The Truth Of Detox and Fantasy Weight Loss Schemes

The Truth Of Detox and Fantasy Weight Loss Schemes

By Dr. Jill Diana Chasse

It’s bathing suit season and many of you are looking to the internet for answers. The media fills our minds with quick and easy answers to fitting into a size 4 dress and turning heads with a dazzling swimsuit, but in reality, quick fixes are dangerous. The human body was meant to take in a certain number of calories, nutrients and vitamins to function, most that can be found in daily meals. Supplements are not even necessary unless you have a diagnosed deficiency, and can be very dangerous.

Losing Weight
It seems like a good way to drop a few pounds, by taking a shake instead of a meal or adding it to your breakfast routine, but the reason most people lose weight on these diets is because they’re starving themselves. Reducing calories in your diet can be done without a shake packed full of chemical powder and diluted vitamins. Taking supplements instead of meals also tricks your body. You may lose weight fast then gain it back with a vengeance. This is often called yo-yoing or weight cycling. You may also lose weight but gain nutritional deficiencies, gastrointestinal disease, headaches, or diarrhea that can cause dehydration or electrolyte imbalance. These diet substances interfere directly with the gut microbiome and can lead to long term damage.

Detox and cleanse
But it’s not just losing weight or looking good in those short shorts, you say. You want to be alert,
healthy and free of harmful toxins. Well you’re in luck! Your body has an amazing ability to get rid of toxins without any costly powders. That’s right, the body cleanses itself. That’s what your liver, kidneys and colon do naturally. Even your intestines have defense. Lymph nodes in the small intestine screen out the bad stuff before nutrients are absorbed into the blood. Your liver produces metallothioneins, they are proteins that actually neutralize harmful metals to get them ready to be eliminated. And of course there’s the kidneys that are known for filtering out waste. You have a whole team working to detox and cleanse you.

But it’s Natural
Arsenic is natural too. So it opium. There are two very important lessons here in understanding the concept of natural. The first is the toxicologist’s mantra, “ “The dose makes the poison.” This is a condensed quote from the German-Swiss physician Paracelsus who brought chemistry into medicine. “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.” This means that you need to drink a ridiculous number of diet cokes to injure you, the chemical in your breakfast cereal won't cause any issues until you eat a literal ton, and even something as healthy as bananas or water can kill you. Which brings us to the next point of, just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it is good for you. You can drink too much herbal tea and end up in the hospital. Ricin comes from castor beans but the purified powder of just a few grains of it can kill you.

My health coach said it was safe.

One of the most concerning issues with fad diets, detox shakes and cleaning programs is that many sales associates or consultants call themselves “health coaches” or “nutrition /diet counselors” when in fact they have little or no professional education as a dietician or nutritionist. These careers involve years of education and training in dietetics, food science, toxicology, nutritional therapy, nutrition informatics, bacteriology, physiology, and applied food principles. The majority of “health coaches” couldn’t explain the difference between enzymes in your digestive system and peyer’s patches in your small intestine.

There’s no problem with wanting to lose weight and feel better about yourself. A smarter approach is to improve your lifestyle and eating habits rather than go on a potentially dangerous diet, detox or cleanse. Look at the United States Department of Agriculture's ChooseMyPlate.gov to build a healthy relationship with food, understand what you’re eating, and allow it to work with your body and not against it.

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