Diet vs. Detox

We have to deal with toxins in addition to calories and exercise in order to reach and maintain a healthy weight and optimal health. There's no better way to deal with weight than nutritional cleansing.

If you have never done a cleanse program, then it is likely that toxins have been building up in your body for decades (see the drawing below). Not only does this encourage weight gain, but these toxins interfere with your immune system so you are more vulnerable to disease. The toxins might even be interfering with your prescription medications, making them less effective.

Detox programs have become popular. So all sorts of companies are now marketing detox programs, many being very dangerous to health. Same thing with vitamins, ever notice that there are now entire aisles full of vitamins now in stores? Wasn't the case even a decade or so ago. When a given type of product becomes popular, then companies come out of the woodwork marketing crap with fancy labels. Most vitamins are synthetic and do much more harm than good, but priced cheap and most consumers assume there's no difference. It's sad. So know that all detox programs are not created equal, that some won't work at all and that many are even harmful.

Avoid the fasting programs or any 'detox program' that suggests eating only one type of food. You need a balance of essential nutrients, so to fast or otherwise deprive yourself of a balance of nutrients is NOT healthy. A good cleanse/detox program should FLOOD your body with nutrients, never deprive you of them.

We are bombarded daily with toxins through our environment. Our inner organs (liver, kidneys and skin) cannot keep up, so excess toxicity gets housed in fat cells and safely deposited on our midsection and other body parts. The weight you have on account of burning less calories than you consume is one thing, but if you reach a plateau or want to speed up the process and lose the weight that is attributed to fat cells housing toxins - that fat is next to impossible to diet away - it must be cleansed away!

Detoxing in the traditional way is rather harsh on the body, mostly because it flushes some good along with the bad, usually without replacing those nutrients. Nutritional cleansing is a sustainable way of dealing with toxicity while at the same time flooding the body with essential nutrients. Grocery store food is not what it once was - we would need roughly 3000-4000 calories per day with today's food chain food to sustain us nutritionally, even given good choices!

The health industry can be very confusing! So many conflicting reports, and yet all claim to be based on medical research. Consider that quality medical research is very expensive and time-consuming, yet some industries (pharmaceuticals) can afford a huge budget for research. Prime time television commercials are also very expensive, yet ads for pharmaceutical drugs are now common to the point of annoyance. Much controversy exists over conventional medicine VS natural remedies. I believe a combination of the two is best, since there's a need and a place for both. Yet we all need to do our own research and then make the best personal decision we can. I know a nurse who says to 'always consider yourself your best second opinion' and agree 100%.

Some of the days on the detox program I use include a liquid only diet. To those who might think only a liquid diet is unhealthy, I ask this..."Do we think of breast fed babies as unhealthy? Of course not, there couldn't BE better nutrition for an infant than mother's milk. In a similar way, a good detox program can supply just the right balance of vitamins and minerals needed in liquid form, and for most people that's WAY more than they get from food. This change is hard for us because it is a break from our usual eating pattern. Most of us are overfed and undernourished.

You consume very different foods for about 10 days, and drink a lot of water. A few of those days you will be drinking liquid only so you might miss the sensation of chewing food on those few days (the 1st two days and the last two days). Wafers are provided to chew when needed and these do help retain blood sugar. You drink healthy shakes as meal replacements that are loaded with balanced nutrition for most meals, then can also eat one healthy meal on most days of the cleanse. To effectively detox, you WILL need to abstain from fast foods, coffee, alcohol and all other obviously unhealthy habits for a time. The hardest for me was coffee, since I got headaches from that lack of caffeine. So I'd sip a little bit of coffee (so I cheated) til the headache went away. Even still, I have still lost an average of about 9 pounds in the 9 days doing this cleanse. Exercise helps of course, and will increase weight loss. In addition to the weight loss, I also noticed that my skin became clearer, had more energy and my mental clarity improved. Also my cravings for sweets (and coffee) decreased by a lot.

If you could eat only organic raw food like a strict vegan for a period of time, then I suppose you could mimic a detox/cleanse on your own. I know a gal who did this... She used to be an alcoholic, then became a very disciplined vegan and actually told me that after a few weeks she felt SO incredibly wonderful that it was like she was high all the time, better than she ever felt with alcohol, and so much so that it first she found it overwhelming! Now she's totally 'hooked' on vegan and the gal is vibrant, never looked better! Those results are similar to what happens after a good nutritional cleanse.

Very few people on this planet eat healthy enough to avoid toxic overloads. That would require a huge investment in both time and money to plan and buy the right organically-grown foods, and to research heavily to get the right balance of vitamins and minerals. If you are like me, this is just not an option. Most of us are just too busy and don't have the time nor the inclination to consider such a commitment. When that exact balance of nutrients can be provided in a quick shake made in a blender, to me that's a no-brainer.

In the end it is your decision whether to consider a cleansing detox program. I hope you choose to release the toxins and impurities hidden in your body and then see what a difference that can make... not only with weight loss but also to restore vibrant health and resistance to disease. By the way, if you need to take prescription medications, many people find that their meds are more effective after a cleanse as well. It makes sense when you consider that not only has the immune system been recharged, but the meds don't have to squeeze their way through toxins to do what they are prescribed to do.