Why You Shouldn’t “Detox”

There’s a huge fad of detox diets, cleanses, teas, pills, and powders, all promising you better health, or instant weight loss.  Neither of these results would be associated to said detox, in a positive way, at least. Also, detoxes, while mostly just not legitimately effective, can sometimes be dangerous. So why are their so many believers? Because people are erroneously associating causation with correlation.

“I lost 10lbs, it must be this magic [insert detox item]!”

Wrong.

Really, it’s an issue of semantics. Let’s attack the word first. Detoxification is lead in your body by several organs, primarily your kidneys, liver, and lungs. And they don’t really need much help. Anything else claiming to assist in this process is likely fabricating its effectiveness. Now let’s get to the “toxin” part. While there are some questionable things to be found in a modern American diet, all things can reach “toxic” levels if you get too much of it.  So calling it a detox is a misnomer.

“BUT I lost 10lbs and feel great, it must be this magic [insert detox item]!”

No babes. Its just the food.

Most “detoxes” require a diet of primarily fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins; and little to no fats, sugars and other refined carbohydrates.  THIS IS WHY YOU LOST 10lbs (of mostly water) and FEEL GREAT. You are simply following a cleaner diet.  What your regular everyday diet SHOULD look like. If doing a more extreme detox (master cleanse, and the like), which I highly do not recommend, you are just losing water that was previously stored in your muscles, and now isn’t there, and putting yourself at risk for lean muscle mass loss, so please don’t do that.

Don’t be fooled and save your money. Use it to buy more vegetables, eat them, and have patience.