Is a Detox Diet Right for You? Part 2

In the first part of this blog, we talked about detox diets and the fact that one of the things detox diets do is ‘cleanse’ your body. To be clear, cleansing your body in this case is a euphemism for moderate to severe diarrhea.

That Whole Cleansing Thing

I have yet to read literature from a detoxification diet that talks about the environment of the gut. Well, that’s not true. Lots of these so called diets talk about how you can lose pounds by cleansing your colon, how there’s all sorts of bad stuff in there, how it’s the land fill of your body and it needs to be cleaned out.

What I mean is that I have yet to hear a detoxification diet talk about the good bacteria in your gut. There is lots of good bacteria in your gut. It is there for a purpose. In fact, your body is designed to get rid of the waste on its own. . .without extra help from you. I have yet to hear proponents of detoxification diets explain to me how you avoid getting rid of the good stuff while you’re flushing out all the bad. The reason that I haven’t heard this yet is that you can’t.

When you force your body to ‘cleanse’ as it were, you are forcing a serious change in the natural flora and fauna of your gut. This change gets rid of the yucky stuff in there, but it also gets rid of the good stuff that’s in there and that could be seriously dangerous.

The Quick Fix

We often are looking for that thing that will help us drop 10 pounds or lose weight quickly. But the truth is that no matter how you slice it, losing weight rapidly is generally not associated with good health.

There is not a quick fix for weight loss. However if you want to detoxify your body, you need to drink more water. If you regularly eat fruits and vegetables, you will also ‘cleanse’ your colon–but in a more healthy and natural way.

Despite my objections to detoxification cleanses, there are benefits to fasting. . .which I will get to tomorrow.

For other healthy alternatives in losing weight please see:

Journaling Your Way to Weight Loss

Just a Few Pounds

Did You Get Your Flaxseed Today?

The Connection Between Weight Loss and Sleep