If you haven't heard of cleansing, the concept may seem to contradict conventional approaches to weight loss. Cleansing approaches the body from a fundamentally different perspective than calorie-restricted diets. Instead of counting calories and eating less, a cleanse helps you to eat the right foods and supplements so your body can purge toxins and wastes that accumulate in organs (such as the liver) and in adipose tissue, or fat.
A New Paradigm for Weight Gain and Loss
The conventional understanding of weight gain and loss tell us that the body stores fat when it is fed excess calories, and breaks fat down for energy when food is scarce. According to this model, body weight is based on a person’s unique metabolic rate and how much they consume.
Holistic weight loss experts present an alternate model in which it is the chemical toxins in our food (pesticides, preservatives, MSG, artificial colors and flavorings, and artificial sweeteners) and other poisons in our environment, rather than calories, that make people gain weight.
Where Does the Human Body Store Toxins?
Our bodies are equipped with complex systems to drain toxins and metabolic wastes through the skin, kidneys, lungs, liver and colon. But with exposure to food additives, synthetic personal care products, and chemicals in our water and air, the human body can be overloaded with chemicals to detox.
Most of the toxic load which cannot be detoxified is stored in the liver (right at your midsection) or isolated from the body’s systems in additional adipose tissue, or fat.
Why Some Diets Work and Others Don’t
If weight gain is the body’s way of segregating toxins where they can’t harm the rest of your system, then it logically follows that a weight-loss diet that does not help the body to purge these stored toxins will only succeed temporarily.
Weight loss can’t last without some form of cleanse because the toxins that were stored in fat tissue circulate in the bloodstream and other systems of the body - causing headaches, fatigue, achiness, pain, dizziness, moodiness, and other withdrawal-type symptoms - until the body locks them away in new fat tissue.
For optimal functioning, the body wants to segregate whatever toxins it can’t remove - which is why people regain weight after most diets.
Cleansing For Healthy, Sustained Weight Loss
If you’re interested in clearing out the toxins polluting your body and achieving real, permanent weight loss, the following tips will help you in your next cleanse:
- Stop eating or drinking diet products! “Diet” sodas, "sugar-free" snacks and most energy bars are loaded with artificial sweeteners and flavorings. In the long run, these only sabotage better health and a slimmer body.
- Don’t eat white. White bread, white flour, and white sugar are bleached and heavily processed.
- Likewise, stop eating artificial sweeteners. They may say "lo-cal," but they’re even worse for your health and weight than white sugar.
- Don’t starve yourself. Starvation dieting only slows down metabolism. Instead, consider a raw foods cleanse with lots of fruits and vegetables, or a lemon cleanse to keep metabolism up with natural, easily processed sugars and lots of enzymes, which help the body break down fat and old toxins.
- Go organic. Non-organic fruits and vegetables (especially these worst offenders) only put more pesticides into your body.
- Try adding more fresh lemons, uncooked virgin olive oil, virgin coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, goji or wolfberries to your diet, all of which promote healthy weight loss and cleansing.
- Replace refined sugars with healthier sweeteners like agave and stevia, which balance blood sugar levels, support the pancreas, and do not promote weight gain.
More Information on Cleansing
Victoria Anisman-Reiner - Victoria Anisman-Reiner is a freelance writer with extensive experience in holistic health care and animal training.
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