In this time and age, when the food is loaded with hidden ingredients that fatten us and when our lifestyle makes us all prone to being less physically active than we should be, keeping up to speed with the latest diets is a health necessity. Of course, no one is advertising excessive dieting here, but a well-chosen diet can have benefits going well beyond weight loss, and more into the territory of durable health perks. Such is the case of the much-raved about lemonade detox diet, which will be the focus of today’s article.
Also called the Master Cleanse diet, the lemonade detox diet is an extreme fasting regime that boasts to make you drop pounds (by eliminating surplus water and toxins from your body) but to also make your body healthier overall. This diet has its critics, but it also has its fans among celebrities (like Beyoncé, for example). If you’re curious about whether to try the lemonade detox diet yourself or not, here is a comprised version of what major reviews have to say on the subject.
The Basic Principles of the Lemonade Detox Diet
It all started with a book called “The Master Cleanser” by Stanley Burrough, which first boasted this lemonade detox diet as an awesome way to detox, lose some pounds, feel more energetic, radiant and healthy after only 10 days, as well as curb your appetite for unhealthy foods in the future. The idea was then picked up and popularized by many other authors as well, becoming quite a fashion fad among regular people and celebrities alike. Still, considering the extreme calorie cut of this diet, no one is advertising it as a balanced and permanent way of life, but more like an intense cure only to be employed once a season or even rarer than that.
How does the Lemonade Detox Diet Work?
- You have to follow a 10 day plan in order for the diet to work. There’s no solid food allowed during this 10 day period.
- On Day 1: Prepare to part with all solid food. From now one, you’re only allowed to have one of three drinks: a lemonade-like drink, a salt water flush, and a herbal tea.
- The ingredients for the lemonade recipe are water, lemon juice, a bit of maple syrup (around 10 oz to a gallon of water) and a pinch of cayenne pepper. The result will be a spicy drink with very few calories that will allegedly stimulate your metabolism and make you lose toxins. Some recipes allow making it with sparkling water if you want; some don’t as it would lead to bloating. The official directions of the diet don’t explicitly advise against, so use sparkling water if you like it.
- The salt water flush is basically water with just half a teaspoon of salt to a gallon mixed in. You can have a glass of it once a day, as soon as you get tired of the lemonade’s tart and sweet taste.
- As for the herbal tea, you must choose something that stimulates drainage – mint, fennel, chamomile and such.
- On Day 3, you should have become accustomed to the diet a bit, and you can increase the dosage of cayenne pepper, if you think you can take it.
- On Day 5 you may start experiencing fatigue and headaches, but according to the diet’s supporters, you mustn’t give up.
- On Day 7 things will already be much easier, you will already notice the positive outcome of the diet, and your metabolism will have adjusted itself by then to make you less hungry and less craving for unhealthy and calorie-rich foods.
- After Day 10 you may begin reintroducing solid foods into your diet, but only gradually, and starting with fruits and vegetables.
The PROs
- The before and after success stories have shown remarkable results in terms of weight loss. Oe thing’s for sure: the diet can indeed make one significantly more slender.
- Celebrities such as Beyonce are surely coming back and back again to this diet. If it wasn’t efficient for them, they wouldn’t do it.
- It has been linked to positive results of colon cleansing.
- Each positive review also indicates the bonus of making your skin, hair and nails shinier and healthier.
- It’s cheap and doesn’t require much time either. Each drink is very easy and fast to prepare, but please try to make it yourself, instead of using a pre-made Sunkist or Minute Maid lemonade. (Also, don’t use the Chick-Fil-A lemonade either, since it’s sweetened with Splenda instead of the maple syrup which the lemonade detox diet requires.)
The CONs
- Critics say that a drastic calorie cut such as the one imposed by the lemonade detox diet can be simply too extreme and that even though you’ll lose weight, you may also lose bone and muscle mass in the process.
- Among the dangers or side-effects of this diet is the so-called yo-yo effect that will make you gain back the weight lost very fast after picking up your old eating habits. (Still, the testimonials of people who reported successful experiences with this diet seem to indicate that the diet curbs appetite, so the danger of the yo-yo effect is smaller compared to other diets.)
- People who have underlying health problems (such as diabetes or a heart condition) can be at risk of aggravating their illness with this diet.
Conclusion
All in all, we think that the lemonade detox diet is convenient to try and safe enough on the condition that you don’t suffer from any health condition, including an eating disorder. It does indeed pose the risk of getting dizzy or otherwise feeling sick from such an extreme cut, but at least it’s all natural and it doesn’t involve you popping any “miraculous” Dr Oz diet pills. As long as you’re healthy and you don’t do it more than twice a year, you should be fine. Make sure you also follow a balanced diet in the rest of the time, as well as healthy lifestyle tips, and the lemonade detox diet will surely work its magic for you. Good luck!
DrWealth