Cleanses/Detoxes & God’s Gift to Man
Ah, cleanses. Far and wide do their proponents evangelize. From the depths of magazines, to the little ads on Quora, we’re faced with someone extolling the benefits of some superior cleanse. But are cleanses actually helpful? Let’s see!
First off, what is a cleanse?
The NIH defines detoxes and cleanses as diets, regimens, and therapies suggested as ways to remove toxins from your body. And shameless, money-hungry companies have developed a whole slew of them.
The Ways We Cleanse: A List
Fasting
Drinking only juice or tea
Eating only certain foods
Buying supplements or herbs
Colonics or laxatives
Going in the sauna
Purposely making yourself sweat excessively
Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not here to argue whether these cleanses work or not: science just hasn’t caught up yet. 🤷🏻♀️ There’s only been a handful of studies on detoxing, and all of them are low quality: they either have design flaws, low numbers of participants, or no peer review. But while the science is thus far shoddy at best, I’m confident in one thing:
Cleanses are dangerous and unnecessary.
Here’s how I know this:
Part 1: Cleanses Are Dangerous
First off, let’s just take supplements off the table. They’re a completely unregulated market. Meaning: there could be literally anything in the supplements you’re buying. In fact, many of the supplements that have been tested have been found to contain prescription drugs or other illegal, harmful ingredients. ☠️ Needless to say: supplements are unreliable and potentially very, very harmful.
But aside from what we’re potentially poisoning ourselves with when we “cleanse,” the things we do eat or drink on a cleanse aren’t much better. Consuming only juice that’s high in oxalates can cause kidney failure. And severely restricting food or drinking large amounts of water or tea can lead to deadly electrolyte imbalances and heart failure. You can also develop something called hepatitis of starvation (as in, your liver begins to eat itself because it’s so starved for food). And starving your liver is probably the worst thing you could do for the purposes of detoxification. In the end, I think it goes without saying that all of these things are… definitely not a great way to be healthier. And do I even need to get into the danger of messing with your colon?? There’s a reason we have doctors, people.
Part 2: Cleanses are Unnecessary
Liver, meet reader. Let’s shake hands. 🫱🏼🫲🏽
Livers. We’ve all got them. But how much thought goes into your liver every day? If you’re anything like me, the answer is: “not much.” But, guess what the #1 task of your liver is? Detoxification!
That’s right: your liver detoxifies your body. And it does this in two phases. In phase one, any toxins found hanging around are made less toxic by using toxin-specific enzymes. And in phase two, your liver alters the chemical structure of those toxins to make them water soluble. Meaning, you can literally just pee them out. ✨🚽✨ All in all, your liver maintains an incredibly complex, sophisticated system, with a very simple bottom line: remove the toxins.
And it’s not just your liver that’s hard at work. It’s also your kidneys, your immune system, your blood, your digestive system, and your epithelial system. Basically, nearly every system in your body has a checks and balances of keeping waste and trash out of your body. You are a detoxing machine!
Before we move on, let’s address the elephant in the room: ⚠️ toxins ⚠️ Namely: what are they, where are they, and how do we deal with them?
Toxins
The What: toxins are a combination of two or more elements that occur naturally in our environment.
The Where: toxins are all over the place. They’re the mercury in 🐟 tuna, the cyanide in almonds, the furocoumarins in celery and 🍋 citruses, the lectins in beans, the mold in dried foods, the solanine in 🍅 tomatoes, the muscarine in 🍄 mushrooms, the pyrrolizidine alkaloids in 🍯 honey, and the lead in 🍫 chocolate. Toxins are a part of life. They’re constantly entering and exiting our bodies. They exist in the soil, plants create them in order to survive, animals eat plants, and humans spray chemicals all over the place. You can’t avoid toxins. That’s why your body has a way to handle them.
To recap:
Cleanses are dangerous.
Cleanses are unnecessary.
Toxins are everywhere.
So, what can we do about them?
Answer: Your body’s already figured it out.
You are designed to handle this. And it’s clear that we’re much better off not interfering in our natural ability to detoxify. But, there is one thing you can do to help your body detoxify.
Remember how we talked about the two phases of liver detoxification? Well, your liver can only do that if you’re supporting it. Phase one can’t happen efficiently without having plenty of antioxidants, magnesium, and vitamins. And the same goes for every other detoxification method in your body. So, if cleanses don’t help, how do we support our bodies?
Eat food! Your body is in possession of the most advanced detoxification systems - you can’t get anything remotely comparable anywhere on the market. So, keep that machine running!
Eat 👏🏼 food! 👏🏼
So many women starve themselves and wonder why they feel like crap. They buy sketchy supplements with good reviews. They shell out $10 for a glass of juice. None of this is helping us.
I say: enough already! If you want your body to run optimally, feed it like you give a damn. And I don’t mean eat more celery. Hand’s down, the # 1 BEST way to support your innate detoxification is to eat lots of food, whenever you feel like it. How do I know this? A little thing called cellular metabolism.
In the *tiniest* nutshell: every cell in your body is constantly performing thousands of chemical reactions in order to keep itself, and you, alive and healthy. All of these reactions are cumulatively called the cellular metabolism. Some reactions release energy, and others need energy added. Therefore, the best way to slow down your cellular metabolism is to not eat enough. And the best way to support your body on a cellular level is to eat plenty of food.
What it all comes down to is this:
Forget the cleanses, supplements, and detox diets. Nothing will be able to replace the incredible design that’s already inside you. 🌀
I promise: starving yourself and trying to cheat the system will never accomplish what eating more food can do. You need food to live. You need plenty of food to thrive.
Maria
