Go on the “Master Cleanser” lemonade fast and forsake food. This is phase one of a major weight loss program leading up to the CRASH-B sprints in February. I packed on a ton of weight following the bike-crash 14 months ago. Ordinary rowing wasn’t getting it off, and according to my guru and former cycling buddy, Marta, this cleansing fast is a good way to reset one’s approach to food.
So, ten days of lemonade made with fresh lemons, organic grade-b maple syrup, and cayenne pepper … and I am on day 2 …. feeling faint, bitchy. Ought to be a joy. And I’m doing this without a scale — being a believer in feeling fit and getting good numbers on the erg rather than starving myself to some arbitrary weight or Body Mass Index.
Is that all your consuming for these 10 days? What about protein? Sure your body will be forced to consume excess fat, but won’t you lose muscle too?
Despite lack of sleep, and stuffing a drive through burger (skipped the fries) into my face while doing the daily quick change from my clark kent office clothes, into my jeans, boots and raggy T-shirts, to labor until the wee hours, I managed to drop 20 odd pounds building the house. My cardio wasn’t too hot, but lugging 5 gal pails of wet cement up a ladder, or the marathon carrying of 12″ block to the second floor sure burned the fat.
When I started the heavy block work in Sept 2005, I could easily lift the 4 foot, 75 lb block forms around. By March, when I was done with the concrete, I was still strong, but had lost some muscle mass.
Now, I’ve put the 20 lbs back on, and it’s not the muscle that came back. I’m really looking forward to this shop proj – tying rebar, shoveling gravel, building forms, and later, hiking sheets of steel around and bolting them up. I’ll have a better diet this time, and more sleep, and hopefully can shed the 20 lbs again.
I’d lace the evening lemonade w/ 3-4 ounces of rum, vodka, tequila, etc.; otherwise you will not be able to host the usual Cotuit crowd w/ any sort of serenity. You’ll ve like Costanza’s dad.
The wonderful effects of detoxing. BTW I would add some protein after the 4th day or so. I lost almost 50 pounds killing off all wheat, dairy and sugar from my diet and starting it off with a detox. That is more than a year ago already and have kept off all the weight with no issues.