Why Detox Diets Don’t Work

By SeanBissell | January 26, 2008

Hey everyone,

Today I decided to try the Web 2.0 thing so I made a video for you.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it.

P.S. I’m kind of new to the whole video thing, I’m sure I’ll get better over time :)

Here’s some clarification on the video (below)

Quote:
Detox proponents say the body is under constant assault from toxins such as smog, pesticides, artificial sweeteners, sugar, and alcohol. Without a periodic cleansing, these poisons accumulate in the body and cause headaches, fatigue, and a variety of chronic diseases.

But the science behind the detox theory is deeply flawed, says Peter Pressman, MD, an internal medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The body already has multiple systems in place — including the liver, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract — that do a perfectly good job of eliminating toxins from the body within hours of consumption.

“There’s no evidence at all that any of these approaches augment the body’s own mechanisms,” Pressman tells WebMD.

Source:

Detox Diets: Purging The Myths

Quote:
MYTH #2: “Fasting is a good way to cleanse my body of impurities
and toxins.”

FACT: Actually, fasting can cause a build-up of toxic substances in the body.
Toxins such as ammonia and ketones are released when your body’s fat tissue
or protein stores are used as an energy source when carbohydrate is not available.

Thus, the concentration of toxins in the blood could increase significantly
over a short period of time due to fasting. The best way to control the level of toxins in your body is to consume a wide variety of foods and drink plenty of water. Make sure you include fruits and vegetables and high fibre foods.

Source:

http://students.sfu.ca/health/pdf/de…et%20myths.pdf

My comments:

These toxins (ammonia and ketones) stored in your body are normal and they would still be stored in your body even if you were on a “perfect” diet.

Lots of detox diets simply put you on a really low calorie diet which just crashes your body, makes you release a bunch of “bad stuff” in your system, and also drop a bunch of water weight, glycogen, and muscle.

People think detox diets work because they see the scale weight drop from losing muscle, water, and glycogen.

And they feel bad, so they think they’re flushing toxins.

What they don’t realize is that they feel bad because they are hurting themselves.

And what’s worse is that their metabolism can slow down drastically from these types of diets.

I think it’s unhealthy and unnecessary.

Until next time,

-Sean

Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Hello Everyone – First Official Post and This Blog’s Mission

By SeanBissell | January 25, 2008

Hey everyone, it’s Sean Bissell,

I founded YummyWeightLoss.com as a resource for people who would like to lose weight but don’t want to give up their lives to do it.

There’s so much information out there right now on the diet/fitness “world” that it took me a really long time to wade through it all and try and make it make sense.

Realistically it took me about a year and a half before I started to become comfortable with the diet/nutrition information and to feel like I really had a grasp on it.

I started working out and lifting weights long before I started learning about diet and nutrition, and I found out the hard way that diet and nutrition is really what causes success or failure for both burning fat and gaining lean muscle mass.

I’d say easily at least 80% of your success will be a direct result of your diet.

As I studied and learned more about diet and nutrition I learned all the “rules” and stuck with them and eventually I did get the results I wanted.

I tended to follow the rules of what many serious fitness “pros” recommended. And believe me, even that can be hard to really figure out what information works and what doesn’t.

And by listening to all the information out there I ended up getting into a grueling routine of:

-Eating every 2-3 hours
-Eating 5-6 meals a day
-Eating at least 1x my bodyweight in grams of protein a day
-Eating only “clean” foods
-Eating only low glycemic-index foods (unless it was directly after a workout)
-Avoiding sweets, chocolate and candy
-Avoiding fast food
-Avoiding “junk” food, like pizza and ice cream
-Avoiding “processed” or packaged foods
-Avoiding eating before bedtime (unless it was a slow digesting protein source like cottage-cheese)
-Avoiding most restaurants
-Drinking a gallon of water a day
-Drinking a whey protein shake directly after working out
-Drinking a whey protein shake directly after waking up
-Working out lifting weights 6 times a week
-Working out doing cardio 3 times a week

And that’s not everything, but I don’t want to bore you too much with even more details.

As you can imagine that routine basically controlled my life.

I was fine with this routine for a little while because I was seeing results, and I stuck with it for about 2 years.

After about 2 years though, I’d had enough.

Although this routine was helping me get to where I wanted to be physically, it was destroying my social life, and my sanity.

So I began researching and connecting the dots, and I’m proud to say that I’ve found another way that works.

It even works based off of the same diet principals of why any successful diet plan works.

But instead of being so restrictive, I’ve found a way to make it easy to use, and you can actually eat the foods you want to eat and still get the results you want.

There are still some rules to follow to get results, but nowhere near as restrictive as most diet plans or routines.

I personally follow my new plan, and it’s really helped me bring back sanity and balance to my life, and I’m still getting outstanding results.

I’ve also helped many other people do the same.

And my mission for this blog is to help you understand how you can break the mold of restrictive diets and you can start eating your favorite foods, break all the “rules” and start seeing great results.

Even while you eat your favorite foods, and not have your diet control your life.

Until next time,
-Sean Bissell

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »