Do detox diets really help you lose weight? The truth behind juice diets revealed
Tempted to give juicing a go? We reveal just how effective detox diets really are...
IF you've ever tried to diet over the new year, the chances are that you've toyed with detoxing.
January is peak detox time, with everyone being encouraged to steam, juice and starve the Christmas booze and turkey out of their systems.
But just how effective are detox diets? And more to the point, how safe are they?
Press London offers a soup and juice cleanse which they claim allows you to enjoy the benefits of a balanced diet without feeling too restricted (I don't know about you but a fully liquid diet still seems pretty restrictive...).
Press says that: "Cleansing is about removing something negative from your routine and replacing it with something healthy and positive. You will be left feeling energised, refreshed and ready to take on life's challenges with a little more spring in your step."
If you want to lose weight, get rid of unhealthy eating habits, increase your energy levels, stop bloating, improve sleep quality and skin quality and improve your immune system, Press says that cleansing is the answer.
"Some may find it a breeze, others may find it a challenge. Some may see some positive weight loss (most people in fact), but this is about more than short-term weight loss; it's about breaking habits, giving your body a rest and finding the healthiest version of you."
That challenge can manifest itself in what Project Juice calls a "healing crisis".
That's when you start to feel worse before you feel better during a fast. It's when you feel groggy, tired, you've got a headache and everything generally feels difficult.
They say you can alleviate that by staying as hydrated as possible ("to flush out the toxins"), sleep more and visit saunas.
Detoxing is about expelling poisons and toxins from the body - like a sort of reset button. You stop eating and drinking anything that isn't just pure fruit and veg (and nuts in some cases), which then kickstarts a healthier regime.
Sounds great, right? Who wouldn't want to sleep more soundly while looking and feeling healthier?
But there's actually very little evidence that juice cleanses and detoxes actually do anything that good to you.
Does detoxing really help your body get rid of toxins?
Well...no.
That's literally what your liver, kidneys and intestines are there for.
Leading Harley Street Nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert told The Sun: "Any suggestion that the human body can be detoxed with a juice cleanse is incorrect. We are naturally designed to remove toxins using our liver and kidneys - a juice cleanse won't perform such a detox."
Even if you've been on the sauce all weekend and lived off Macci Ds for three days, your body can handle it.
You're probably better off having a booze-free week and eating more veg than simply giving up all solid foods.
While there's no evidence that detoxing necessarily does much good to you, there's no evidence to suggest it's that bad either. In fact, for some people, it probably does work as a healthy eating kick-starter.
But if you have a history of disordered eating, then denying yourself any solid food is going to be an incredibly bad idea.
Rhiannon again: "Our bodies are perfectly capable of ‘detoxing’ themselves. Using a juice to ‘detox’ may also lead to digestive discomfort and an unhealthy relationship with food.
"There is no better way of maintaining a healthy body than eating a well-balanced diet that includes plenty of fruit and veg, essential fats, whole grains and protein."
You can think of your digestive system a bit like a rubbish treatment plant. It's there to treat and dispose of trash - which releases enzymes and chemicals to break down and dispose of harmful compounds. And that system runs 24/7, meaning that it doesn't need a break or a helping hand.
Fruit juice contains a tonne of sugar
Sugar is public enemy number one these days and you know what contains a stack of it? Fruit. In its whole form, fruit is obviously really good for you because it contains fibre and other vital vitamins and minerals.
But few would recommend living off fruit alone. And those fruitarians who do consume pretty calorific diets made up of whole fruits - not just juices.
Dr Robert Lustig, US obesity expert and author of Fat Chance: The Bitter Truth About Sugar, told BBC Good Food: "Calorie for calorie, fruit juice is worse for you than fizzy drinks".
"When you turn fruit into juice, you are losing the insoluble fibre, which is an essential nutrient and helps delay absorption of the sugar. Take the fibre away and you’re just drinking sugar and calories. There’s some vitamin C, but you would be better off taking a vitamin pill for that."
Juice elevates your blood sugar a lot more quickly that whole fruit does. All the antioxidants that can help to protect against certain cancers and oxidative stress (which is what ages us) are found in fruit skins.
When you juice a fruit, you're getting rid of almost all of its fibre content while eating way more of the sugar than you regulate would.
You might not sit down and eat four apples in one go (because you'd get quite full from the fibre) but a glass of juice probably comes from at least four pieces of fruit. That means that you're getting way more sugar than you would if you simply just ate an apple.
Drinking all that juice is bad news for your teeth
Dr Sarah Brewer told The Sun: "The acids present in many soft drinks, fruit juices, sport drinks and wine can chemically erode tooth enamel. In fact, someone who eats citrus fruit more than twice a day is thirty-seven times more likely to experience dental erosion than someone who eats citrus fruit less frequently.
"You don’t want to avoid eating fruits and drinking fruit juices altogether, as they form a vital part of a healthy diet.
"The erosive potential of fruit juices may partly be reduced by diluting with water, but not in all cases, and may make drinks unacceptable due to their reduced taste and colour.
"Rehydrate your mouth regularly by sipping water, and sluice your mouth out after drinking tea, coffee, cola, sports drinks, wine and other alcohol drinks. In fact, this is another good reason (apart from responsible drinking) to have a glass of water after each alcoholic drink."
She said that using a straw will lessen contact time between your teeth and the drink and washing your mouth out with something high in calcium can be protective (not many fasts allow for molten cheese or milk so you might be screwed).
Dr Sarah also recommends brushing your teeth with a fluoride toothpaste before having your drink.
Not having any carbs at all other than from veggies can be hard on your brain
It goes without saying that you're going to be missing out on all sorts of vital vitamins and minerals if you just chow down liquid fruit and veg. While it's almost impossible to eat enough dark, leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, you're going to struggle if that's all you're eating.
While veg is technically a carb, it's hard to get all the carbs you need to function from them...especially if you've also taken all other macronutrients out from your diet.
We need carbs to function - our brains and bodies rely on the glucose that comes from carbs.
Refined foods like white pasta, bread and pastries lack much of the fibre and other nutrients common to wholesome carbohydrates, and provide quick-release energy that can leave us feeling deflated quickly.
Cutting all carbs out can leave you feeling tired and moody.
And that's because our brains rely on the glucose found in carbohydrates as fuel.
Carbs also affect how much serotonin - the happy hormone - we produce.
So cut out all carbs and you could find yourself circling the drain.
Some of that weight loss is going to be from muscle mass - not fat
Loads of juice cleanses come in under 1,000 calories a day - way below the standard dieting calorie deficit.
One of the reasons professions recommend you only go down to about 1,800 calories on diet plans is that under that for a day or two, your body uses stored up energy stored in your muscles and liver, and after that, it starts to attack the muscles.
The only way to actually change your body composition is to up your lean muscle mass - not decrease it. When we talk about losing weight, we only want to be losing body fat, not muscle.
The weight you lose is probably going to come back again
You're drinking a tonne of liquids so you're going to be peeing incessantly. It follows that most of the weight you lose over the course of a juice cleanse is almost exclusively going to be water weight.
As with most crash diets, the chances of you putting that weight back on is so high. Long-term weight loss is about developing new habits which are sustainable...and who in their right mind is going to sustain a liquid diet for more than a week or two? Granted, it might help you to rethink your current eating habits.
If you live off a high caffeine, carb, sugar, booze diet, then a "detox" might help you to see the benefits of cutting down. But you'll really have to work against the temptation to slide back to old habits after a week off.
So, is detoxing worth the faff?
Well...probably not. It's not bad for you necessarily but it's not going to do much for you either. And it can be really expensive too.
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Press's packages start at £46 PER DAY, and go up to £230 for five days. Think how much healthy food you could cook for £46 a day!
It's also worth saying that the FDA and advertising standards authority in this country have taken action against several companies selling "detox" products (notably Pukka Tea who was told that they had to rename their "detox tea").
Juice detoxes probably aren't going to be suitable for people with diabetes (the sugar content again).
Your body can handle quite a lot - including the occassional indulgence, so you're probably better off leaving it to do its job.
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