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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.

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What Goes into a 7 Day Cleansing Diet
As mentioned earlier, there are different ways to approach a 7 day cleanse. Some people like to detox by drinking only fresh-squeezed fruit and/or vegetable juices and filtered water for the duration of the cleanse.
Others simply cut out processed foods and meat, or choose to eat only raw foods for a week. This sort of diet is a much more reasonable approach and likely just as effective because it still gives the body a break from the less-healthy foods you're regularly putting into it.

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.

A Detox Diet (also called a cleansing diet) will remove toxins and poisons from your body. The idea of a good detox diet is to eat pure and natural foods that will aid the function of the lymph, kidneys, and liver. All foods that hinder the regime will be avoided.
Detox diets are controversial. Many feel that most of the so-called “medical science” presented in these books is nothing more than fiction. It is true that most of these diets have quite severe restrictions, and should be embarked upon with great care.

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.

Though some experts believe that a detox diet is not very effective, other researchers do agree that when not taken to extremes of fasting, the 7 day cleansing diet is healthy and beneficial.

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.

Source: freewomensfitness.com

Usually, it is not recommended for men to reduce their caloric intake below 1500 calories per day. Men are typically more muscular and require additional calories to perform day-to-day activities.
A 5 foot 9 inch man who is 35-years-old, moderately active and weighs 200 pounds must eat 2925 calories a day just to maintain his weight. If he weighs 180 pounds that amount drops to 2738. In the same way, if the 200 pound man is two inches taller that affects caloric needs too, and the amount goes up to 2963. With these totals, it is clear that limiting your diet to 1500 calories is a drastic step toward weight loss. In fact, a 2000 calorie diet creates an adequate calorie deficit to see substantial weight loss results.

Balanced reduced-calorie diets
The Pyramid Diet
This is the diet developed by the USDA to satisfy the nutritional requirements of most Americans.
0-3 servings (use sparingly) fats, oils, sweets
2-3 servings (6 – 9 ounces) meat/protein
2-3 servings dairy
2-4 servings fruit
3-5 servings vegetables
6-11 servings bread/starch

1 pint or 2 cups (16 fluid ounces) of liquid is the size of 1-1/3 soda-pop cans.
1-1/2 cup (12 fluid ounces) of liquid is the size of a soda-pop can.
1 cup of food is the size of a large handful, or 8 fluid ounces of liquid.
1/2 cup of food is about half of a large handful, or 4 fluid ounces of liquid.
2 tablespoons (Tbsp) is about the size of a large walnut.

Points
Many diets, such as Weight Watchers and The Flat Belly Diet, advocate using your allotted amount of calories as points. For example, a food that is 200 calories would be 200 points. This would be subtracted from the total 1,500 calories. Each meal should have a portion of the points allotted. For example, you could have breakfast, lunch and dinner have 500 calories allotted to it. Five small meals could be allotted 300 calories apiece.

Warning
Even a good, healthy 1,500-calorie weight loss diet may be difficult to follow and result in regained weight once the regimen is reversed, report doctors at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDKD). While restricted diets can help dieters lose weight quickly, they can become difficult to maintain. NIDKD researchers report that losing weight too quickly also can lead to additional problems, such as the development of gallstones or abnormal heart rhythms.

Dinner
When it comes to dinner, include plenty of vegetables to keep calories low while staying full. Lean meats such as boneless, skinless chicken breast, turkey (both ground and breasts) and lean cuts of beef, with all the visible fat trimmed away, will provide enough protein for a healthy diet, without adding a large amount of calories from fat. A small baked yam or 1/2 cup of brown rice offer more nutritional value than white potatoes, white rice or pasta, and can be filling.
A sample dinner would be a 6-oz. broiled chicken breast at 240 calories, 1 cup steamed broccoli at 42 calories, and 1 small baked yam at 118 calories. This sample dinner comes out to 400 calories.