating at best. But hey, I’m holding up (so far).
I also got back from the grocery store, buying some cold cuts, some wheat bread, some dietary snack bars (Slim Fast bars, to be precise), and two boxes of crackers. I know I know, a good diet is supposed to be gradual and transitional, not an all-out semi-hunger strike. But I don’t do transitional. I don’t do gradual. If I wanna change something, it’s either now or never. The stronger the urge, the more I can exercise control. And as Yoda once said,“control, control, you must have control!”
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