I’ve been hearing from friends and looking at stuff on the internet that states when starting a diet, the body first needs to “detox.” Basically for 7 to 10 days you eat nothing but fruits and veggies an drink water so as to “cleanse” your system before starting a lower calorie diet.
Any truth to this, or is it all bullshit?
It’s total bullshit.
Ask your friends what the toxins are that need cleaning out.
Well, I have to specify that this is not for a drug test or anything of the sort. I’ve seen those links as I research and have no need or interest in that. Basically what I have been told is that processed food and whatnot contains “chemicals” which do “something.”
It sounded like nonsense, so I posted here. But it does make sense from a common sense standpoint (I don’t know why)..
Commons sense tells you there are toxins in the body? Toxins? Really? Name them. Tell us where they are and how they got there and why they are bad.
You can’t. The body doesn’t contain toxins. So no detox is possible. 100% bullshit.
Detox is the latest fad diet scam. How it is done depends on what the pusher is pushing. It’s bullshit from end to end.
Ignorance fought. So there is no left over hops and (possible) bong resin from years ago or months ago? All of the stuff that I put in my body less than XXX hours ago is gone and never to be seen again?
If you really want to be sure, ask your physician to schedule a colonoscopy. I’ve never had one, but my understanding is that the preparation cleans out your system about as well as anything. And then you have pictures to prove that you’re clean.
For completeness, I should add as others usually chime in with that we have an extensive and very effective (absent some other disorder) system for getting rid of unhelpful substances and chemicals – the entire excretory system, the liver, the lymphatic system . . . .
Unless you really do have some specific toxin like heavy metal buildup, which generally does not occur from merely eating “processed foods,” and which no fruit cleanse could remove anyhow, there’s no reason to think there’s anything in you that’s harmful and that a fruit cleanse could get out.
Even cheaper than scheduling a colonoscopy – take a couple of healthy doses of psyllium powder one evening (Metamucil). Then take a bottle of magnesium citrate solution the next morning. The psyllium, which is partly gelatinous and partly still a bit abrasive, will glop together with whatever it encounters and also (I imagine) has a scrubbing effect on the GI canal as it goes through. The magnesium citrate (don’t do this on a day when you have anything to do for the next few hours) will then release the bolus of scrubbed material in most convincing fashion. You will know confidently by the time things taper off that there’s nothing left in any of your gut except water, maybe some mucus, and some lonely healthy bacteria.
I see what you did there!
Everything that you eat is made up of chemicals, whether it’s a Cyanide McGrease Burger or a glass of pure rainwater.
Talk to someone who has done the colonoscopy purge, and they’ll tell you that the “clean out” was excruciating. You don’t feel like starting any diet after that torture. I wanted to hit every fast food place, restaurant and 7-11 on the way home.
Beware of the enema/laxative blather, too. These “theories” have been around since the beginning of time. If they REALLY worked, don’t you think that conventional medicine would be sending everyone off to the holistic spa?
Alternative practitioners also like to hawk a “gall bladder cleanse.” After fasting for however long, you are told to take the following at bedtime: a mega dose of Epsom salts, juice from one lemon, and a half cup of olive oil. MMMMMM, delicious! The next morning, you’ll be in the bathroom emptying out your bowels. The contents of the toilet will contain a BUNCH of foul little marbles. The alternative practitioner says that those are “gallstones.”
Hah.
I dare you to fish one out and break it apart. I bet it squishes to flatness at the touch of a (gloved) finger. If it were a gallstone, it’d be a hard rock.
Those little marbles are something known as “fecal soap balls.” It’s what happens when your guts churn together Epsom salts, lemon juice, and olive oil.
Add fiber to your diet, drink LOTS of water. That does more for bowel health than any other regimen prescribed by a clerk in a health food store.
~VOW
Of all places in the body where residues may be found, the lungs are the most likely. Coal miners are all too aware of this.
Yet lungs are also impossible to cleanse in any way. If you get enough water in your lungs to wash away bong residue hope that you’ve left a proper will for your loved ones.
Obviously lung particulates have nothing whatsoever to do with the toxins the faddists talk about. You can accumulate arsenic and various metals in the body as well. Heck, there may be ounces of lead sitting in old bullet wounds. Doesn’t matter. The toxins being talked about are nebulous Evil Chemicals the Man poisons our food supply with, not the actual mundane horrors that reality can serve up.
BTW, I’ve had four colonoscopies.
One of the things I find fascinating about the detox stuff is how unflappable many adherents are. The whole “bad food leaves bad STUFF in your body, and juice and aloe vera cleans it out!” concept apparently seems so intuitive that some folks just can’t shake it, no amount of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
My sister and parents are absolutely convinced that our bodies are just full of nasty Big Mac residue.
My family and friends will vouch for the fact that something very toxic has taken up residence the last week or so !!
Seriously, I’ve been thinking that a 24 hour pre-colonoscopy-like purge is warranted.
The ‘toxin’ in question is basically salt, and maybe sugar. The way to eliminate it is to reduce salt and abstain from sugar.
This is a good idea anytime, but for pre-dieting it is more about establishing a good starting baseline before starting to cut calories. It’s both for the sake of measurement and to avoid being uncomfortably hungry right out of the gate. Dumb people call it ‘detox’ because they don’t understand nutrition, although it can result in an abrupt change in how you look and feel.
For that purpose, fruits, veggies, and water obviously are good, but it’s never good to try to cut out one category of wholesome foods entirely. I mean obviously if you have a desk job then you need to watch your carbs like a hawk, but not eliminate them entirely.
If you want to prepare for a diet, just spend a week eating a balanced died of whole foods, enough to satisfy yourself, and see how that looks on your plate and feels in your body. You’ll probably dump 5 pounds of water just from eliminating sodium. Eliminating refined sugar will get your hormones in shape to reduce calories without completely freaking out.
What the diet you describe will do is lower your body salt content. When I get back from vacation where I eat out a lot and fill up on salt and then revert to my normal low salt diet, I lose five pounds over a few days. But that is just five pounds of water, released when the salt goes.
Well, they are: it’s called “fat”. 