Introduction

See our privacy policy. The above heading is the name of a best-selling book by Allan Cott, M.D. (©1975). So this page will have info about using the fasting diet, lemonade detox diet, lemonade diet, master cleanse, fasting to lose weight the fastest way, but will also have info on using it for health, cleansing and detoxification. This webpage has quotes from 23 different MDs (3 of them are psychiatrists-- Cott, Cousins and Nikolayev). On the cover of the above book it has a quote from The New England Journal of Medicine-- "Fasting is a valid experience. It can benefit any otherwise healthy person whose calories now have the upper hand in his/her life."

Here is how fasting works. The body takes in toxins (pesticides, pollutants etc.) and produces metabolic waste everyday. Most of this comes from the food we eat. Everyday the body is also cleansing itself of toxins and metabolic wastes. If the body is taking in more than it is getting rid of, then it gets backed up with these toxins and waste. At this point many health problems and diseases can develop. With fasting your body has a chance to cleanse more than it takes in and get rid of this backlog of toxins.

This book says "most people can fast safely for a whole month or longer. Our body gives the signal when it is time to end the fast." Dr Cott says "When anyone abstains totally from food, profound changes take place. These changes revise attitudes about food and put appetite into alignment with the body's real need for energy." The lemonade diet is also good for this.

The body is brilliant. It knows what it is doing and how to heal itself. It is your choice of foods and how much you eat that makes you fat. Your body is trying its best to make your body healthy and thin. That is its only purpose, while you have many other purposes like money, entertainment, enjoyment and other people. Fasting makes the brain work better, making you smarter (see Dr Cousins below). Some of this website was put up during fasting. This is the miracle of fasting.

Some people are concerned about their metabolism slowing down when they are fasting. But this makes it so that thin people can fast a long time. Also the fatter you are, the less it slows down. The body is slowing down the use of your extra calories so that you have enough to finish the fast. Again, the body is not against you but is out to help you. When you fast, you are placing all of your trust in your body's intelligence which has billions of years of evolutionary experience. When doing a religious fast, people place their faith in God to take care of them, instead of their own eating habits.

Also for this reason of conserving calories, it is more comfortable to fast in warm weather than in cold weather. The body is not looking to make you more uncomfortable in cold weather but to make sure that you have enough calories to finish the fast. With fat people it knows it does not have to conserve calories, so it does not slow down. As soon as people start eating again, it speeds back up to normal. After a couple of days of fasting, your body produces ketones which is the most powerful appetite suppressant there is. Since the body is brilliant, if it finds that you have lots of diseased and poorly formed muscle, it will eat that first. It knows that it is stupid to make you thin and beautiful and then just let you die. Fasting is God's or nature's bloodless operating table.

Gabriel Cousins, M.D., (psychiatrist) says "I often observe in the fasting participants that by four days of fasting, concentration seems to improve, creative thinking expands, depression lifts, insomnia stops, anxieties fade, the mind becomes more tranquil and a natural joy begins to appear. It is my hypothesis that when the physical toxins are cleared from the brain cells, mind-brain function automatically and significantly improves and spiritual capacities expands." Sleeping while on a fast is very rejuvenating.

Here are a few reasons given by Dr Cott: "To lose weight the quickest and fastest way, to save money, to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, to sleep better, to digest food better, to save time, to regulate bowels, to learn better eating habits, to get more out of sex and to call attention to social issues." There are many more benefits. Fasting is the most effective way to kill unwanted parasites, bacteria, viruses and fungi.

Dr Cott says "the rate at which you lose weight is generally in proportion to the degree you are overweight. Most people who fast for a week can expect to lose up to 20 pounds." "But when you fast, it is not unusual to lose 4 or 5 pounds the first day and up to 10 pounds in 2 days." The general rule is that fat people lose weight at a faster rate than thin people during a fast. Dr Cott says (page 57) "But Dr. George F. Cahill, Jr., of the Harvard Medical School, has noted that 'man's survival [of long abstention from food] is predicated upon a remarkable ability to conserve the relatively limited body protein stores while utilizing fat as the primary energy-producing food.' "

Most of this weight you lose, at first, is water so it is safe, unlike losing weight that is body fat.  During the first 5 days of the fast, the body dumps all its excess salt that caused you to retain tons of water. See "water weight" on home page for full story on this and  on how you can avoid gaining back that water weight. But the body's intelligence determines what it should consume first, when fasting. It may determine that it should eat diseased tissue or muscle before eating fat. Also since the body is eating itself, it is the best thing for the immune system. It can eat or consume infected tissue or muscle.

Prescription for Natural Healing by James Balch M.D. and Phyllis Balch CNC says "Fasting is an effective and safe method of detoxifying the body...A technique that wise men have used for centuries to heal the sick. Fast regularly and help the body heal itself and stay well. Give all of your organs a rest. Fasting can help reverse the aging process, and if we use it correctly we will live longer, happier lives.

Each time you complete a fast, you will feel better. Your body will have a chance to heal and rebuild its immune system by regularly fasting [a major benefit]. You can fight off illness and the degenerative diseases so common in this chemically polluted environment we live in. When you feel a cold or illness coming on or are just depressed-- fast!" That is why you lose your appetite-- your body is telling you to stop eating.

Alex Carrel, M.D. (famous scientist) says "The elimination of waste products by fasting increases longevity." Patricia Bragg says "Fasting is not starving. It's nature's cure that God has given us.... I fast every Monday and the first 3 days of each month; it's a precious time of body-mind-soul cleansing and renewal."

Dangers of Fasting

If your fast is sepervised by an expert, he will make sure that you are aware of these dangers. The most common danger with fasting comes from the blood pressure going down during a fast. It is easy to get up too fast from lying down and pass out or faint and break your head open. So you must always get up slowly. About 1 out of 100 people get potassium levels that are too low after 14 days of fasting. This can result in death so when the supervisor sees this, he stops the fast immediately. Then there is also a danger in breaking the long fast with the wrong food.

Joel Fuhrman, M.D. (has fasting center in NJ) says (in his book shown at the bottom of this page) "In my practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, heal the digestive tract in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and angina. In these cases the recoveries were permanent." His amazing book on fasting is the best to learn about healing serious chronic health problems including migraine headaches. John Tilden, M.D., who fasted thousands of people in his Denver center, said "I must say in all seriousness that fasting when combined with a properly selected diet is the nearest approach to a 'cure-all' that is possible to conceive-- profoundly simple and simply profound!"

Hereward Carrington, M.D. wrote a book called Vitality, Fasting and Nutrition. He says "fasting is a scientific method of ridding the system of diseased tissues, and morbid matter, and is invariably accompanied by beneficial results....The whole secret is this: fasting commences with the omission of the first meal and ends with the return of natural hunger, while starvation only begins with the return of natural hunger and terminates in death." Natural hunger is the body saying that it is time to stop the fast.

Charles Page, M.D. says "The fasting cure universally and rationally applied, would save thousands of lives every year." A prominent German physician, Adolph Mayer, M.D. says, in a book entitled Fast Cures--Wondercures: "I assert that fasting is the most efficient means for correcting any disease." Von Seeland, M.D., a Russian physician, says "As a result of experiments, I have come to the conclusion that fasting is not only a therapeutic agent of the highest degree possible but also deserves consideration educationally."

Ron Kennedy, M.D. says "Fasting creates a condition of low concentration of toxic wastes in the circulatory system. This is sensed by the plasma membrane of each cell and each cell will then let go of its load of toxic wastes. When this happens suddenly, as it does with fasting, the result can be a sudden case of mild systemic toxemia as the system cleanses itself. Those who fast must be prepared for a phase of headache, irritability, insomnia and fatigue. This is a natural part of the healing process and should be welcomed." Also he says "The purpose of the religious fast is the purification of the soul and the preparation to receive atonement of sins."

Dr. Charles Goodrich of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who has fasted many times said "People don't realize that the chief obstacle to fasting is overcoming the cultural, social and psychological fears of going without food. These fears are ingrained. . . .However, fasting is not starving, not even in a medical sense or the natural sense." Evarts Loomis MD says "For some it can be a time of self-discovery, a time to stop playing a role and to begin living the real person. Thus, it can be a time for releasing the ego and discovering the Transpersonal Self." "Surely one of the most overlooked and yet most valuable modes of healing that will be rediscovered in the future of the new medicine is the fast.

Michael R. Eades, M.D. says "Like caloric restriction, intermittent fasting reduces oxidative stress, makes the animals more resistant to acute stress in general, reduces blood pressure, reduces blood sugar, improves insulin sensitivity, reduces the incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and improves cognitive ability." From this website. Michael M. Segal, MD, PhD says "The pre-fast meal doesn't have be bland. Spices such as lemon or herbs are fine for fasting, but salt and monosodium glutamate should be reduced as much as possible." "People with medical conditions such as diabetes should consult their doctors and rabbis before fasting." From this website. Donald E Colbert MD says "Fasting is another method of detoxification that I recommend frequently. Fasting allows the body to heal by giving it a rest. Fasting gives the digestive tract a much-needed rest, which in turn allows the overburdened liver to 'catch up' on its detoxification work." From this website.

Dr. Yuri Nikolayev, director of the fasting unit of the Moscow Psychiatric Institute, reported on the use of scientific, therapeutic fasting to successfully treat over 10,000 patients, all suffering from neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and various neuroses, concluding: "The hunger treatment [as Soviet psychiatrists term fasting] gives the entire nervous system and the brain a rest. The body is also cleansed of poisons, and the tissues and the various glands are renovated." Joel Fuhrman, M.D. says in his book "There are hundreds of journal articles in the medical literature documenting the value of fasting in improving the function of the entire body including brain [cites studies]. Fasting has been repeatedly observed to alleviate neurosis, anxiety and depression." 

"I had a medical practice for 20 years in NYC, supervised hundreds of long fasts, and I found that the physical healing or weight loss was but a pleasant side effect. What really happened is that the person got in touch with their higher self, their true self, and came to the experience that healing can take place at every level, simply by letting go and allowing Mother Nature to do her work"-- Dr. Rai Casey

The book What is a Jew by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer (© 1993) says that fasting has 4 purposes: mourning, self-denial, petition and penitence. The 2 most famous Jews did fasting and prayer for 40 days-- Jesus and Moses. The movie, Exodus (1960) with Paul Newman, is about a true story of Jews in a detention camp in Cyprus in 1947 who had just gotten out of a concentration camp. They got on a ship so they could go to Palestine right before it became Israel.

But there was a blockade keeping them from leaving. It was a major world news event. So the Jews decided to fast until they would let them through. They got rid of all food on the ship. A woman with a baby was told that she should leave the ship, since it is not safe for a baby to fast. She said that she would rather have her and her baby die, instead of going back to Cypress so she stayed on the ship. After a few days of fasting, they let them through. The mother and baby started a new life in Israel.

Socrates and Plato fasted regularly for 10 days at a time. Pythagoras fasted 40 days before taking an examination at the University of Alexandria. Hippocrates used fasting on patients. Philippus Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and one of the 3 fathers of Western Medicine (including also Hippocrates and Galen), said "Fasting is the greatest remedy-- the physician within." The bible has 74 references to fasting. When someone fasts for religious reasons, he still gets the physical benefits. When someone fasts for physical benefits, he still gets the spiritual benefits. Dr Jordan Rubin (NMD) calls fasting "a miracle of God."

Mohammed, Mahatma Gandhi and Mark Twain were avid fasters. Mark Twain says "A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors. I do not mean a restricted diet; I mean total abstinence from food for one or two days. I speak from experience; starvation has been my cold and fever doctor for 15 years, and has accomplished a cure in all instances." Animals also fast when sick or injured. When you have a cold or flu, that is a great time to fast since you already feel bad and you lack a sense of taste and smell. See the page on colds and flus. Dr Cott's book says "Another very obese man, who wanted to be ' a human being again,' fasted for 14 consecutive weekends. Then he fasted one day a week for 9 months. Over the year's time he cut his weight exactly in half, going from 360 to 180 pounds."

Also this book says "A posthospitalization questionnaire was sent to 709 obese individuals who had fasted at the University of Pennsylvania hospital [currently one of the top 10 hospitals in the country], whose pioneer fasting program was supervised by Dr. Garfield G. Duncan. Of the 50 percent who responded, approximately 46 percent had continued to lose weight, and 21 percent had remained at the reduced level at which they had completed their fast." People think that they need to eat regularly to keep their blood sugar constant. But a healthy body does that even when you are not eating at all.

A woman I was talking to said that she could not fast because she had hypoglycemia (fasting blood sugar level too low). I told her that it was rare and when the body goes into a fasting mode it is common to have the same symptoms like headaches etc. Similar to how when a smoker stops smoking or an alcoholic stops drinking. In the fasting mode the body is getting rid of toxins at an accelerated rate and some of them have to go back into the blood before the body gets rid of it. With different people it takes different amounts of time for the body to go into the fasting mode. I told her the way to tell when your body goes into a fasting mode, the mouth becomes like an organ of elimination and your tongue gets coated, like when you get sick.

Later she wrote me and said that I sure knew my stuff. She had gone most of the day without eating and got those symptoms. She looked in the mirror and saw that her tongue was coated. I used to get those same symptoms if I went too long without eating. But after I started fasting that stopped happening. Fasting is nature's bloodless operating table. It gives the entire digestive system a vacation or rest.
 

Lemonade Diet

Also called Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet or Lemonade Fast

The fasts talked about in this are therapeutic fasts with only pure water. Many trying a fast prefer to try the Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet created by Stanley Burroughs (not spelled Borroughs). His book from 1976 is at the bottom of this page. Elson M Haas, M.D. says "Ever since I did my 10 day Master Cleanser back in 1975, I do it every spring with a group of 20 or 30 people at my office. It is such a profound experience."

On the Oprah Winfrey Show, Beyonce Knowles announced that she lost 20 pounds in 10 days for the movie, Dream Girls from the lemonade detox diet. Also Robin Quivers, Howard Stern's assistant, lost 73 pounds from doing the master cleanse lemonade diet 3 times (218 down to 145). She said after losing that weight "I never felt this good about my body before" according to People Magazine. She heard about it from the famous magician, David Blaine.

You can drink lemonade, instead of water, throughout the entire day (6 to 10 glasses). It has almost all the benefits as water fasting except for the benefits for serious health problems like cardiovascular disease. Only water fasting can reduce hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), which causes high blood pressure according to Dr Fuhrman who has studied the recent medical research on fasting. For some people, just losing weight will lower blood pressure and the master cleanse is great for weight loss, like for the prom.

Peter Glickman has coached more than 500 people on the lemonade diet. He says the following: "I would estimate it [lemonade fast] to be nearly as powerful as water fasting." "It is probably the second most powerful (read that as the fastest) way to detoxify the body. Only a water fast is more powerful." "The most current, visible American MD who is a major proponent of fasting is Dr Joel Fuhrman. He has numerous successes curing diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease." Peter says that pregnant and nursing women should not do the master cleanser since the toxins could make their way to the baby.

With the lemonade diet recipe, you add 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup (preferably grade B) and one tenth tablespoon (or to your taste) of cayenne pepper to a glass of water. To modify the lemonade diet recipe ingredients some people take cayenne capsules or put it in a shot glass of water so it is not in their lemonade. Some who do not like maple syrup have had the same results using 2 tablespoons of raw agave nectar (see Health Food Store link below). Make sure that it is pure water, not tap water. See the webpage about that. To make a half gallon of it, just multiply the ingredients by 8.

I saw on a site where a guy did this Master Cleanse for 12 days. But before that the doctor said his blood pressure was 200/120. He fasted 21 days on pure water and it dropped down to 130/80. Since this webpage shows that you can fast on pure water, then if you get sick of drinking the lemonade (like some do), you can just consume pure water.

Avoid the salt water flush (SWF) where you are supposed to drink salt water which will then come out a half hour later where solid waste comes out. This is very unhealthy for you. The reason that it passes right through you, without you digesting it, is because it is toxic for you to digest it. (The same thing would happen if you put dishwashing liquid in a quart of water and drank it.) This is why many complain that it tastes terrible and makes them feel sick and want to vomit. See home page under Losing Water Weight for more info on why salt is bad for you. This is a bad thing about the lemonade diet. Instead you can do nothing or take an enema. 

Newspaper articles say that the lemonade diet is bad since you have to stay near the bathroom. Skip the SWF and you only need to be near the bathroom when you break the fast and your colon will work great. When I did the SWF it worked but I felt sick so my body did digest some of it. Some say that it did not work for them, meaning that their body digested all of it. I am constantly seeing many complaints about this on forums. Some have said that they vomit up the SWF when they drink it. Some, who it did not work for, say that they gained 5 pounds that day. Even if it does work, some of the salt may get digested.

A fast gives the colon a vacation helping it more than anything else ever can, since it is always the body that heals itself. Dr Herbert Shelton fasted 40,000 people. The first 6,000 were given enemas. Then he realized that there was no need to do anything about the colon. The enema does not hurt the person but it disturbs the vacation of the large intestine (colon) during the fast. The rest were not given enemas. Note that it did take him 6,000 people to realize he and many of the other master fasters before him were mistaken. So maybe with a little more experience, Mr Burroughs would have learned that with his lemonade diet. Modern medicine teaches that the colon is outside the body proper. For something to get from the normal digestive tract into the body proper, it must pass through the liver first.

A woman with a blog read about this lemonade diet on my website. She did it for 3 days and lost 5 pounds. Rudolph Ballentine M.D. says not to do juice fasts for more than 3 days without supervision but many people do the above fast 21 days and sometimes 40 days without supervision. One guy gave a testimonial about how he fasted with only water and had a tough time from lots of cleansing symptoms. Then he tried the lemonade diet and had no problems so he says that it is much better than the water fast.

This information about the lemonade diet shows the cause of so much confusion. The difference was in him, not the fast. He must have been eating healthier foods since that water fast, which caused him to have an easier time with the lemonade diet. Under his testimonial was another one where a woman said that her first 3 days on the master cleanse lemonade diet were HORRIBLE but after that is was fine. This is also the hardest time of a water fast due to the rapid detoxification of the body. Peter says that you could have headaches, rashes, tiredness, irritability and vomiting from the lemonade fast. The fast (includes water fast) gives your intestines a vacation or rest. When you start eating, they then work better than ever. You could do an enema on the first day or not do one. It cleans out all that stuff. This works fine with the lemonade diet.

Here is an actual story that took place August 2008. A 39 year old woman was on medication for high blood pressure. She got on the lemonade diet or lemonade fast after seeing my webpage on it. She monitored her blood pressure and reduced her medication until she was off of it completely. By the 15th day of the fast, her blood pressure was 106/79. That is a pulse pressure of 27! See page on high blood pressure for what pulse pressure is.

Concerns

With either fast you do, you should use pure water like distilled or purified water, not tap, filtered or spring water. See pure water page for more on this. Joel Fuhrman, M.D. says not to fast if you are on any medications. Dr Cott and Dr Fuhrman says that you should consult a doctor before beginning a short fast and long fasts must be done under the supervision and guidance of a doctor, where they may let you use a medication if you need it. Here is the list of professional fasters that supervise fasts (www.iahp.net).

These people are skilled with different problems that can come up during a fast. Dr Fuhrman says that the most common problem is getting up too fast while lying down and passing out which can cause injury. This never happens with his patience since he warns them of it. Second most common problem is 1 out of 100 have too little potassium after 14 days or more of fasting and he ends the fast since this is a serious condition.

You are forced to fast everyday when you sleep so it is a natural thing. I did short fasts and built up to an 11 day fast. Then I did a 22 day fast on my own. Before getting into fasting, I ate nothing but grapes (conventional not organic, even though organic is better) for 11 days and got a lot of benefits from that due to a lot of detoxification. The webpage on depression has more information on fasting helping depression. Master Cleanser  Whole Raw Food Snacks

Detoxifying With Fruit and Juice Fasting

I know someone who fasts on water for a week before the change of the season following an ancient Egyptian practice. He also will eat only fruit and nothing else for a month. So this is a good way to detoxify your but you choose how long you want to do it for. You can also do it with one kind of fruit like grapes. You eat as much grapes as you want but nothing else. I have a whole book about this called The Grape Cure which has been used to treat cancer successfully. This should be used for cancer instead of fasting.

There is a group that does juice fasting. Here are testimonials from that. New York oncologist Kathryn MacKenzie, M.D. said "I feel perfect, with lots of energy every day. I'm very grateful for your help. You are terrific! God bless you for your wonderful Fasting Program. I feel like a new person again! Thank you so much!" Chicago orthopedic surgeon David Bracken, M.D. said "I found incredible energy and focus, while on the fast. Now, even off the fast, I do more in a day than I used to do in a week! That's no exaggeration. I lost 56 lbs. on the fast, and presently weigh what I weighed in high school while on the wrestling team."

This group uses a mixture of fruit and vegetable juices for their juice fast that are nutritionally balanced for juice fasts up to 4 months long. People can continue working their jobs and they can safely do it without in-house supervision with this juice fast. I would call this a very healthy liquid diet but by calling it a juice fast, they can use quotes from people talking about a water fast. The Master Cleanse people do the same thing but then they both say bad things about the water fast which was done by Moses and Jesus.

When they throw in a quote from someone talking about a water fast it sounds like they are talking about their kind of fast. I am not fond of deception (trickery). They can still claim that they did not lie. If I were talking about water fasts and threw in the 2 above quotes you would not know that they were talking about juice fasts. No information is available on what they use in their juice diets since to do it you must pay them and buy a juice mix from them. That is good business. 

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends and the most patient of teachers." --Charles W. Eliot "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." --Mark Twain

Click on the following to learn more about how to break the fast, fasting for dental problems and more about Fasting, Eating and the Body's Inner Intelligence

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