The Dangers of Detox Diets

It seems that every few years, people latch onto fasting as a diet plan. Since fasting has some negative connotations, Diet hucksters have renamed fasts Detoxification Diets. When it is for religious purposes it is considered a form of corporal mortification. Fasting can bring on a number of unwanted side effects.
The Dangers of Fasting:

• Mild side effects include diarrhea, dehydration, and the flushing out of digestive enzymes that are needed for proper digestion.

• Without the proper amount of carbohydrates your brain functioning is hindered. That's probably fine if you can sit around all week, but if you are driving a car it can be downright dangerous.

• If someone goes on several fasts in their lifetime, they increase their risk of insulin resistance, which leads to Type 2 diabetes.

• Fasts can also lead to a sodium or potassium imbalance, which can lead to loss of muscular control, or complete nervous shut down, which could result in death.
  

The basic premise of Detox diets is that the digestive system does not completely remove waste from your system. Toxins accumulate in your digestive tract that harm your physical well being. This is absolutely false as well as absurd. A healthy individual's digestive tract is very efficient at eliminating waste and toxins from the body. The best way to make sure that your body is eliminating efficiently is by getting enough soluble and insoluble fiber in your diet regularly with water. See here.
Detox diets are an extreme measure which don't figure into moderation. They lead to very dangerous situations, which should be avoided. As with all extreme diets they should be avoided.

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Diets Create the Forbidden Fruit

The reason that most diets fail is that they work on the elimination of a food group. That food group then takes on emotional value within your mind, and it becomes the forbidden fruit. The forbidden food will always taste better, because of the desire behind it. Diets set short term goals that once achieved, allows the dieter to binge on the formerly forbidden food. It's best to look forward in the long run: if I eat well I can avoid many of the weaknesses that I associate with old age. I have a 79 year old father who eats well, and rides his bike voraciously. Aside from the occasional joint pain, he is in very good health for his age.
There are many long term goals that one could have to encourage healthy eating at any age. When someone doesn't achieve their short term goal with a diet, it results in guilt. That guilt cycles until it results in binge eating or another eating disorder. Eating moderately means being able to enjoy your occasional steak, your occasional piece of chocolate cake, or you can eat a little bit of those things daily. Deprivation is not the way to long lasting health goals.
It's best to eat well in general, not in the specific. What I mean is that if you eat well generally, but occasionally indulge, you will be more satisfied in the long run.
Here's a metaphor for crash dieting: cramming before a test. Does anyone honestly do well on a test after cramming the night before. I can guarantee that they will not have as firm a grasp on the material as someone who studied constantly throughout the semester. When the material links to a class later, the crammer is going to have a hard time comprehending the new material since they didn't know the basics all that well in the first place. Crash dieting works in the same way, it takes what should be a long term health goal and crams it down into a short period of time, but does little for health later on.
Diets that work on elimination usually fail, because the dieter doesn't have the energy to continue, elimination diets leave the person lacking vitamins and nutrients, and so they never gain the energy boost that comes with healthy eating in the long run. Taking a vitamin pill may help, but without fiber and other nutrients it does little. You could combine a fiber pill with the multivitamin, but then you'd end up living on pills. Who really wants to live on pills and meal replacement shakes. The best option is to eat real foods, but to generally choose healthy foods.
It is also important to remember genes have a role in our size and shape. Not everyone can fit into a size 0. Your goals shouldn't be based on size or shape, but on feeling better by becoming more healthy. The longer you live a healthy lifestyle, the more it will be habituated, and the easier it will get.
Try to gain health through moderation and you will end up happier in the long run.

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