The market right now is abuzz with various “detox” programs, following year-end holiday consumption and to help people start the new year feeling clean as a whistle on the inside.
The benefits of detoxing your body are indeed compelling:
- Weight loss,
- More energy,
- Disappearing joint pain,
- Better digestion with less foodstuffs (to detox and eliminate from the body),
- Disappearing auto-immune symptoms,
- No more toxic hunger (food cravings),
- Mood stabilizing (calming anxiety and depression)
- Skin clearing,
- Blood sugar stabilization,
- Brain fog clearing,
- and a sharper mind.
There are a whole lot of people out there creating grand stories about “toxins”, and detoxing, but who, quite frankly, don’t really understand anything about the actual SCIENCE on this subject let alone the basic principles.
As Performance Lifestyle Advisor Ari Whitten of The Energy Blueprint states: “the simple truth is that toxins — things like BPA, mercury, lead, arsenic, phthalates, glyphosate, air pollutants, fluoride, etc. — are VERY real. And there is actually a mountain of science showing that these toxins DO accumulate in our bodies and ARE a major cause of all kinds of health problems from fatigue to obesity to autoimmune diseases.
The truth is that detoxifying your body isn’t about talking some colon cleansing pill, fad diet or magic detox potion. Nor is it even necessarily about doing aggressive chelation therapies (which can help with certain types of toxins, but are far from a complete solution.) It’s about identifying the most common environmental toxins and how to take simple actions to eliminate them from your body, and your life.
By doing this, you can stimulate fat loss, clear brain fog, eliminate many types of chronic symptoms (e.g. autoimmune symptoms), and of course, increase your energy dramatically.”
But that’s learning how to steer clear of environmental toxins. Now, let’s take that one step back, and I mean one very big step back to the main point about not consuming a toxic diet. After all, diet is the number one toxin and we toxify our bodies knowingly 3-5 times per day, in a big way. No “detox” plan is going to make up for that completely over the course of a few weeks at the end of the year or a couple of times per year, despite all of the benefits listed above.
The reason is simple. Toxifying the body through a version of the SAD diet can mean you either gain weight or lose weight. Yes, there are unhealthy toxifying diets that can make you gain weight and lose weight, including some of the diets listed below, because while you lose weight it can still be toxic, and cause you to you compromise the machinery of the body including its own detoxification systems.
Understand that typically, weight loss diets or diets of any kind are in fact variations of a detox diet. You are removing something, you are currently consuming to get a result.
Think about it. If traditional diets really worked, then everyone would be able to achieve their ideal weight with a little willpower and a commitment to laying off the “bad” foods. If traditional diets really worked, you would only have to follow them once, because there would be no danger of “yo-yo-ing” or regaining the weight. Finally, if traditional diets really worked, you would not only lose excess weight—you’d also see improvements in your overall health, and lessen your risk of serious disease.
No matter what popular diet you choose—calorie restriction, high protein, low carb, low fat, Paleo, Atkins, Zone, South Beach, Mediterranean, or many others—the results follow a predictable pattern. You start enthusiastically, determined to stick to it, no matter how hard it is. You spend your days hungry, irritable and tormented by thoughts of “forbidden” foods. You feel rundown. And then your willpower slips—just a little at first, then some more—and then all bets are off, and you’re back to where you started.
If this sounds familiar, then you’re reading the right information because eating a whole-foods, nutrient-rich diet, such as Dr. Fuhrmans’s 10 in 20, is not a diet. It is an essential aspect of a lifestyle plan.
Why is this approach different?
The fundamental goal is to not only lose weight, but to maximize health. As a physician who always looks at the most current research, Dr Fuhrman has designed a program that supplies your body with the nutrition, micronutrients, and phytochemicals it needs to achieve optimal weight and prevent disease.
A diet-style that is rich in micronutrients also suppresses your appetite and reduces food cravings!
How this work’s for you…
Dr Fuhrman’s “detox diet” is not really a detox diet but will do more for you than any detox diet can possibly do. It’s specially designed to help you drop up to 10 pounds in just 20 days. This targeted program, for example, focuses on filling your daily diet with nutrient-dense foods that will help your body use your body fat for energy, while repairing and rejuvenating valuable tissue. Following this eating style will also reset your palate, and allow you to savor the flavors of natural food.
Dr. Fuhrman 10 in 20: Dr. Fuhrman’s Lose 10 pounds in 20 days detox program – Paperback Edition
What you can expect:
This diet takes the guesswork out of what to eat—not only to lose weight and feel great but also to help you overcome your cravings for toxic and unhealthy foods.
But don’t think a detox diet, or nutrient rich, healthy eating style is all about vegetable juices. Far from it.Having a vegetable juice, like the picture above suggests, doesn’t “do” the detoxing. A body that isn’t contending with greasy chicken wings, and cheese, but rather a vegetable juice can detoxify. The bodies energy is free and the body is always trending towards detoxification and health so it happens naturally. Matter of fact it’s always happening, and it’s acccentuated during first stage of transitioning to a whole food, nutrient-rich diet.
As a protege of Dr. Fuhrman, there was no question about what the most successful way to eat was and years ago, we established The 3 Classes of Food™ and built whole food nutrient-rich eating into the Performance Lifestyle approach to achieving your goals. It is part of the PL365- the Performance Lifestyle® plan, and in that context, you want to have a way of eating that promotes all of the 5 core functions of healthy eating. Any eating approach that doesn’t, while it may help you lose weight, build muscle or improve performance in the short term; it’s not healthy eating.
Only you and your body are capable of detoxing your body. Meaning, only your decision not to toxify the body in the first place in any significant way, by consuming up to 90% or more whole, plant-based, nutrient-rich foods, doing your best to maintain a clean environment; and, allowing your bloodstream, antioxidant defense system, liver, kidneys etc to do their work, as the detoxifying organs in the body, will keep your body clean and the weight off.
Sure, there are substances the body uses from food to run the machinery of the body, and perform these functions; but nutrients don’t do the detox. They are inert. The body always does the job.
