Sam Sinfield

It has now been 5 days since I finished the master cleanse.

The first day after I came off it, i followed the instructions for most of the day and just drank fresh orange juice. Late afternoon I moved onto smoothies and then I had a salad for dinner and I was fine. I had a smoothy for breakfast the following day and was in extreme agony with the worst heartburn I have ever experienced. I ate solid food and was fine and drank alcohol in the evening. I have completely gone off lager, that was a bit of a disappointment, I had to switch to cider and black.

My alcohol tolerance is still basically the same as it was before. My food tastes have changed. I do want things like salad more. I had a chinese yesterday and it tasted really really bland. My appetite has reduced and my eating habits have changed. I never feel hungry and I keep forgetting to eat. After a night out in the pub, my mates went to the chippy and I went home and made a salad. Mad!

I weighed myself yesterday and I’m now 9stone 6 which is brilliant. I haven’t been this weight since I was about 21 and I can fit into all my old clothes. I went shopping yesterday and it felt good being able to fit into everything I wanted, I bought myself an extremely short dress.

I feel fantastic, which was the whole point of doing the cleanse. I feel revitalised and healthy and am planning to do my next cleanse in a couple of months.

Hooray, I’ve completed the cleanse. I’ve ran out of maple syrup so I’ve only had one glass on lemonade today so have survived on mineral water and mint tea.

I am feeling quite week and sinuses are still full of crap but I feel good in myself, healthy and clean. I’m not having cravings anymore at all although i do feel hungry, since I’m not having any lemonade.

My tongue is still slightly white, if i had enough maple syrup left, I would carry on till 14days as i feel like I’m not completely detoxed yet and would benefit from an extra few days but the maple syrup is too expensive.

Now for the important stuff:

• weight: 9st 4
• chest: 31inches
• waist: slightly under 28inches
• hips: slightly under 39inches

I’ve lost loads of weight (11lbs), which I expect to gain most of back in the next few days, but not a lot of inches.

I have to break the fast carefully, with day 11 only on fresh squeezed orange juice and then moving onto more solid food on day 12 so I will carry on blogging my progress.

I would do this detox again and am going to aim to do it the recommended 3-4times/year. You do have to have a lot of willpower cause basically you are giving up an addiction. I think it does help if you are doing it for the overall effects, i.e. the detox and the weight loss rather than just the weight loss

Well, day 9 already, only 1 more day to go.

My craving for food has gone (at the moment). I’m still 9stone 6 so I haven’t lost anymore weight, still 10 lbs lost. I haven’t got much maple syrup left so I’ve had to reduce my rations of lemonade to below the minimum recommended and I can feel it in my energy levels.

My head still feel very clear so it’s been worth doing it just for that. My sinuses are still full of crap. The throat feel like it’s getting better. I’m tired, my eyes feel a bit sore and my muscles ache a bit going up stairs. Considering the way i was feeling when I started this cleanse, I’m not feeling considerably different now. Just clearer headed, lighter and I feel kinda healthy, apart from the tiredness which is probably due to the reduction in lemonade.

I have stopped taking the laxative tea since i woke up at 3am and had extreme stomach cramps for about 15mins. I am still doing the salt water flushes though

I didn’t blog yesterday cause I was busy all day and didn’t manage to get the time to sit down at the computer.

Today is the end of day 8 and still going strong. Only 2 days to go. This morning I weighted 9st 6, that’s a loss of 10lbs. My clothes are very lose and I haven’t been this weight since I was about 19. I’m going to be very upset putting it back on after the fast.

Yesterday was very difficult with the cravings. I took the kids to Macdonald’s drive through for an ice cream and got them a Caramel Deluxe MacFlurry each. I was drooling. It has taken every bit of my willpower to stick to this.

Today has been quite easy. I was very tired and achy this morning when i woke up but was feeling fine after 3 glasses of lemonade. I then went out for the afternoon and didn’t take any lemonade with me. By the time I got home, my joints were aching, my muscles were aching and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I struggled to walk up the stairs. After 2 glasses of lemonade, I was right as rain and got on with all the housework. I don’t know how people manage on a water only fast.

I have still got the cold and cough, it does seem a bit better but it would probably be like this if I wasn’t on the fast, so I don’t think the fast has made any difference to my ability to fight off infections.

My tongue is white. It cleared up on day 6 and was completely pink and for some strange reason, has turned white again. Hopefully it’ll clear again before day 10. Can’t wait to eat solid food again.

This has been the hardest day yet. It is the first day when I’ve been on the cleanse I’ve not been working so my routine is out of the window.

I feel quite tired and everything is quite a struggle. I’m finding it quite hard to move my muscles. I haven’t drank as much lemonade as I’m supposed to today. Only about 3 glasses instead of 6 so maybe that has something to do with it.

I started on the laxative tea last night but it didn’t seem to have any effect on me at all. Wasn’t what I expected.

I’m craving food and spending all day with the kids and feeding them without picking at their food was a real struggle.

I’m now 9st 8 so I’ve lost 8lbs. Haven’t really lost anything in inches though.

Whoo hoo, half way. It has become like a mission now. I now haven’t eaten anything for 5 days. Only drank the detox lemonade and drunk saltwater.

I’ve lost another pound at the end of yesterday so i’m 5 pounds down in 4 days, pretty good going.

I actually feel quite good. I felt quite tired late last night which just means that i end up going to bed at a more reasonable hour. I felt tired getting up this morning, but that’s normal for me, any day.

My concentrate is 100% better, my head is much clearer, i find I’m more motivated doing things and getting stuff sorted.

Still got the cold, which just won’t shift, it’s now been about 3 weeks.

Not really having cravings for food now, however, I did find it difficult last night, as my mum had made my kids real chip with beans and sausages, It was very difficult not to pinch their chips. The guys at work are talking about getting pizza in for lunch. I’m not even tempted, but then it hasn’t arrived yet. There was talk about getting beer and I had to object. That’s one step too far. Cruel b*stards! They decided it wasn’t worth the risk getting beer.

Got the kids all weekend so I won’t be tempted into going out and drinking. Just have to refrain from picking at their food.

Only 5 days to go!

Wow, day 4, I think this is now officially the longest I have been without food, and surprisingly, I’m still not hungry.

I was craving for food last night and I had the kids back after them being with their dad for the last few days. It was very hard not to pick when preparing their food.

I’m feeling quite good today. I still have the cold that I’ve not been able to get rid of for the last few weeks and when I woke up this morning my tonsils were slightly inflamed and sore but they’ve gone down and are now completely back to normal. My head feel like it is much clearer than it has been for a while but still not quite as clear as I would like it to be.
I managed the salt-water flush this morning without gagging. My stomach is so empty in the morning, the first pint goes down really easily. The effects of the saltwater flush are definitely not nice. It takes about 10 minutes for it to get through my system and then I’m on the toilet every 10 minutes for the next 2 hours.

I weighed myself last night and again, I haven’t lost anymore weight, still only 4 lbs down.

Took my measurements, and they’re still basically the same. I’ve lost an inch off my waist but that is likely to be due to the emptying of my digestive system.

Only 6 days to go.

This is much easier than I though it was going to be. I don’t actually feel hungry. Every time I start getting hungry, around meal times, I just have another glass of the lemonade and the hunger, surprisingly goes. I’m actually starting to enjoy the lemonade.

I even tried the saltwater flush this morning. It says in the book ( Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happier in 10 Days: Take Charge of Your Health with the Master Cleanse by Peter Glickman) that you have to drink a quart of it. I had no idea what a quart was and to my horror it’s 2 pints. 2 pints of warm saltwater. Totally gross. I bought it into work with me and went and drank it in the loo’s. Part of it came back up after gagging several times trying to drink it. I never managed the last quarter of a pint.

I’m not feeling any different, my cold which was getting noticably better, has taken a turn for the worse, but still isn’t too bad, and my head still feels like its full of cotton wool. So I don’t feel any better, but I don’t really feel any worse either.

I do feel lighter though which is always good. I was 141lbs 2 days ago before I started this and now I’m 4 lbs lighter, I know it’s only water, but I’ve tried loads of diets and never dropped that much weight before in a week, never mind a couple of days. It is definitely giving me the urge to carry on.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve now started the master cleanse, not the full-on cleanse though as I actually have to leave the house and go to work so I’ve decided to leave off the laxative tea and saltwater flush for the first few days and only do that at the weekend, I think the half hour drive to work would be too difficult!

Why?

I’ve decided to do this one for the detox more than anything. For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling very low, physically and emotionally. I’ve had an ongoing cold for nearly 3 weeks and I’ve been filling myself with loads of junk and alcohol. My brain feels kinda numb and I’m finding it hard to focus. I’ve reached a point where I think I can’t go on feeling like this. I need to flush out my system completely. The master cleanse seems extreme but I think it’s just what I need.

The Start

Ok, here’s the stats, the real ones:

• Height: 5ft5
• Weight: 10st 1lb
• Chest: 32inches
• Waist: 29inches
• Hips: 39inches

Ideally, I’d like to lose about half a stone and a couple of inches off everywhere would be nice, realistically, I don’t think that’s going to happen in 10 days. I will take ‘before’ photo’s tonight and I’ll take ‘after’ photo’s and if there’s a noticeable difference, I will post them, maybe.

Day 1

It’s not too bad at the moment. I don’t eat breakfast anyway, so I haven’t really noticed any difference until now. Now it’s lunchtime and I’m getting hungry. Having a glass of the homemade lemonade does take the edge off the hunger but it’s not very nice and I’m having to force it down. I think maybe I’ve put too much Cayenne Pepper in it. It’s a bit hot! I think it’ll be a couple of days before I notice any real difference in how I’m feeling. This better bloody make me feel better. I’ll be well pissed off drinking this crap for 10 days if it doesn’t.

The past few weeks have seen a lot of changes at Karova. We’ve said goodbye to 2 colleagues, both of whom have been here for a long time and will be greatly missed.

Phil has decided to move back home to Ireland, and who can blame him. I’d choose Dublin over Shotton any day.

Jay has decided to bite the bullet and do what most of us only dream about while we’re sat in the office. He has packed in everything and is off traveling the world, though not all of it, just the Australia bit.

Life at Karova will not be the same without Phil and Jay. It takes me much longer to do anything without having Phil to help me debug my code, but then I get more done without having Jay telling us his latest conspiracy theory. 2 absolutely top blokes that I have had the pleasure of working with and winning money off at our poker tournaments. Good luck guys.

We’ve also welcomed 2 new people, Debs, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with previously in SecureTrading and is absolutely great. I’m glad she has decided to join us here at Karova, and Sam (another Sam), who is a developer with a lot of experience. So welcome Debs and Sam to our Karova family. We hope that you love it here as much as the rest of us do