"Create the demand and the people will come running." True?
There becomes a gap in the market that entrepreneur's dream of when people's desire to drink alcohol, eat quick and easy, or delicious and decadent meals meets their desire to still have a 'beautiful' body.
How do you leverage this market gap: By highlighting the clear and present danger of "toxins" in our body.
Out of curiosity, I googled "Different detox diets", and these were the top 10 most popular of 2014.
Honestly?
- A Colon Cleanse.
- A Liver Cleanse.
- The Master Cleanse.
- The 10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse.
- A Juice Cleanse.
- Detox Cleanse.
- Slendera Garcinia and Natural Cleanse.
- Dherbs Full Body Cleanse.
- Blueprint Cleanse.
- Isagenix Cleanse for Life.
Let's be clear for a moment.
None of these are a permanent solution to your health;
All of these will likely have you drop weight - from both fat and muscle (you may want to read this other article to understand why exactly losing muscle is not what you want! /blog/2014/11/6/resistant-to-resistance-training/ );
None of these will nutritionally support you with your body's needs (so you will actually be unhealthier by the end of the detox);
None of these diets will remove toxins from your body;
There is no scientific evidence to even suggest that detox diets detoxify your body and no one who heads these companies or detox's will be able to state exactly what toxins will be removed from the body.
So, if you've done a detox before and you've felt better afterward, why did you feel better (at first)?
The simple answer is that while you were on the 'detox', you would have stopped doing / eating everything else that was contributing to you feeling terrible. Further to this, the reason you may have not been feeling great or had been feeling perhaps sluggish or tired was also because there was likely a lot more sugar, processed food and perhaps fattier food in your diet as well. Not toxins.
In the long run, these diets do not nutritionally support your body with all the vitamins, minerals and proteins your body requires, so often people don't feel great on them after a while anyway.
When these foods are removed from the diet, we often see the weight loss, "so the detox must be working!"
Alcohol on the other hand is toxic. The liver is responsible for removing alcohol from the body and to do so, must first break it down into an even more toxic enzyme called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde can cause permanent damage to the liver, so the liver gets rid of this toxin as quickly as possible. Too much alcohol can overwhelm the liver with acetaldehyde and it's in these instances that the liver is more likely to suffer permanent damage.
I'm mentioning this to highlight that it is your liver that is responsible for detoxifying your body - not a detox program. Detox programs are a fallacy invented by people who have seen a gap in the market. The only gap left now is a detox from your detox!
The only way to feel better permanently and really "detox" you're your body is to:
Reduce or stop eating processed foods
Reduce your sugar intake and simple sugars
Reduce or stop drinking alcohol
Increase your protein intake from lean meats, legumes, dairy, meat alternative foods (such as tofu, nuts, eggs, etc.…)
Increase your leafy, green vegetables and fruits.
The, sit back and let your liver do the rest!
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
