Are Detoxes And Juice Cleanses Really Worth It
Lots of people are worried about the effects of modern lifestyle factors like poor nutrition, sleep deprivation, stress, and environmental pollutants on their health.
We receive a fair number of questions about detox diets and juice cleanses, which have become popular recently as an efficient way to (supposedly) lose weight and rid the body of impurities.
But detox diets don’t clean out toxins or help you lose body fat. In fact, detox diets can work against these goals by bypassing the body’s natural detoxification systems and creating a feast-or-famine cycle of eating.
Among many problems, detoxes and cleanses often:
- are protein deficient,
- are extremely low in energy,
- cause unhealthy blood-sugar swings,
- cause GI tract dysfunction, and
- lead to a yoyo of restrictive eating and overcompensation.
If doing a juice cleanse or detox diet helps you get ready to make further helpful and sustainable changes to your life, OK. Just make sure that you are following a proven, monitored detox protocol with caution.
However, we prefer helping our patients build life-long skills and incorporate daily practices to improve their health, performance, and body composition without extreme (and unsustainable) things like detoxes and cleanses.
