Fad diets

Annie Cairo

“Detox” Diets

The fad diet that I chose was “detox diets”. Detox is short for detoxification, which basically means that you are trying to remove toxic substances or poisons from your body by altering your diet. The main reason that people do a detox diet is to cleanse the body and to aid the function of your organs, mainly your liver, but also to lose weight. Because there are so many different types of detox diets, I decided to choose and talk about one that I personally have tried, the Lemonade diet.

There are no advertisements in magazines or television ads. If you go to Google and type in “detox diets” many different ones will show including the Lemonade diet which is how I heard about it. I read that you can lose lots of weight in a short period of time by drinking a delicious tasting drink. They advertised it as inexpensive and something you could do anytime anywhere and make it yourself instead of ordering a product offline. I thought, why not? And so I gave it a shot. The diet was originally called the Master Cleanse, created by Stanley Burroughs and to lose weight, you completely disregard food for 10-20 days.

There were no real clinical trials done to test this diet, however there are many testimonials of users who all seem to say the say the same thing, that it works but once you stop it you gain weight again. (This seems to be true about any diet that you try whether it be detoxing or taking some sort of supplement that will help you to lost weight.) Expert opinions and doctors say that there really is no need to do a detox diet because your organs are strong enough to detox your body on its own, not with a diet or supplements. Experts say that they have many concerns with the diet because it is not that healthy to not eat and only drink your way into weight loss.

When I did the Lemonade diet, it worked for the time frame that I did it but stopped working the second I was off of it. I noticed that it made me have to frequently use the bathroom and that I was not sufficed with the “lemonade” that I was drinking. I still wanted to eat food and during the diet, I craved the most random things. This happened until the end of my diet when my body just was use to not eating. The diet leads to weight loss because instead of eating food, you sub it out for a liquid concoction composed of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. To cleanse your body, you are supposed to drink 6-12 glasses a day. The way that the diet works is that it goes through you very quickly. The hot peppers in it make you have to go to the bathroom very often. This helps eliminate the toxins in your body as well as help to lose weight.

Detox diets can be very controversial especially because sometimes the side effects can really take a toll on your body. Most detox diets are unhealthy because you lose a significant amount of weight rather quickly (mostly without exercise). because you are eliminating the nutrients from the everyday foods that you would normally consumer and replacing them with specific foods and liquids, your body becomes deprived of vitamins and minerals which prevents the immune system from functioning normally and ultimately hinders the body’s ability to fight disease and infection. Although the lemonade diet is a liquid diet therefore you are consuming liquid, your body often times will experience fluid loss especially in your muscles. If there is a large loss, you can become dehydrated, irritable, cranky, tired, etc. Another risk to be concerned about is the aftermath of the diet. Anytime you skip a meal or limit your caloric intake, the body can’t perform to its best ability. When you aren’t consuming the sufficient amount of calories or carbohydrates, your body will resort to muscle for energy, which slows your metabolism. When your metabolism slows, you gain weight. So once you are off the diet, you will regain the weight you lost or even more than what you lost to begin with.

I would agree that the Lemonade Cleanse initially works and helps you lose weight (I lost 7 lbs. in one week); however the second you go back to your normal diet, you gain the weight back. If you are looking for a quick fix, yes it works, but if you are looking for this to be a long term solution, then no it does not work. I think that the best way to lose weight is to exercise and work out along with healthy eating habits (fruits and vegetables).