Critical Reviews on Detox Diets
Photo Credit: tone legs
A 7 day cleansing diet can be a good idea if you've overindulged over the holidays or while on vacation and you need to get back on track with a healthier diet and exercise program. Being super-focused on everything you eat for a week gets you back in the mindset of doing the right thing for your body after a period when you haven't been doing so well.
Types of Cleansing Diets
When you think of a cleansing diet you might think of the Master Cleanse Diet or some other type of fad diet that involves eating little or nothing over the course of a 7 day cleanse. While this sort of liquid diet or all one food diet is a popular idea of what cleansing is about, the truth is you can do a 7 day cleansing diet that involves more food than you might expect. The important thing is that you only eat certain types of food to help clean out your body.
Expert Insight
A number of nutritional experts such as Dr. Andrew Weil state that a detox diet is not very effective for various reasons. These physicians and other researchers believe that toxins actually do not build up in the body as alternative health practitioners claim, and that fasting or cleansing can result in rapid water loss and the loss of muscle tissue. Some people overeat after a cleansing diet because they feel deprived and excessively hungry.
Detoxifying Your Body
Generally most detox diets will contain the following foods:
Avoid bread, alcohol, carbonated drinks and fried foods. Drink at least 8 glasses of water as well as any of the following drinks – black coffee, herbal tea, unsweetened fruit drinks, cranberry juice and skimmed milk. If you are feeling constipated from this diet, do take a cup of bran or fiber. Though you can drink black coffee, you will not feel the need for caffeine after the third day. Follow the diet strictly and you will feel the difference both mentally and physically.
7 Day Cleansing Diet
There are different ways to approach a cleansing diet. Some people like to detox by drinking only freshly squeezed fruit juices and filtered water for the duration of the cleanse, which is more like a fad diet, while others say that a seven day cleansing diet is all about cutting out the processed foods and meat and eating only certain kinds of foods for a week. The latter is a much more reasonable and balanced way of dieting. The important thing is that you only eat certain types of food to help clean out your body and do not starve yourself or this will not give results.
Information on The Cleansing Diet
A cleansing diet is based on the idea that when all sources of incoming toxins are eliminated, the body will be able to start eliminating the stored toxins. Now what are toxins? They are mainly chemicals and pollutants from the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. Toxins also include smoke and alcohol. Normally the human body is able to flush all toxins, but when there is too much, it cannot and as a result, toxins get accumulated. Because of this, we experience fatigue, headaches, poor energy levels, digestion problems, constipation, sleeping disorder, unhealthy skin, nervousness, become irritated and much more.