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Heard about the Lemonade Diet and thinking about giving it a try?
The Lemonade Diet, otherwise known as the Master Cleanse, is a cleansing or detox diet which claims to remove toxins and impurities from the body in 10 to 40 days.
While the Lemonade Diet has been around in various forms since 1976, and it has an undoubted impact on the digestive system, there are concerns surrounding it's safety and effectiveness. If you are considering undertaking The Lemonade Diet, it's vital that you educate yourself about the potential dangers of this plan.
The Lemonade Diet is based around the idea that it's possible to rid your body of impurities by drinking a particular beverage over an extended period of time to the exclusion of basically everything else.
The beverage in question is a combination of freshly squeezed lemon juice, grade B maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. While you are on a Master Cleanse you are required to drink a minimum of 6 glasses of the beverage a day. No solid food is allowed, and the only other drinks permitted are water, peppermint tea and a laxative tea. This plan is to be carried out for a minimum of ten days, and it's makers claim that it can be used for up to forty.
Nutritionists, however, warn that carrying out the plan for longer than ten days can be very dangerous.
The first few days of the plan are the most difficult. Cleansers usually experience detox symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tiredness, vomiting, cravings, and negative mood swings. In order to prevent dehydration, Cleansers are recommended to drink a glass of water between each glass of juice. Because of health concerns, cleansers who like to do this plan more than once a year are advised to wait at least three months, preferably up to six months between detoxes.
The major concerns with this plan centre on the lack of nutrition provided by the plan. All of the energy and nutrition for sustaining a healthy body come from the juice, and fibre in the plan is replaced by laxative tea, which is not the kind of fibre the body prefers. Lastly, this plan doesn't provide the minimum number of calories needed to keep the body functioning if you only have the six glasses of juice advocated by the plan. You need to have at least 12 glasses to get your calorie minimums.
If you are considering this detox plan, please exercise extreme caution, and don't continue the plan longer than ten days.
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