Our Story

We first decided to try The Master Cleanse in July of 2006. Both of us had found ourselves with some bad eating habits (Laurs had a serious weakness for candy and Mickers wanted to control his portion sizes and eat healthier). While 10 days of "fasting" seemed daunting, our friend Dayle had just completed the Cleanse and promised us it wasn't as hard as it sounded. Laurs knew that Dayle normally subsisted on a diet consisting of chicken nuggets and cabernet and promised Mickers if Dayle could do it, they could do it. The decision was made.

We got our bad selves pumped for the Cleanse and coordinated calendars to find a 10 day stretch that would work for both of us. Between out of town visitors, mandatory business lunches and upcoming weddings, it wasn't easy to find the time...but we finally managed to nail it down.

We started the Cleanse on a work day which wasn't the best idea. While Mickers felt fine on his first day, Laurs was REALLY tired and had to leave work early (after falling asleep during a conference call in front of her boss). Day 2 was a little easier until we found ourselves extremely irritable that evening with no good explanation. And we had awful headaches! Detox symptoms?

Day 3-5 were easy for Mickey who had tons of energy and continued to work out every morning. In fact, he started to consider extending his Cleanse for an extra week. Laurs felt OK, but had begun to experience inexplicable pain in her lower back. She was also really sleepy at the end of the day. Every night BY 10 pm (an hour or two earlier than her usual bedtime) she would crawl into bed, call Mikers for their nightly check in and drift off to dream land where visions of The Vegitarian Combo at Ali Baba's Cave would dance in her head.

We eventually made it to the half way mark and things were looking up. Both of us were waking up extra early and feeling good. And our clothes were stating to fit better! Day 7, as noted by many veteran Cleansers, is a hard day...and we felt it. We felt as though we had come so FAR, but we still had 4 full days left--ugh. It's not that we were hungry, but the idea of solid food just sounded so appealing. Enter our CRAVINGS.

The cravings hit us like a ton of bricks and Laurs made it worse by sending Mickers daily emails with lists of things she was looking forward to eating post-Cleanse. "Fish tacos...salad with crumbled blue cheese and Annie's Goddess dressing...hummus and avocado sandwiches...Thai green veggie curry. Oh, don't forget those incredible smoothies from Cafe Gratitude. Only 2 days left!"

The last 2 days were easy for Lauren, but this is when Mickey's enthusiasm started to wane a bit. He got a bad headache on Day 9 and put himself to bed at 9 pm. At this point, he decided to end the Cleanse as planned after Day 10. To distract ourselves, we went shopping for our detox soup ingredients in preparation for re-entry to the world of solid food. Celery never looked so appealing. One more day!

On Day 11, we drank some grapefruit juice and cooked up our soup. While we were chopping veggies, we each had a bite of a light rye cracker. Delicious! We then moved on to some tastes of cilantro leaves and a couple small pieces of celery. We knew we were supposed to wait until the following day to eat our soup, but we were READY. Two very small bowls later, we were pleasantly full and feeling good.

The next day we wrapped up our Cleanse. Laurs bought Mickers some beautiful roses and we celebrated with some more soup. We talked about the impact the Cleanse had made on each of us and set personal goals for our post-Cleanse eating habits. Laurs would move right into The South Beach Diet (less processed foods, less white flour, less refined sugar) and Mickey planned to try NutriSystem.

Post-cleanse life felt great. We were more conscious of feeling full which meant no more overeating. Mickey, formerly a meat eater, found himself drawn more to vegetarian meals for the first month or two but eventually incorporated meat back into his diet. Lauren, never a big meat eater, remained vegan for the first month post-Cleanse. She then moved back to her vegetarian diet when she started craving cheese again. It took a while for either of us to start drinking alcohol again (Laurs started with red wine which was allowed by South Beach).

7 months later, we're ready to take on The Cleanse once again. Neither of us has gained back all the weight we lost, but our eating habits have slid a bit and we don't want get back to where we were last summer. Laurs' 3 week trip to Australia where she visited some friends didn't do her body any favors. And Mickers' busy work schedule has made it hard for him to eat the way he wants. With Spring on the way, it's time to get back on track!