Detoxing is the latest buzzword and everyone thinks they need to detox. However, nobody knows what they’re detoxing from, what detoxing accomplishes, and how to go about it. And this cluelessness is what marketers prey on.
Here’s the general outline of what money hungry marketers are telling you:
That’s their business model. To sell you a random detoxing problem that apparently is only solved by their detoxing product.
Hysterically, when detox supplements are put to the test against placebo for 4 weeks straight, they don’t improve body composition, waist circumference, blood markers, or gut related symptoms (1).
A popular lemon style of detox diet was tested against a caloric matched condition as well (2). Both groups accomplished the same weight loss and thus, had the same improvement in health markers. In other words, the lemon detox group had a strict juice detox routine that didn’t add any benefits.
Caloric restriction alone drives weight loss which causes improvement in health markers. When studies test detox supplements, people who lose weight improve their health to the same degree regardless if they were taking some bs supplement or not (3).
In fact, every detox diet tested has little promise for weight management or toxin elimination (4).
Detoxing products and programs can feel like they’re working. Beyond the obvious placebo effect of being swindled by marketing, detox teas often have diuretics causing you to poop sooner or get dehydrated. This doesn’t indicate toxin elimination or fat loss though.
Furthermore, detoxing scams are often paired with caloric restriction whether people realize it or not.
So any marketer can create any sort of supplement or protocol while pairing it with a calorically restricted diet to trigger weight loss because a caloric deficit always causes weight loss. The calorie restriction is doing all the work, but the detoxing protocol or supplement gets all the credit. Throw in the placebo effect and you got gullible dummies lining up for days doing crash diets and buying random detox supplements.
As an honest coach, this can be frustrating, but I’ve been doing this long enough to not lose sleep over it. People buy into this sort of bull crap, but they can’t sustain it. They’ll hop from detox to detox and eventually realize it’s too difficult to sustain.
You’ll circle back to the truth one way or another, but I’m hoping this article helps you get there sooner unlike the average American burning hundreds of dollars on detox supplements, books, and programs each year.
There is no toxin on the planet that hinders weight loss. You’re always in a position to lose weight and improve your health with the right lifestyle changes. That being said, you still technically should detox. Let me explain how detoxing actually works.
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Detoxing is defined as the removal of a poison or toxin or the effect of either from an area or individual.
In extreme cases like drug or alcohol overdose, you’ll need a medical grade detox at a hospital.
But on an everyday basis, you accumulate more basic toxins which are perfectly safe in small doses. It’s the dose that makes something toxic, not the substance. For example, even water can technically be toxic in utterly extreme amounts.
Same with everyday substances that your body consumes and collects. This is normal.
Persistent organic pollutants are a class of toxins that you accumulate from both food and environmental factors (5). Furthermore, you accumulate heavy metal toxicity such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury through both food and environmental factors as well (6).
All of these toxins accumulate in fat tissue and get released back into your body’s circulation (7,8). Chronic exposure at higher doses can cause plenty of health issues like metabolic problems, hormonal disruptions, chronic inflammation, and pregnancy complications.
Your body has 2 powerful detoxing mechanisms known as your liver and kidneys which are responsible for filtering toxins and ensuring you stay as detoxed as possible. If you have these organs, you don’t need any detox tea. In fact, popular detox smoothies, cleanses, and teas have been shown to cause liver and kidney failure which would ironically make you worst at detoxing (9,10).
But anyways, as your liver and kidney do their job, toxins can still accumulate around fat tissue. So having excess fat tissue is not good if your goal is to maintain a low risk of toxicity.
As you lose body fat, more toxins do get released into the bloodstream, but this is generally a harmless short-term sacrifice to ensure a less toxic body in the future assuming you’re losing weight slowly through lifestyle change. Research does find astronomically higher toxicity rates and compromised health benefits with rapid weight loss from surgery type interventions (11,12).
But all this to say, losing fat is good for detoxing.
Taking care of your body’s natural detoxing machines (your kidney and liver) is crucial to optimal detoxification.
This means drinking a sufficient amount of water and eating a whole food and antioxidant rich diet (13-16). Water helps your kidney and livers function properly while many fruits and vegetables have detoxing properties.
So you don’t need a specific celery or lemon juice. Simply eat a fruit and vegetable rich diet because the fiber within whole food also helps the detoxing process by improving your gut bacteria (20,21). That being said, some foods do have enhanced detoxing abilities (17,18,19)
These include:
Sweating is another mechanism heavy metals and other toxins get excreted (22-25). Certain metals are found in large amounts in sweat indicating sweating should be a normal part of your lifestyle for optimal detoxing.
The research indicates anything from exercise to saunas will work for this. More prolonged types of training have a better effect than shorter intense training, likely due to additional sweat.
But nonetheless, to fully optimize detoxification, you need to train hard enough to break some sort of sweat.
So here’s what optimal detoxing comes down to:
So if you haven’t figured it out yet, detoxing your body is not a one-time thing you do occasionally when you’ve accumulated too many toxins. Accumulating toxins is a normal part of life and thus, detoxing is a lifestyle.
The lifestyle of detoxing involves the healthy routine stuff you should already be doing anyways. A so-called detox supplement will at best burn your money and at worse contain extreme laxatives and other nonsense that damages your organs.
1.
Additional informationFundingThis study was funded by
an external grant awarded to the investigators of the Human Performance Lab at
the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor by MusclePharm and the International
Society of Sports Nutrition. All testing was con. “A Purported Detoxification
Supplement Does Not Improve Body Composition, Waist Circumference, Blood
Markers, or Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Healthy Adult Females.” Taylor
& Francis,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19390211.2018.1472713.
2.
Kim MJ. “Lemon Detox Diet Reduced Body Fat, Insulin
Resistance, and Serum HS-CRP Level without Hematological Changes in Overweight
Korean Women.” Nutrition Research (New York, N.Y.), U.S. National
Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25912765/.
3.
SW;, Kim JA. “Effects of the Dietary Detoxification
Program on Serum γ-Glutamyltransferase, Anthropometric Data and Metabolic
Biomarkers in Adults.” Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, U.S. National
Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27924283/.
4.
H;, Klein. “Detox Diets for Toxin Elimination and
Weight Management: A Critical Review of the Evidence.” Journal of Human
Nutrition and Dietetics : the Official Journal of the British Dietetic
Association, U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25522674/.
5.
“Persistent Organic Pollutant.” Wikipedia,
Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Oct. 2021,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_organic_pollutant.
6.
Tchounwou, Paul B, et al. “Heavy Metal Toxicity and the
Environment.” Experientia Supplementum (2012), U.S. National Library of
Medicine, 2012, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144270/.
7.
L;, Jackson. “Adipose Tissue as a Site of Toxin
Accumulation.” Comprehensive Physiology, U.S. National Library of
Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28915320/.
8.
La Merrill. “Toxicological Function of Adipose Tissue:
Focus on Persistent Organic Pollutants.” Environmental Health Perspectives,
U.S. National Library of Medicine, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23221922/.
9.
L;, Makkapat. “‘Green Smoothie Cleanse’ Causing Acute
Oxalate Nephropathy.” American Journal of Kidney Diseases : the Official
Journal of the National Kidney Foundation, U.S. National Library of
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10. K;,
Kesavarapu. “Yogi Detox Tea: A Potential Cause of Acute Liver Failure.” Case
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. “Fate and Complex Pathogenic Effects of Dioxins and Polychlorinated Biphenyls
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12. Hue
. “Increased Plasma Levels of Toxic Pollutants Accompanying Weight Loss Induced
by Hypocaloric Diet or by Bariatric Surgery.” Obesity Surgery, U.S.
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Barry M, et al. “Water, Hydration, and Health.” Nutrition Reviews, U.S.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908954/.
14. Liska,
DeAnn, et al. “Narrative Review of Hydration and Selected Health Outcomes in
the General Population.” Nutrients, MDPI, 1 Jan. 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6356561/.
15. DM;,
Hodges. “Modulation of Metabolic Detoxification Pathways Using Foods and
Food-Derived Components: A Scientific Review with Clinical Application.” Journal
of Nutrition and Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine,
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16. V;,
Ferramosca. “Antioxidant Dietary Approach in Treatment of Fatty Liver: New
Insights and Updates.” World Journal of Gastroenterology, U.S. National
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17. Zhai,
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18. Kikuchi.
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. “The Pathogenesis of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Interplay between
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. “The Role of Short-Chain Fatty Acids in the Interplay between Diet, Gut
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Diego, et al. “Serum and Urinary Concentrations of Arsenic, Beryllium, Cadmium
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Spot reduction is the idea that you can target where you lose fat and if it’s possible, that would be the dream wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, I think many coaches enjoy crushing dreams too early including this one.
The scale is a dick huh? Well, that’s what you assume because you’re hyperemotional about it, so perhaps you’re the dick here. Didn’t think I’d turn the tables like that so early huh?
“I’m just so hungry all the time no matter how much I eat” People who say this simply suck at selecting satiating foods.
