Most people have probably heard of the Master Cleanse, but might not know completely what it is. Basically, the cleanse consists of only drinking a “lemonade” drink. The lemonade has Grade B syrup, lemons, water, and cayenne pepper. In a day we drink several large glasses of this mixture – around meal/snack times. In addition, every morning we take a salt water flush, which can only be described as drinking a tall glass of ocean water. For me, this is the absolute worst part of the whole experience. The lemonade is nothing to write home about, but it’s not nearly as bad as the salt water flush. In the evenings you can add in a laxative tea to help with constipation. The goal of this cleanse is to go 10 days. I should admit, Scotty and I have done this before and we made it 5 days the first time and 4 days the second time. We are hoping to make it all 10 days, but of course will listen to our bodies and call it when one or both of us feels like it’s the healthy thing to do!

The reason we have decided to do this cleanse is because we both felt like we needed to make some serious changes. Like everyone else, we indulged too much during the holidays. I stopped exercising, ate more, and generally over indulged! When I stopped breast feeding Kloey I was at my pre-pregnancy weight. In the 6 weeks since I have stopped, I have gained 7 pounds back. I am not doing this cleanse solely as a weight loss measure, but I’ll take what I can get! I basically want to make dietary changes for myself and my family. I am hoping this cleanse makes me feel better by detoxing all of the yukky stuff inside so that I can start with a clean slate!

So now that I have briefly explained the cleanse and why I am doing it, I’ll give my daily update. Each day I am going to blog with how I am doing and how I am feeling. I am hoping that journaling this process will help hold me accountable to stay strong and not give up early. Today was our first day and we made it. Having done this before, we knew we needed to keep busy – especially on the first day! So today we went to Sea World!! We were there when the doors opened and left around lunch time. We got home, played outside with the girls, and took another walk! We managed to stay busy enough. We know that tomorrow will be the hardest as hunger tends to set in and irritability increases. It will be interesting to see how making meals for Kayden effects this whole process for me. I have always been one to snack on her food as I made her meals, made my own meal, and then hit up the sweets after nearly every meal! Today I am happy to report that I have not felt hungry and was only slightly irritable – towards the end of the day. Fingers crossed that I don’t throw in the towel tomorrow!!

Here is Scotty preparing our first day’s meal!