Day 1.

Weight: 104kg
"Official" BMI: 30.4

Started this morning at roughly 6:30am.

Apparently my BMI is 30.4, which is technically termed "obese" but anyone who's seen me in person knows that it's complete bollocks. BMI tends not to take into account bone and muscle mass, and in all fairness, I'm a pretty big guy. That being said, I can definitely stand to lose weight, so this diet should be interesting.

Off to a bit of a shaky start, as I wasn't able to get the *exact* syrup I needed, so I ended up going with a bottle of agave nectar instead, seemed to be the closest match to what I was after.... I'll be getting the proper syrup on Day 2.

The whole mixture doesn't really taste bad at all..... half a litre of water, juice of one whole lemon, 2 tablespoons of syrup, and a small pinch of cayenne pepper. Really just tastes like very, very sweet lemonade.

Haven't noticed anything revolutionary yet, other than the fact that I'm a *little* bit hungry, but it'll probably pass. I'll update today's post once I've hit lunchtime.

TIME: 10:58am
One of my workmates just had a bacon and egg sandwich with BBQ sauce. Oh the humanity. He sits about 8 feet away from me too.

TIME: 12:04pm - Lunchtime.
Well, as it shall be for the next 10 days, my lunch today consists of... you guessed it. Half a litre of spring water, juice/pulp from one whole lemon, a few tablespoons of syrup and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

It actually tastes pretty good, all things considered. That taste might change a bit when I get the proper syrup tomorrow, but I guess we'll see.

Still no revolutionary nutritional epiphany. Standing by.

TIME: 2:28pm
Right now, I would take on a pack of starving hyenas for a peanut butter sandwich, a salami roll, some pasta, ANYTHING...... I'm guessing this is typical in the very early stages of a diet like this.

I can take it.

The Lemon Detox Challenge.

With the amount of press the Lemon Detox Diet has been receiving lately, I decided it was time to try it out for myself, and publish detailed results online.

For those who haven't heard of the diet, or know very little about it, it basically entails consuming nothing but pure maple and palm syrup, mixed into water with fresh lemon and cayenne pepper, for 10 days.

Sounds like sheer lunacy to survive for 10 days on sweetened lemon water, but if you look a little closer, it's actually not as crazy as it sounds.

Lemon is a proven detoxifier of the liver and gall bladder, and the tree and maple syrup contains large amounts of trace elements and nutrients, designed to keep your body's vital stocks of vitamins on par. The cayenne pepper adds beta carotene to the mix, and is a natural thermogenic (which means it kicks the metabolism into overdrive).

So, for the next 10 days, I'll be consuming nothing but water, lemons, tree syrup and cayenne pepper. Along with a glass of salt water (rock salt only, no iodised table salt) in the morning to kickstart the intestinal cleansing process.

I'm anticipating headaches and a little weakness for the first 2 or 3 days, and a very heavily coated tongue as the toxins in my body start to jump ship.

I'll be posting photos of the ingredients, equipment and before/after and ongoing stats as the diet progresses.

** UPDATE ** This blog will also track the day-by-day progress of someone else doing a more conventional detox, in parallel to mine.