TIDYING UP YOUR BODY

With the start of a new year, people are craving to change or to remove something in their lives. No wonder Marie Kondo’s series in Netflix about tidying adventures is a hit to a lot of people. Diet is no different. Losing weight and resetting the body is one of the many new year resolutions and one way to do this is to cleanse.

Many people find a cleansing diet to restate their engagement to healthy eating and lifestyle. Cleansing diet helps a person to flush out material from the bowel or colon making them feel detoxified from harmful substances acquired from unhealthy habits. Cleansing can be done in variety of methods – though typically, it is done by drastically restricting calories followed by consumption of high-fiber juices or mixed of raw vegetables and fruits for days or even weeks. In addition, some cleansing diet program advice the use of herbs and other medicinal supplements to hasten the effect of the said diet.

People reported feeling light, energized, and refreshed after a cleansing diet. Undeniably, people claimed that they shed a few pounds after following this diet for weeks. There are still no scientific evidences to show that cleansing improves bowel health and eliminates toxins in the body or even promote weight loss. So why do a lot of people claim to feel good after cleansing?

It is probably due to the fact that cleansing diet encourages you to skip highly processed, high-sugar, high-fat food items which will do no good in the body. Cleansing diet also encourages you to avoid alcohol and smoking that would further put toxins in your system, while promoting consumption of raw vegetables and fruits. Simply avoiding energy dense, low nutrients food items (i.e. donuts, chips, high processed fast foods) makes people feel better, a traditional, long established fact.

Weight loss caused by following this diet is probably just body fluid loss as your body experiences a more frequent bowel movement during the program. And this does not equate to fat loss. Moreover, since cleansing diet is a calorie and nutrient limiting diet, people are deprived by essential nutrients that the body needs for growth and normal functioning. Too much flushing out of fluid does not only eliminate unwanted substances in the body but also removes needed minerals like sodium, potassium, and magnesium for healthy heart functioning, and water-soluble vitamins like vitamin C and B-complex. Dehydration can also be a concern.

Yet, cleansing diet is not totally bad, unless maintained for a long period of time. For many people, it is like a refresh button. Not only does it encourage you to cut on unhealthy food choices and reduce calories, it also gives your liver and kidneys a break from its normal hard-working state and thus makes one feel good about themselves.

Our body is an expert and has its natural ways of eliminating toxins. What we can do to help our body is to follow a healthy lifestyle and good eating habits.