Have you ever tried a short term fix to lose weight? If your answer is yes, join the party! If you think that crash diets or detoxes are the solution to your problems then I’m going to request we hit the “PAUSE” button. Right now. Diets such as “The Cabbage Soup Diet” and “The Grapefruit Diet” are touted by high profile celebrities for helping individuals lose large amounts of weight in as little as a week or two. Detox diets are becoming extremely popular to relieve bloating and guilt after overindulging. There’s one big problem though; these diets don’t work! 

For starters, who really wants to eat cabbage soup for every meal? Sure, cabbage is high in fiber but come on! Also, how many of us can really maintain the benefits of a juice detox plan for longer than a week or two (at most) before rebounding to higher caloric consumption levels and regaining water weight?

Let’s go a step further and ask ourselves: “why are these diets so enticing?” The answer: because we want a quick fix. We want to believe that something short term is the solution to kick starting us down the path of righteousness and good exercise/eating behavior.

It’s not enough for me to ridicule these diet plans without providing sufficient evidence that there are superior alternatives. Please don’t fret. I’m ready to shed light on why crash diets aren’t the solution, and best of all, how you can take easy, immediate steps to feel better, lose weight and detox your body.

Question: Why are crash diets so popular?

Answer: Ladies, there are two realities we’re dealing with: 1) we have a harder time losing weight than men (thanks to hormones and good old Mother Nature), and 2) we are typically the decision makers when it comes to household spending habits. This means that we are prime subjects of endless marketing campaigns. Companies understand that we are emotional buyers/spenders and that we get frustrated with our biology. Voila! Thousands of quick fixes are designed by companies and marketing teams to attract us. With each new promising product or diet, we open our wallets hoping “maybe this time it will work!”

 We’ve all been there! 

Question: What’s the deal with detox diets?

Answer: Detox diets are an extension of fasting, a practice within many religions to cleanse the body and the mind for spiritual purposes (for example: Muslims, Catholics and Jews fast on Ramadan, Lent and Yom Kippur). Today, many people choose juice fasts and detoxes for quick weight loss and getting rid of “toxins” rather than spiritual clarity and sacrifice. Unfortunately, there are several issues with choosing detoxes for these reasons:

1) Frank Sacks, MD, of the Harvard School of Public Health states that the concept of your body ridding itself of toxins via detox diets has “no basis in human biology.”

2) According to WebMD and others, detox diets “may be risky and even backfire.” For example, extreme yo-yos in caloric consumption actually lead your body to hoard belly fat, not eliminate it.

3) If you find yourself frequently looking towards detox diets you are probably in a cycle of poor eating habits (emotional eating binges, excessive partying/boozing, eating out for lots of meals, etc). If this is the case, I encourage you to ask yourself if there is a higher purpose you can look to as your anchor in life so that you can simplify external pleasures (that become stressors when excessive) and be fully satisfied from the inside out.

Question: Have you ever tried detoxing?

Answer: Yes! Years ago I attended yoga teacher training at an ashram in India. Part of the training was to learn how to detox the body. This included a vegan diet and cleansing rituals. The other teachers-in-training and I did everything from neti pot (cleaning our nostrils with a saline solution) to a stomach cleansing (chugging salt water on empty stomachs and forcing ourselves to throw it up). Trust me when I say, it wasn’t always pretty and I had major reservations about entering into a “mob mentality” and doing things I didn’t believe in. When it was all said and done though, I did find merit in having a clean body but I also established the belief that detoxing can be done in our day to day lives without such extreme actions.

 I’m sharing these photos with you to be transparent – we live and learn. Please be open and receptive to the process! And P.S. – Neti Pot, although undeniably NOT attractive, is very safe, natural and effective for clearing the sinuses! To this day I prevent many sinus infections with this technique.

Question: How do we detox and keep our bodies clean without taking extreme measures?

Answer: Three simple truths: Sleep, Exercise, Clean Eating

Sleep – It’s incredible how sleep “detoxes” our brains. Maria Konnikova with The New York Times is one of many writers over the past year to discuss the brain’s important janitorial role while we sleep. Her article, “Goodnight. Sleep Clean.” explains how the interstitial space (area between brain cells) in your brain actually expands at night so that the brain can flush out toxins. There is actually growing evidence to suggest that a lack of sleep might actually contribute to dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. That is enough to convince me! Rest well, ladies!

Exercise – According to Danielle O’Connell with Livestrong.com, exercise is a powerful, natural detoxifier:

“Exercise helps the body’s organs of elimination to function optimally simply by getting them going. Moving the body helps to circulate both blood and lymph. The more they circulate, the more the liver and lymph nodes can do the job of cleansing and purifying the blood and lymph.

The digestive system works well and more regularly with consistent exercise. When you exercise you breathe deeply with your lungs. The oxygen that you breathe in travels though the blood to the brain and muscles. The lungs increase their capacity as the heart muscle grows stronger, and they produce and give off carbon dioxide as a waste product of aerobic exercise. The skin is cleansed from the inside out by the cleansing process of perspiration. Many toxins can be eliminated through the skin by sweating.

Another way exercise helps to detoxify the body is by reducing the body’s subcutaneous fatty tissue. Toxins get stored in the fatty tissue of the body. Therefore, when fatty tissue is reduced as a result of aerobic exercise, the toxins are released and can be eliminated through the cleansing organs.”

Clean Eating – WedMB suggests “If the idea of detoxing appeals, you might try ‘clean’ eating that focuses on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean protein -basically, whole foods without a lot of processing. That’s good for you and more likely to give you results that last, especially if you make exercise a habit.” It’s incredible how a simple, healthy diet does the trick! I have tested this theory many times over the years – if I’m starting to feel run down, it’s almost always because I’m eating more sugar, refined carbs (aka bread, yum!) and drinking more glasses of wine on the weekends (ooohh, Merlot). If I change these habits and focus intently for several days on eating “clean” then I feel my energy pick back up to a strong, conquer-the-world level. Try it!

If you made it to the end of this article, congratulations! It’s a lot to get through but I hope that now you see that you’re already primed and ready for change!

Try one day of 7-9 hours of sleep, a good workout, and clean eating at every meal and WOW! You WILL feel the “detox difference!” 

Yours in health and wellness,

Maggie

 

 

References:

http://blog.thedetoxmarket.com/glow-1-1/

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/diets/detox-diet.htm

http://www.livestrong.com/article/206993-exercise-for-detox/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/opinion/sunday/goodnight-sleep-clean.html?_r=0

http://www.webmd.com/diet/detox-diets