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I’ve decided to go on the Master Cleanse diet starting this Wednesday. For those of you who are unaware of what the Master Cleanse diet is, it is this “lemonade” diet where the only thing you consume for a period of at least a week is this lemonade-maple syrup-cayenne pepper concoction. Sounds disgusting doesn’t it? I’m going to be on it from this Wednesday until next Tuesday and then ease out of it for the next 2 days. I’m coordinating it to my schedule because I have a dinner with my boss Tuesday night and a Luncheon next Friday. That way I’ll get on it right away and get off of it just in time for my luncheon.

So what is the Master Cleanse system?

To start off, let’s take a look at the recipe:

• 2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) of fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice

• 2 tablespoons (1 fluid ounce) of grade B organic maple syrup

• 1/10 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

• 8 fluid ounces of purified water

According to Peter Glickman in his book Lose Weight, Have More Energy & Be Happy, the enzymes in the lemon break down the layers of old waste in the colon. The maple syrup supplies the sugar for energy as well as needed materials. The cayenne pepper breaks up the mucus and dilate the blood vessels accelerating the detoxification process. I can’t validate that all this is true but I’m banking that even if it isn’t the placebo effect will kick in and create a healthier, clearer thinking, and more energetic me.

The Master Cleanse system basically says that you drink this concoction 6-12 times a day for at least 10 days. You can go on this diet for longer than 10 days, but I have to believe that if you go on it for too prolonged of a time period you’ll start digesting your kidney. I’m only doing this for 7 days because I really wanted to get started, but I have limitations because of my schedule.

In addition to the concoction there are also some supplements that are recommended to promote bowel movements and further cleansing. An herbal laxative tea is recommended every night before you go to bed. Because you are not consuming any solid foods, you will not be experiencing any natural bowel movements. Since bowel movements are what releases the toxins from your body, they are necessary, and thus the herbal laxative tea. In addition, a quarter of water mixed with 2 level teaspoons is recommended each morning. This mixture must be taken in its entirety with the next half hour to hour spent on the toilet. The salt water helps dissolve the mucus as well as flushes the loose waste in the digestive tract.

After you finish up the Cleanse you must ease back into eating regular foods. The first day you get off it, the only things you should be consuming are orange juice and maybe some fruits. The second day you should eat fruits, vegetables, and perhaps soups. After 2 days you should be able to transition into eating regular foods again.

Although I’m going on the Master Cleanse program mostly out of curiosity and for the health benefits, many celebrities have gone of it to lose a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time. Beyonce Knowles went on it for 14 days and lost 22 pounds for her role in the movie Dreamgirls. Howard Stern’s co-host Robin Quivers lost 73 pounds and Jared Leto lost most of the weight he gained from his role as Mark David Chapman (62 pounds) from the diet. So be it for health, weight, or mere curiosity, the diet has been proven to work for people in the past, and I believe that I’ll benefit in the end from the cleanse.

Related Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Cleanse

http://mastercleansesecrets.com/book2.php?hop=jkfjkf

Related Posts:

Master Cleanse Review

The Master Cleanse: Questions and Answers

Books:

As I had mentioned in my previous post, last Saturday was the big day where I had planned to take shrooms with my roommates. Although I had done so much reading about the drug, all I can say is that you need to take it to really understand what the experience would be like. No amount of research could have prepared me for the incredible journey I undertook yesterday.

The day started off very promising. I came home from work around 1 pm to my anxious roommates, all excited for the big event. We divided the half ounce of mushrooms into four stacks, evenly distributing the stems and heads. At about 2:45 pm we began eating the shrooms. I was pretty surprised at how easy they went down. I’ve heard from people who’ve taken them in the past that they taste pretty bad and need to be eaten with something else. We were able to eat them all however in less than 10 minutes. It took about half an hour for the drug to start kicking in. The first signs of hallucinations began when I went to the bathroom. As I was on the toilet, I started looking at a rag on the ground, and lo and behold, it was pulsating. I was getting excited.

We stayed in the apartment for another hour and then decided to head to the sculpture garden. What was a 20 minute stroll through campus seemed like a one hour trek. The drug really began taking effect as I was walking down. The green color from the leaves and trees were much more vivid than I had ever remembered. It was almost like watching one of those black and white movies where they introduce one color to really make it stand out. When I stared at the concrete floor, it looked like the particles in the cement were flowing like lava. Nothing too wild yet, but the trip was just beginning.

We got to the sculpture garden at around 4 pm. We parked on the ground and decided to have some drawing time. None of us have much experience with drawing, and unfortunately the shrooms were not able to elevate our lack of talent. I did however end up drawing a very grotesque looking hell-dog. After the drawing session we lied down for a good hour taking in the scenery. The sky looked pixilated, like looking at it through the eyes of a bee. Everything from the grass to the plants looked like they were alive and breathing. I have never been one that had an appreciation for nature but at the moment in time it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Human interaction was pretty difficult. As I talked to my friends their facial features would start moving around, making conversation nearly impossible from the distraction. I had to look away and really focus on what the other person was saying to understand what they were talking about. And even with that, my mind was running at a million miles an hour from all the stimulus, making comprehension of conversation the least of my priorities.

After a good hour and a half we decided to head back to the apartment. Once in the apartment though things started going down hill. I think mushrooms is a trip where you need to be out in nature for the duration. Hallucinating in the dark apartment started a negative thought pattern which just kept perpetuating. My thoughts became very philosophical, thinking about topics such as the meaning of life, death, and human interaction. My thoughts were bizarre to the point where they were nonsensical, and I’ll refrain from writing them here. I’ll probably write about them in the future once I can really synthesize the information into coherent arguments.

In summary, I’d say the trip was a success overall. The first half of the trip was very visually and outwardly oriented. I had the most fun during this part at the sculpture garden just being a part of nature. The second half of the trip in the apartment was very inwardly focused and I got trapped in negative thought patterns. I feel that in the future, if I can harness that inward energy into positive ideas I’d be able to create some very powerful and creative ideas. I’m not really sure if I’d do shrooms again, but if I did it would have to be in the perfect environment with the perfect people.

Ever since the early days of college when my friends told me about the spiritual trips they had while on magic mushrooms, I’ve always had a curious fascination with them. I’ve heard the horror stories though of people jumping off high places while on the drug and have always been a little intimidated by them. Recently however, the LA Times posted this story pretty much giving magic mushrooms a resounding thumbs up.

The story details a 2006 US government funded study which observed the spiritual effects of the drug. The study involved 36 college-educated adults who had never tried magic mushrooms nor had any prior drug history. After the experiment, one third of the participants reported that the shroom trip was the single most spiritually significant event in their lives. One year later, 79 percent of the participants reported greater well-being or satisfaction as a result of having taken the magic mushrooms.

So with all this positive press, I’ve let go of all anxiety of taking magic mushrooms. Saturday is the tentative date which my roommates and I have decided to partake in what is surely to be the most spiritually significant event in our lives. What all that said I’ve been doing some research on what to do on magic mushrooms and how to prepare for it which I’ll discuss below.

What to do on Magic Mushrooms:

Our plan is to spend the first half of the trip in the apartment, to get comfortable with the drug, and then spend the rest of the time at the UCLA sculpture garden. Since magic mushrooms primarily attract your visual and to a point your audio senses, I’ve been brainstorming activities that cater to these senses.

Things to do in the apartment:

1. Play music with a wide range of sounds - I imagine Ratatat would be a good choice to listen to. The diverse sounds in every song are sure to create some crazy sensory feelings while on shrooms.
2. Stare at artwork, especially drug-induced artwork - Which artist better to connect to while on a psychedelic drug than Salvador Dali. I have a bunch of posters of his drawings which I’ll be sure to keep in handy come Saturday.
3. Watch screensavers - screensavers are so crazy today and already trip me out when I’m completely sober.
4. Pour Water - as silly as this sounds I’ve heard the action of water splashing is pretty trippy on mushrooms.
5. Create Artwork - I’ll have my colored pencils and drawing pads handy. I’m not really an artist normally, but under the influence, I would like to see what kind of masterpiece (or crap) I can create.

Things to do in nature:

1. Look at Sculptures - The UCLA sculpture garden is an amazing resource we have in our backpocket. I’m sure that I’ll have some interesting conversations on Saturday with the Greek Gods and Goddesses.
2. Look at plants and trees - I’ve heard they start growing before your eyes. It’s too bad that I don’t live near a forest because I would imagine that would be an amazing albeit potentially frightening experience.
3. Go to the Beach and Watch the Waves - This is something I probably won’t have the opportunity of doing. Being stuck on a crowded bus for 45 minutes under the influence of magic mushrooms sounds like a suicide mission.
4. Lay Down and Watch the Sky - I’m sure that if there are clouds in the sky something magnificent has to come out of staring at them. I think this is what happened to Simba in the Lion King.

If you guys can think of any other creative ideas I’d love to hear them. I’ll report back on Sunday how our trip went and which activities I’d recommend doing. Hopefully I’ll be feeling like this:

rather than like this:

Informative Links:

Wikipedia Article

Magic Mushrooms net

And then there was light!

Considering that I want to eventually create websites, it’s pretty sad that it took me 3 days to complete wordpress’ 5 minute installation. Well anyways, I guess I have a lot to learn. I already have some ideas in regards to websites that I want to eventually start working on. I won’t talk about them until I get a better handle on this programming thing.

So why this blog? Well there’s really little you can do with only an elementary knowledge of web programming. In my eyes, it’s much better to have that basic framework (this blog) and learn from there. The blog managing program that I’m using, wordpress, is an open source program, meaning that all the code that is used is transparent and editable. From now until the time I leave for Asia (Aug 25), I will be messing around with this blog and learning PHP and MySQL to get this blog to where I want it to be. Eventually I’ll translate my newfound knowledge into creating something cool on the web, which I’ll keep you guys up to date with.

As for the content of this blog, I’m going to try to keep these posts succinct and interesting. I’ll refrain from talking about the trivialities of my life and instead focus on interesting human experiments, the development and application of my programming skills, and some other interesting articles and reviews. I’ll try to keep the posts short enough as to not drag on and bore, but long enough as to have meaningful content. Hopefully I’ll be able to bust out 3-5 of these badboys a week. Enjoy!