There are loads of detoxes and cleansing regimens out there that are designed to remove toxins from your body and help you lose weight. The detox industry is making millions of dollars saying that you are taking toxins into your body everyday – from pollution, to pesticides, synthetic chemicals and processed food – and you need to get rid of them. Celebs and influences are endorsing these detox teas, there’s colonics and the latest fad is juicing.
So, do these really cleanse your bod and get rid of toxins? Lets go through a few…
Colonics – can flushing your bowels help you detox? Well no, because colonics only flush out your large intestine and any toxins would have already been absorbed into your blood in the small intestine (which is the first one). BUT if you’re constipated, colonics can be very helpful! No need to use them for toxins ?
Detox teas – All these celeb endorsed teas you’re seeing all over the internet are nothing but basically laxative teas. Again there’s no real reason to do this unless you’re constipated because they too, only clean out your large intestine.
Activated charcoal – This is actually used in hospitals for some poisonings, but the research for this these days is showing that the chances of it actually working are pretty slim. So there’s no good reason to use it to help you detox.
Juice cleansing – Again, there’s no sufficient scientific evidence that juice cleansing rids your body of toxins. There is however, scientific evidence that it helps with weight loss! This is because you’re likely to be ingesting less calories than if you were eating food. Though, let’s not think that putting something in a juicer makes it healthy. Depending on the ingredients you chuck in, it can have a lot of calories, a lot of sugar and juicing your food can also get rid of a lot of the fibre. Now our bodies don’t digest fibre, but the bulk of it in our intestines can trigger feelings of being full. So basically we feel fuller from eating whole fruits and veg as opposed to juices and chewing also helps with digestion and metabolism.
So detox fans, good news! Your bod is already naturally detoxing on a daily basis. Our kidneys (which is just a big filter really) are already sifting through our blood for potential toxins to wee out AND our liver also converts toxins into something harmless so it can decide whether we pee or poo it out. Woohoo! Organs that detox for us!
Our bodies are incredibly designed, so as long as you’re doing all the right things like eating a healthy diet, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep and sufficient exercise, then our bods will do all the detoxing for us 🙂
No need to buy into the fads, just (mostly) clean healthy living is key.