FOREVER FIT
Personal Training

Detox and Cleanse Diets

Detox and cleanse diets are bad for a number of reason: They wasted your time and. depending on the duration and the level of restriction, they may do more harm to your health then good. One of the problems with "detoxes" is that they are very vague - What toxins are being removed? From where? And how? These questions are rarely answered, because most detox plans lack any real scientific basis.

When a client comes to me to detoxify or cleanse their system, it tells me that they're not feeling good physically and maybe emotionally. To help them start feeling better, I work with them to reset three key areas of their body: focus, metabolism, and digestion. Here is what to do to optimize these three areas and why it matters:

1. Digestion:

Your digestive track is a powerful system in your body that actually has its own nervous system. Alleviating digestive problems is one of the fasted ways to start feeling better.

What to do: Start removing potential allergenic foods from your diet such as wheat, dairy and soy while also taking a daily vitamin. Focus on eating ample fruits and vegetables in addition to proteins (beans, eggs, meat, fish etc) and a variety of healthy oils. After 2-3 weeks, slowly add back gluten-soy, and dairy-containing foods one at a time; one new food every 4-5 days is as fast as should go. Monitor how you feel as you add each of these foods back into your diet. If you start to have bloating or other gastrointestinal issues, this is a red flag that you might have an allergy or intolerance to one of these food types so keep it out of your diet moving forward.

2. Metabolism

Your body can store environment toxins and metals in your fat cells. This is the only area that I think we can truly detoxify (actually remove toxins from your system). By burning the fat stored in fat cells, you cause the fat cells to shrink. As a result the fat-soluble toxins are released.

What to do: When resetting your metabolism, don't focus on restricting your calories, as we don't want to depress your thyroid function. Instead focus on eating the nutrient-dense foods mentioned above and exercising at least 5 hours per week. The majority of that exercise should be high-intensity metabolic training (a few intense exercises repeated in a circuit with little to no rest to push the body to its absolute limit).

3. Focus

It's not uncommon for me to find clients running around with empty energy stores, using caffeinated beverages to help them surge through meetings and long work days. Here's why that's bad: Relying too much on stimulants like caffeine wrecks havoc on your focus, sleep quality, and ability to optimize stress hormones.

What to do: Stop drinking caffeinated beverages altogether. This will cause headaches for the first couple days, but it passes. When you're no longer hopped up on caffeine, it will become clear that you need to start getting better sleep at night. Make a deal with yourself to get 8 hours of sleep each night. This will also help with resetting your metabolism as quality sleep is essential for optimizing weight-loss hormones like growth hormone and leptin.

Please don't go on any crazy detox or cleanse plans. Try to follow these simple steps instead to reset your metabolism, focus, and digestive track for 3-4 weeks, and you'll feel great, improve your health, and lose weight as a bonus!

Yours in good health,

Nick Cosgrove
President
Forever Fit