Going on a cleanse can be appealing in the New Year. It can symbolise renewal and a fresh start to the New Year.
However, do you need to do a cleanse or detox? Do you need to follow a restrictive diet of juices or insubstantial salad greens or purchase expensive detox teas or products to cleanse your body?
Quite simply, no.
How your body naturally detoxifies itself daily
Your body is highly efficient in eliminating waste products from metabolism. Even if you stopped eating or drinking right now, you’d continue producing waste products.
Your body’s ability to cleanse itself is only likely to fall short if you are exposed to a huge toxic load (think poisoning), or if you have kidney failure or liver disease. Mention of such diseases can provoke fear, and it is often this fear that is used to sell cleanses. However, going on a cleanse or doing a detox is not the answer to support your body.
You can’t ‘wipe the slate clean’ or absolve your dietary and lifestyle sins with a week’s cleanse.
Your body requires ongoing support of your elimination organs, which is best achieved by adopting lifestyle behaviours you can maintain. I know it doesn’t sound as enticing or Instagram-worthy as a cleanse, but your bodily functions just aren’t that sexy… Sorry!
You cannot undo a year of eating badly through a week-long cleanse or detox, no matter how convincingly flawless the model endorsing it is. Nor will a cleanse reveal a new you that was buried beneath toxic waste.
Therefore, I say ditch the cleanse or detox products and support your body’s natural ability to cleanse itself.
Key detox organs: how does your body flush out toxins?
What are those not-so-sexy organs that support your body’s natural ability to cleanse?
The organs involved in detoxification are:
- Liver: Rids the body of harmful chemicals and converts toxic ammonia (and carbon dioxide) into urea.
- Kidneys: Filters blood, removing wastes (incl. urea), which are combined with water to produce urine.
- Lungs: Excretes carbon dioxide.
- Skin: Sweating removes salts, water and some urea.
- Colon: Eliminates solid waste products.
Natural ways to support your body’s detoxification
The primary behaviours you can adopt to support your body’s natural cleansing processes are:
- Hydrate: Drink plenty of water to support the removal of wastes from the kidneys and colon.
- Fibre: Eat ample fibre such as found in cereal, brans, fruits and vegetables. Fibre can reduce the transit time of waste through the digestive system.
- Eat your greens: Enjoy a variety of green leafy vegetables (and grains, fruits and other vegetables) to provide nutrients to support liver function.
- Go easy on protein: Excess protein (aka high protein diets of more than 100g/day) can put a burden on your liver and kidneys. Keep protein intake to government guidelines or increase water intake to account for the additional waste product.
- Breath. Engage in exercise or deep breathing to cleanse via your lungs and skin.
- Moderate alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a toxin for the body. Limit consumption (no more than two standard drinks per day) and have alcohol-free days each week.
The ongoing support you provide your organs, good nourishment, and the volume of water and fibre you consume for elimination will make the biggest difference to your body’s ability to deal with toxins and wastes.
A diet overhaul by way of a cleanse or detox is likely to impose stress on your body and be mentally and emotionally stressful.
Given the improbable benefits, leave the spring cleaning to your junk drawer or the garage. Even then, you will probably only wipe the slate clean momentarily before it gets choked up with more junk.
How to achieve ‘optimal health’ without detox diets
Often, the aim of doing a cleanse in the New Year, or at any time, is to achieve ‘optimal health’.
I debunk the concept of optimal health in my book Joyful Eating: How to Break Free of Diets and Make Peace with Your Body. You can download the chapter ‘Debunk the Diet Myth‘.
Download the FREE Chapter: Debunk the Diet Myth
Discover the physiological and psychological reasons why diets don’t work, whether for weight loss or a wellness diet that promises ‘optimal health’.
Joyful Eating: How to Break Free of Diets and Make Peace with Your Body
What to do instead of a cleanse?
My philosophy as a nutritionist is that we can’t control our bodies or our health and that many diets, cleanses and lifestyle programs are, at best, unsustainable and, at worst, fear-provoking, potentially leading to disordered eating and striving for perfection.
I believe in ditching the diet rules, learning to listen to your own body, and honouring your hunger and body signals.
In my experience, both personally and in my work with clients, we need to trust ourselves and our bodies rather than so-called experts who sometimes do more to promote the feeling that we are not good enough.
I know how hard this can be to do.
I understand that sometimes it feels easier if there was a quick fix or if only we could have a plan to follow. However, experience shows me that this is generally not sustainable, and without trust in yourself and your body, you will do little to heal and nurture your body. I believe healing needs to start from a place of love and acceptance.
“For some reason, we are truly convinced that if we criticize ourselves, the criticism will lead to change. If we are harsh, we believe we will end up being kind. If we shame ourselves, we believe we end up loving ourselves. It has never been true, not for a moment, that shame leads to love. Only love leads to love.”
— Geneen Roth
If you’re ready to heal your relationship with food without restrictive diets or rigid lifestyle programs, you may find these blogs helpful where I discuss:
