Master Cleanse vs. Intermittent Fasting

If you had to choose between a nasty detox diet that isn’t guaranteed to work or an easy detox diet that gets amazing results and also improves your eating habits and your health, which would you choose? Clearly a no-brainer but here’s the 411 on both the master cleanse and intermittent fasting so you can feel better about choosing the new and improved way to reduce calories for weight loss.

The Master Cleanse
The infamous master cleanse diet (a.k.a. the lemonade diet or the Beyonce diet) has been around since 1941 and involves 10 to 40 days of only drinking a bizarre lemonade concoction that is supposed to detoxify your body for weight loss. There is no science to back the claims the creators of this freaky diet make but people do get results. The problem is most people complain of headaches, hunger, dizziness, and upset stomach and worst of all results rarely last for most people (most being the key word).

Lemon Detox Diet Recipe
2 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tablespoons of organic grade B maple syrup
1/10 Teaspoon of finely ground cayenne pepper
10 oz of filtered water

Intermittent Fasting
The intermittent fasting method of weight loss has also been around for a long time but unlike the Master Cleanse there’s actual research to back it up and the results are typically painless and permanent. Intermittent Fasting also known as IF, or Eat Stop Eat involves eating adequate portions of what you normally eat 5-6 days a week then eating nothing for 24 hours 1-2 days per week. According to a couple of clients who tried this, it’s easy to do. It’s also one of the best kept secrets of the leanest fitness experts.

Intermittent Fasting Research and Facts
"In dozens of published peer reviewed scientific studies, short-term intermittent fasting has been found to have the following health benefits:

• Decreased body fat & body weight
• Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass
• Decreased blood glucose levels
• Decreased insulin levels & increased insulin sensitivity
• Increased lipolysis & fat oxidation
• Increased Uncoupling Protein 3 mRNA
• Increased norepinephrine & epinephrine levels
• Increased Glucagon levels
• Increased growth hormone levels.

Studies published by a group of scientists from the University of Texas, Medical Branch at Galveston found that after only 24 hours of fasting, the amount of fat being released from people’s fat stores (lipolysis) and the amount being burnt for fuel (oxidation) had been significantly increased by over 50%. This is a very significant increase in fat burning" explains intermittent fasting expert Brad Pilon.

In his book Eat Stop Eat, Pilon lists many research studies that have found fasting to be a very effective way to lose weight and boost health, but the benefit that most intermittent fasters love is the fact that IF changes your mentality about your daily calorie needs. People on I.F. often report feeling more in control of their eating and less focused on food without having to obsess about every calorie, meal timing, or perfect food choices. Curious about what it's like to I.F.? I did it for 8 months while recovering from a painful hip injury that decreased my daily calorie burn and loved it. Visit the forums to check out all my I.F. journals.

Want to lose more weight and get your eating under control? Get started with the Eat Stop Eat method of Intermittent Fasting