We all have crazy notions but where, may I ask, came this idea that we can detox our bodies by placing extreme limits on our diets for more than one day??? These "detox's" go on for days and days and days. Ugh. Hate to burst the bubble here, but I suspect detox diets are a hoax, they have no science to back them up. Just say no.
What exactly does the science show? Let me tell ya what I know.
The first day of a cleanse diet usually entails drinking lots of water (or worse fruit / vege juice blends) and eating veges from a "short" list, those that are aka "fat burners". Hmmmmm...
.....give your body carbohydrates and fruit juice and your blood sugars spikes. Your hunger sensors in your noggin sense sugar, pure simple sugar. The pancreas responds with a dump of insulin to haul out the sugar from your blood into your cells. Yummm. Your cells gobble up the sugar and within minutes your blood sugar plummets, hence the dizzy feeling that often accompanies a low blood sugar.
At the same time that all madness is going on between your circulatory, cellular and endocrine systems your body is operating on a deficit of fuel so it starts burning your glycogen stores housed in your liver and your muscles. This glycogen will burn out within hours to maybe a couple of days depending on how many calories you actually consume and your personal physical state.
Now, well into the third day of detoxing we are not consuming nearly enough calories so our body starts it's munch attack on triglycerides (fat...small cheer here) and protein taken directly from muscle (gasp!). You begin to lose muscle mass. No amount of exercise will help you here, if you need energy the body will go for the coveted muscle. Bummmmerr!
Ketones enter the picture as well, as a by product of muscle protein utilization. The body really doesn't like ketones as fuel either, but will use what it can. As a result, irritability and lack of focus hit you smack in the face. No protein from food will also cause a lack of available amino acids which are necessary maintain your mood via neurotransmitters. Lastly, ammonia and uric acid a left behind as the protein is pulled from your broken down muscles. Your liver really doesn't like this stuff and recruits your kidneys overtime to detox your detox. If your liver has to help the kidneys rid the body of waste then it can't do it's real job which is plain ole fat metabolism. That is why we love our liver, the fat metabolizer.
If you truly do not ingest anything of substance your small intestine lays low and starts to lose it's ability to work well. In enters diarrhea. eeeewww. Stay close to the bathroom, just saying. When you do start eating again, you have lost muscle and decreased your ability to tolerate as many calories as you did before the detox. In the end, you lost a bunch of water weight and muscle in this process and now have saddled yourself an existence on less calories. Don't go back to your old eating ways, it means you will gain weight. Cruddy huh?
What do you do? Skip the detox, start slowly eating cleaner, less processed foods in smaller quantities more often per day. Drink water, plenty of water. Exercise more often per week. Avoid sugar, soda and alcohol and practice macro cycling of your food. To keep your body guessing, give yourself a day off every week to eat what you like. Next day, hop right back on the clean eating every 4 hours train.
Be Well
