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The Master Cleanse

Written By: Humor Mike - Feb• 02•20

Master Cleanse Ingredients

I recently got the bright idea to try the Master Cleanse. I’m not exactly sure why I made this decision, but maybe it was because my laptop camera got tired of trying to fit my whole face into the frame during facial recognition. It began to “suggest??? all types of advertisements for various diets. At one point, no matter which sleeping cat video I tried to watch, YouTube showed me videos about how I could lose 15 pounds from my neck overnight. I took the hint.

If you don’t know anything about the Master Cleanse, it’s also called the Lemonade Diet, or the diet that Beyoncé used to lose 20 pounds in 10 days. It sounded perfect, especially since I’ve been trying to lose this baby weight from the twins for the last 32 years. Wait, I know what you’re thinking. “Michael, we didn’t know you were a mom!??? Well, these puppies certainly didn’t birth themselves. That would be weird.

Instead of doing it for 10 days, I decided to start out with 5. If I somehow lived through that, I figured I could always extend it later. When I saw the ingredients, I screamed. Allegedly, I’d only be allowed to drink a mixture of lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper while on the diet. But because the creators of the diet are human, they thoughtfully allow you to drink as much water and herbal tea as you want. Wow! I’m not worthy.

I had a few concerns before getting started. I worried about not being able to indulge in life’s bare necessities. What about chicken? What about pizza? What about McDonald’s? Most importantly, how would I live without coffee or alcohol for 5 days? I mean, I’ve been drinking a quality cognac since I was 7. I don’t know who I am without it! Neither does my mom.

To be safe, I took a multi-purpose before picture. I figured it could serve as either the last picture I took before the cleanse, or the last picture I took before my death. Now that I think about it, I guess the picture could have served as both. I also got on the scale to take one last reading, but the display simply read, “Boy, you better get off me! I don’t have time for your foolishness.???

Before I even got started, I received warnings from friends and family about my diet choice. Of course, my mother thought I’d gone crazy, so she called the police. For a few moments there, I thought Officer Tate really was going to lock me up. I was just happy that he opted not to run my background check. I know that little incident in Oklahoma probably would have shown up. How would I have known that Oklahoma only allows you to take two sugar packets for each coffee? I was uninformed.

Because of the syrup and the acid from the lemons, I was advised to be careful with my teeth. Well, from my perspective, teeth are overrated anyway. They are just taking up space and are probably getting in the way of me having a strong jawline. Oh, and if you’ve seen my teeth, then you know that they probably make up at least a fourth of my total body weight. Losing one or two should at least take off about 10 pounds.

As you know, I’m not exactly great at following directions. Instead of easing into the Master Cleanse, I put the pedal to the metal and just got started. Tomorrow isn’t promised, so there was no time to waste. And speaking of waste, the diet recommends doing a salt-water flush to create on-demand bowel movements. Let’s get to the “on-demand??? part later. First, we must start with the taste.

Do you know what salt water tastes like? Well, if you’ve never been attacked by a wave on a beach when your mouth was wide open, I’ll try to describe it for you. Let’s say you were stuck in traffic and suddenly you start to cough uncontrollably. You fumble around the dashboard, check underneath the seats, and rummage through your glove compartment only to find a bottle of hand sanitizer. As your cough gets worse, you do what needs to be done and you take the hand sanitizer to the head.

Moments later you realize that chugging the hand sanitizer didn’t help. As a matter of fact, things have gotten progressively worse, so you assess your remaining options. You realize you’ve got access to gasoline, windshield wiper fluid, and motor oil. However, you then remember that you missed your last 5,000-mile maintenance, so you know that your oil is all sludgy and gross. You’ve confirmed this because your mom tried to use some of it to slick her hair down just the day before. Nope, the oil is not drinkable, so you make a gasoline and windshield wiper fluid cocktail and hope for the best. Yes, that is exactly what salt water tastes like.

Once I got the salt water down, it did its job fairly quickly. I found myself repeatedly sprinting to the bathroom and needing to make sure I was close enough to reach it at a moment’s notice. The end result was that my toilet and I got really acquainted with each other for a few hours. Depending on your perspective, this could be considered a good thing. I mean, I now can absolutely pick my toilet out of a line-up while blindfolded. And if I’m allowed to actually sit on it, I’m pretty sure I could pick out my toilet within 5 seconds flat!

When the coast seemed clear, I slowly crawled from the bathroom to the kitchen to make my first drink. I didn’t have a problem with adding the 60 ounces of water or the 12 tablespoons of lemon juice, but adding the 12 tablespoons of maple syrup was a bit scary and seemed excessive. I practically used the whole bottle of syrup. I kept reading and re-reading the directions to make sure I wasn’t mistaken about the amount. Unfortunately, this is the one time in my whole life where I’ve been right about something. Ugh.

Master Cleanse lemonade by the glass!

Surprisingly, the taste wasn’t bad. I actually liked it. However, I’d forgotten to add the cayenne pepper. I expected that to be the thing that would make the drink grotesque, but it didn’t. Even with the extra spice, the mixture was still pretty good. My instincts told me to add a shot of vodka, but I fought the urge and cried a little bit as I turned away from the alcohol. It was then that I learned to never squeeze lemons and then touch your eyes. If I hadn’t been too blind to see my phone, I probably would have called for an ambulance.

After finishing the drink, I immediately considered myself a health guru. I began handing out weight loss advice to people on the Metro whether they’d asked for it or not. I admit that I may have gone a bit overboard when I snatched that old lady’s hot dog out of her hand and replaced it with a carrot. I’d gotten so bad that one of my friends slapped me and said, “Shut up! It’s day one. You just had a cheeseburger combo a donut a few minutes ago.??? Maybe I deserved it.

By the end of day one, I was starting to feel the effects of not having solid food. For some reason, I was super cold. Even with my Snuggie and my blanket, I couldn’t get warm. I watched a little TV to pass the time and to distract myself from the hunger, and then I realized I didn’t know any of the answers to the Jeopardy questions. Although I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have known the answers before the diet, I just expected the cleanse to make me smarter. I was wrong.

Some YouTubers advised that their skin looked so much better on day two due to all the water. They claimed to have a glow and to feel moisturized. That wasn’t my experience. Instead, I looked ashen and dead. Making things worse, I believe the acidity of the lemons were causing me to have an acne breakout. The one good thing about my look was that I could have easily gotten a role on The Walking Dead.

By day three I was seeing stars, and I don’t mean The Rock. I had also become hyperaware of all things food-related. Every food commercial made me happy—even if it was a dog food commercial. Kibbles ‘n Bits never looked so good! I later found myself obsessing over bacon to the point that I was doing all types of research about it. I even ordered a bacon oven rack off Amazon and made up a few bacon-related jingles. “Bacon in the morning. Bacon in the evening. Bacon at suppertime. When you mix bacon with your lemonade, you can have bacon anytime.” Yes, it was just that bad.

I’d started the day at 181 pounds and ended it at 179. As I lost every ounce of water, muscle, and brain cell from my body, I got excited that I looked smaller. Yes, it appeared that I was going to die at any minute, but at least I weighed less. At that point, walking across the room took some effort, but I figured it just came with the territory. No pain, no gain! I used to judge people who took an elevator to go up just one floor instead of taking the stairs. However, now I know those people were just on the Master Cleanse.

On day four I completely gave up. I’d had enough of the cayenne pepper burning my lips off. The sacrifice didn’t seem worth the effort. Again, against the recommendations, I didn’t ease back into solid foods. I dove face-first into a bowl of chicken pho, a steak burrito, and an order of fries. I figured it wouldn’t do too much damage to my progress, but I was wrong. The next morning, my scale flashed me a quick 182.9 before it yelled for me to get off and took a swing at my double chins. Lesson learned, my friends. Lesson learned.

I know what this looks like, but it’s just the Lemonade Diet. This was my sustenance for the whole day!

Michael Rochelle
Humor blog: www.humormike.com
Facebook: michael.rochelle1
Instagram: humor_mike_
Twitter: @mikeyllo

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2 Comments

  1. Lemonade is my go-to cold beverage. Green tea is my hot one.

  2. I can see why. Lemonade didn’t used to be my first choice of drink, but the diet made me realize that it’s pretty good. I also do green tea on the regular for the health benefits. To me, it doesn’t taste like anything, though. LOL.

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