Do you need to detox?

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The world has probably never before been as dangerous a place as it is today. There are super-bacteria and ultra-viruses which are difficult to battle, new strains of the flu seem to be mutating every year, and the cure for cancer still seems far away in the distance. Toxins attack our bodies on a daily basis from many directions; eating right sometimes seems an uphill battle and de-stressing is often a notion as foreign as Zootopia.

Having all this in mind, we try to do our very best to give our bodies the best they can get – we know we need to eat right and exercise, we know how important sleep is, but sometimes you feel like providing your body with a thorough cleanse. This is when you start contemplating the idea of a detox, but might be unsure of the benefits and hardships on the road ahead.

The key question you need to ask is does detoxing even work, and can you cleanse your body thoroughly enough, or at all. Your liver and kidneys are already designed to rid you of harmful elements, so what can you do to help, and what kind of effects can you expect, is the thought swirling through the minds of many. Stay with us as we try to answer these questions in a nutshell.

What to eat

There are countless different version of a “detox diet” out there. Some are marketed by “nutrition gurus”, others by specific companies, but all of them revolve around vegetables, fruits and water, plus a pack of supplements, if that be the agenda.

Your daily menu on detox will most likely be quite limited, and you might soon get tired of eating the same meals on a daily basis. However, the time you usually spend on preparing and cooking meals will be cut down, as you will no longer be making complex dishes.

Smoothies and salads are the staples of most detox diets, with potentially an occasional slice of lean meat or whole grains on the side. Sugars and processed foods will be off limits, so the no snacking rule might be the most difficult hurdle to jump.

There are of course even liquid versions of a detox, which is however never a good idea – especially not in the long run, and cannot be sustained for days on end. More to the point – there is no point to them. You will feel weak and dizzy, and will not be better off for it.

What to expect

If you do decide to go through a detox – here’s how you will most likely feel.

If you eat nothing but fruits and vegetables, you will slowly start to lose the water weight your body has been storing. Glycogen is the element that helps your body cling to water, and as you use up your glycogen stores, the water will leave your body. However, it will all come right back once you return to your previous eating regime.

You will also be eating little to no protein, fiber and fat, which means you will be ingesting a lot less calories than your body is used to. In turn, you will probably be feeling weak and dizzy, and the fatigue will not go away after eating another bout of fresh veggies.

As you stay clear of protein, your body will turn to a source it has on hand – your muscles. If starved of building materials for too long, your body will be forced to retaliate, and you will be the only one feeling the pain.

What not to expect

Most people decide to go on a detox diet to lose weight, or because a celebrity has been talking about their own detoxing success. While it is true that such an eating regime will shave off a few digits on the scale – as discussed above, the weight in question is mostly water.

If you have decided to follow a regime which demands too few calories, you will not feel much better for it. Your health will not bounce significantly, in fact, most people describe being on a detox like having the stomach flu.

Ultimately, you might end your bout of detox exhausted and fatigued, and unsure why so many people rave about the effect.

Another key takeaway – like we’ve suggested in the intro – you will not do anything your body does not already do on its own. However you may feel about it, your body is a fine-tuned machine, able to cope with what you feed it, and is able to filtrate accordingly.

What to, ultimately, do

There is certainly one aspect to detox diets that you can and should adopt in your daily life – the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies on your plate. All detox diets advocate no processed foods and no fast, sugar-laden, unhealthy foods. You don’t need to stop ingesting solid food to cleanse your body. You’d need to change your lifestyle.

The formula to living healthy is not a mystery – eat healthy foods: veggies, fruits, lean meat, whole grains. Foods which can help your body detox are simply healthy amounts of something that doesn’t come prepackaged from a store shelf. Add a moderate amount of exercise, as little as 30 minutes a day, to your otherwise overly sedentary lifestyle, and you will be on your way to what you wanted to achieve with a crash liquid diet – a healthy body.

samanthaolivier
Samantha has a B.Sc. in nutrition, and has spent two years working as a personal trainer. Since then, she has embarked on a mission to conquer the blogosphere. You can read more of her posts at Ripped.me