The Master Cleanse, a liquid diet and detoxification program based on a book published in the 1950s, promises weight loss and other health benefits to followers. Touted by celebrities in recent years, the Master Cleanse, also known as the Lemonade Diet, Lemon Water Diet and Cayenne Pepper Diet, provides few calories and little nutrition.
Master Cleanse Basics
The Master Cleanse involves drinking a beverage containing water, lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. You drink about 8 cups of the concoction and eat no food for up to 21 days of the fast. Promoters of the diet say you can lose up to 20 lbs. through a combination of severely cutting calories and the purging effect of the syrup and pepper. Diet math using the rule that 3,500 calories equals a pound suggests you could lose 7.2 lbs. of fat if you maintained the fast for three weeks. Additional weight loss would be derived from clearing waste from your colon.
Fasting Slows Your Metabolism
Beyonce, whose endorsement of the Master Cleanse on "Oprah" helped propel the diet's popularity, has since said she regained all of the pounds she shed and now prefers a more balanced approach to dieting. It is common for people on extremely low-calorie diets --- the Master Cleanse includes about 800 calories daily, primarily from sugar --- to incur difficulty in maintaining weight loss. Your metabolism slows dramatically during a fast and remains sluggish when you resume normal eating habits.
Alternative Weight Loss Plan
You can lose weight without compromising your metabolism if you follow a moderate weight-loss plan. If you reduce your calories by 500 per day, you could lose a pound a week. A diet offered by the United States Department of Agriculture provides about 1,500 calories a day for women and about 1,800 for men. You can eat six servings of fruits and vegetables, six servings of grains, two to three servings of dairy and 6 oz. of protein on the diet.
Water and Metabolism
The water included in the Master Cleanse helps you stay hydrated and revs your metabolism, according to a study conducted by German researcher, Michael Boschmann, and published in 2003 in the "Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism." You could lose 5 lbs. a year by drinking six glasses of water daily, according to the results of the study. Boschmann compared the metabolism-boosting effect of drinking water to ingesting the stimulant ephedrine.
Considerations
The Master Cleanse involves drinking nearly a cup of maple syrup daily, which could make the fast harmful to anyone with elevated blood sugar levels. Common side effects of the cleanse include headaches, irritability and hunger pangs. The Master Cleanse provides very little nutrition -- vitamin C in the lemon juice and trace minerals in the maple syrup. Healthy adults may be relatively unaffected by the fast, but it should not be undertaken without the advice of a physician.
References
- The Master Cleanse
- Lemon Water Diet
- "The Mirror"; Demi's Deep Clean Diet; Caroline Jones; Aug. 31, 2010
- USDA: Inside the Pyramid
- "The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism"; Water-Induced Thermogenesis; Michael Boschmann, Jochen Steiniger, Uta Hille, Jens Tank, Frauke Adams, Arya M. Sharma, Susanne Klaus, Friedrich C. Luft and Jens Jordan; December 2003
- "USA Today"; Drink More Water, Lose More Weight; Nanci Hellmich; Oct. 25, 2006
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