Lose Weight, Have More Energy and Be Happier in 10 Days. Peter Glickman

personally done it more than nine times from ten to twenty-eight days (and once for three days)—all within two years. Burroughs is right about ten days being the minimum. The three-day Master Cleanse left me feeling as though nothing had been accomplished. I can hear you saying, “Ten days?! Is he crazy?” Amazingly, you will not be hungry and you will have more energy than you felt before the Master Cleanse.

      In addition to my own longer Master Cleanses, I know of three other people who have done it for twenty days. All of us found that there were spiritual gains after eight or ten days: a clarity of purpose, a sense of focus, a feeling of well being, and a discovery that our natural emotion is one of cheerful satisfaction.

      Burroughs says the best sign that the Master Cleanse is complete is a clear, pink tongue. Your tongue will definitely get coated and turn white and possibly other colors. Not everyone continues until their tongue is clear and pink. If you want to quit sooner, you can. The Master Cleanse is not like a school grade that you only do once. You can do it three or four times a year, each time detoxing more. Most stop at ten days

      regardless of tongue color. However, ten days is long enough to make a major change in your weight, health and mental outlook.

      How soon can you do another Master Cleanse? It’s best to space out your Master Cleanses by three or four months and eat lots of fresh greens and salads in between or drink daily green smoothies. You need to build up your calcium, magnesium and potassium reserves because the body uses those alkaline minerals to neutralize the toxins before they are eliminated. Very rarely (three out of a thousand), a person has done a Master Cleanse every month for several months in a row, which resulted in temporary hair loss. It was handled by taking lots of vitamins and minerals, but it is better to avoid that.

      Refined sugar reduces calcium in the bones and teeth as the body needs to balance the blood chemistry after eating sugar, and it uses calcium to do that, which it will pull from the teeth and bones if there is no alkaline mineral reserve. Perhaps the epidemic of osteoporosis is no more than the popularity of a diet with too much sugar and not enough fresh, raw greens! By the way, milk is not a good source of calcium for building reserves. It is too hard for most people to digest it.

      2. Laxative Tea

      Drink one cup of herbal laxative tea before bed on the night before and every night thereafter while you are on the cleanse, unless you have diarrhea. (Diarrhea is NOT watery eliminations within two hours of drinking the salt water flush.) If you have diarrhea, discontinue the laxative tea and salt water flush until it stops. You can buy herbal laxative tea in most health food stores. There are two types I am aware of: pure senna tea and combinations of senna with other herbs. I recommend herbal laxative bags with 50 percent senna leaf rather than pure senna leaf tea. Senna is a powerful laxative and too much may cause cramps, particularly in the later days of a cleanse when there is little in the intestines. Although not painful, they are uncomfortable and can cause unnecessary concern. If such cramps do occur, they can be turned off quite quickly by drinking water or lemonade.

      I personally did not have any problem with senna until my third Master Cleanse. Then I felt uncomfortably strong contractions and switched to a combination tea. Occasionally, when I run out of the combination, I’ll make half a cup and dilute it. Two of the combination teas are Smooth Move and Get Regular.

      I have been asked (rarely) if senna is addictive or will cause damage. I have never seen or heard of damage or addiction with any of the thousands of people who have done the Master Cleanse of whom I am aware. Perhaps 10 percent have reported uncomfortable cramps. In my experience, the cramps have disappeared when the salt water or lemonade is drunk and can be avoided by using the combination teas. The senna box warns not to give it to children or to drink more than two cups per day. The combination box says not to drink more than four cups per day and half that for children from six to twelve years old.

      3. Salt Water Flush

      Before drinking any lemonade, each day of the cleanse, drink a quart of water with two teaspoons of non-iodized sea salt. Drink it all at once or as close to that as you can. Non-iodized sea salt is sea salt that does not say “Iodine added” or “Iodized.” It is easier to drink than bleached pure white table salt. The other reason to use non-iodized sea salt is that it contains vital trace minerals that your body needs. Non-iodized sea salt does not mean no iodine. It means no additional iodine has been added. Any brand will do. I personally recommend Light Grey Celtic Sea Salt, which can be found at most health food stores. Do not drink any lemonade or take any prescribed medications for a half hour after drinking the salt water.

      This should produce several urgent and intense eliminations within an hour. If it does not, gradually increase the amount of sea salt. If that does not work, try a little less sea salt. These urgent eliminations generally take place for forty-five to sixty minutes. Plan two hours before you leave the house after drinking the salt water flush. After a couple days of salt water flushes, you can gauge how much time you need, but two hours is generally safe.

      Some people have trouble with drinking the salt water. Be sure you stir the salt water so the salt is evenly distributed in the drink just before you drink it. It will be easier to drink and it is more effective. I believe it is very important to include it. So try everything you can. My wife found it helpful to drink it through a straw or to count the number of swallows as you drink it. Do not add anything to the salt water to make it taste better. Stay with the program. If you find that you absolutely cannot drink the salt water, Burroughs says you can drink another cup of herbal laxative tea in the morning instead. However, the laxative stimulates the muscles of the intestinal wall to contract and mechanically move the waste through. The salt water flushes whatever loose waste is in the digestive tract and the salt also helps to dissolve the mucus and waste.

      Many people have noticed that it is much easier to drink the salt water flush on later days of a cleanse. I believe this may be because the body reacts more dramatically when it has more mucus in the system and, as that gets cleaned out, the body has less reaction to the salt water flush.

      The reason for two teaspoons of salt is to increase the weight (specific gravity) of the salt water until it matches the weight of blood. Specific gravity is how heavy the substance is compared to an equal volume of water. When the salt water and the blood are the same weight, the body will treat the salt water as though it were blood, not absorb the salt from the digestive system, and will just “flush” the salt water through the system instead of absorbing it.

      People who have recently been on the Atkins diet or any heavy meat and dairy diet may need two or three days before the flush produces eliminations. This is because meat and dairy are frequently hard to digest and build up waste that clogs the colon.

      After the Master Cleanse, you may do the salt water flush whenever you want to clean your intestines. Just be sure to do it on an empty stomach.

      4. The Drink: Lemons, Maple Syrup, Cayenne, Water

      If you drink less than six glasses a day, you will not lose as much weight and may have more severe detox symptoms. Here are the recipes:

      Ideal recipe, if freshly extracted sugar cane juice is available:

      • 10 ounces of medium-hot or cold, freshly extracted sugar cane juice

      • 2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) of fresh squeezed lemon/lime juice

      • 1/10 teaspoon of cayenne pepper or to taste

      Next best recipe:

      • 2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) of freshly squeezed lemon/lime juice

      • 2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) of organic Grade B maple syrup

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