The Benefits Of Detoxing The Body
Better skin, shinier hair, and greater clarity of mind are among some of the benefits of detoxing the body. But the most enticing is weight loss. That’s the reason why most people buy shit to detox with, most usually drinks.
Fuck, all you have to do is chug a green smoothie or nurse a herbal slimming tea for some days and you’ll undo the damage to your waistline from months (possibly years) of crappy eating?
And not only will these cleansing and detoxification drinks help you lose weight by boosting your metabolism via the removal of super dangerous toxins that were bogging it down, but the purging of that crazy harmful waste is healthy as all fuck?!
SOLD!!!
Where’s the fucking signup form?!
Sorry, but if you’ve been paying any attention to the lunatic ramblings on this blog about quick fixes and how they don’t exist, then you might want to hold up just a tad before drinking yourself skinny.
Often used interchangeably (as I’m going to do throughout), detoxes and cleanses are separate things. Detox products work their magic on the fat cells by supposedly clearing the liver of toxins. Cleanses, on the other hand, work their magic on the digestive tract.
But as distinct as their areas of operation are, they both operate under the premise of purifying the body.
Speaking to this, there’s nothing new under the sun.
The idea of purifying the body seems to have come out of nowhere in only the past few years, with celebrities — that’s right, the people you should take health advice from — extolling the virtues of special concoctions flushing their innards and helping them lose more pounds than the old standby used to.1The old standby is cocaine, by the way.
While appearing to be recent and having many fooled to think body purification is based on newfangled science, today’s detox craze has its roots in the “autointoxication” hypothesis of the ancient world.
According to the only Egyptians we care about — that’s right, those long dead mummy making ones — ingested food rots in the intestines much like food rots outside of the body. This decomposed matter then becomes poisonous, with the toxins seeping from the bowels and circulating throughout the body to cause fever, infection, and other maladies.
Because this thinking makes way too much sense, it was quickly adopted by the ancient Greeks and others well into modernity. It wasn’t until early 20th century science finally discredited the notion that looking and feeling better begins in the colon.
I know what you’re saying, “Food rots in the body and that’s what makes you sick? Not germs? Bacteria? These are the same geniuses who brought us the pyramids? Yeah, aliens definitely had to have built them!”
While you may sneer at the naïvete of the Egyptians, much of the same rationale lies behind the 21st century’s version of “autointoxication”, which too collapses under the same serious review that ended the days for colon cleansing as an accepted medical practice in the early 1900s.
There’s no doubt about it that the current slew of detox formulas work in helping their drinkers lose weight. Their doing so should come as no wonder considering that the magic in many is senna leaf, aloe vera, dandelion, and other ingredients that are nothing more than good ol’ laxatives and/or diuretics.
But you’re losing sooooo much weight!2To boot, you’re this close to getting fitted for a crown because you’re basically living on the porcelain throne with all the shitting you’re doing every day. Ahhhhhhhh, your childhood dream of becoming a king or queen is coming to life!
Plus you’re also cleansing your body of hazardous waste!!!
So what’s the harm?!?!
How ‘bout this…
Frequent pissing and shitting to rid the body of “toxic” fluids and waste ahead of when nature calls can result in dehydration and the loss of potassium, sodium, and magnesium. Without these essential minerals at their required levels, an electrolyte imbalance can occur leading to muscle cramps and heart arrhythmia.
Oh yeah, in addition to those fun things, using a laxative every day can not only give you a constant case of taco truck diarrhea but the colon’s dependence on laxatives can grow to the point that you can possibly have trouble moving your bowels without them.
If this didn’t already sound fun enough, there’s also the increased risk of death.
If that doesn’t make you say, “Happy happy, joy joy”, I don’t know what will!!!
Detox drinks clearly aren’t the safe option they’re commonly advertised as. But let’s put all that nonsense talk of safety aside for a moment.3Like really, who cares about safety?! You have a hot body to get, dammit!!! Now, despite all their health drawbacks, cleansing products do in fact help you get a hot body by facilitating weight loss.
…or do they?
Well, yes, you’ll shed pounds of body weight — but it’s mostly just water, metabolic waste (i.e. feces), and muscle tissue. Very little of that body weight is actual body fat. And because most drinkers of detox formulas usually combine these products with restrictive diets, the end result of both flushing their bodies of nutrients and not consuming enough zaps them of the energy to exercise hard enough to promote hypertrophy, or muscle growth. That not only means you’ll more than likely regain all the weight back when you return to normal eating habits but also possibly more because of the loss of calorie-burning muscle.
So the hot body you worked so hard pissing and shitting your brains out for is only temporary.
For longer lasting results, you’re better off practicing proper nutrition and getting into the habit of going to the gym.
Yeah, a fucking lifestyle change.
Oh, the horror!
Drinks marketed as detoxes and cleanses have serious side effects and the weight loss results aren’t what they’re billed as.
…b-b-but they sure do remove toxins!
Okay.
What exactly are these “toxins”?
NAME THEM!!!
…and that’s the thing.
“Toxins” is a nebulous, boogeyman term. It instills fear in people when they hear that virtually everything around them is a pollutant. However, the word has no meaning — as demonstrated by the fact that many manufacturers of detox supplements have trouble articulating what toxins their products remove.4In 2009, VoYS investigated 15 detox products, ranging from smoothies to foot pads and shampoos. When asked for evidence in support of their detox claims, not one of the companies “was able to provide any evidence for their claims, or give a comprehensive definition of what they meant by ‘detox’”.
The fact of the matter is that even if these “toxins” existed to the levels that they required purging from the body, there would still be no need for gulping down a smoothie or tea because the human body already performs that task daily.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there’s this thing called the liver. Oh, and there’s also some shit known as the kidneys. Oops, and before I forget, there’s also the gastrointestinal tract and skin. Well, what all these things that you’ve never heard of have in common is that they’ve been ridding the body of environmental contaminants and metabolic waste since man stepped on land and inhaled the sulfur-rich air (a product of volcanic eruptions) and devoured his Brontosaurus burger barely cooked, if not raw.
Albeit that the planet is probably more polluted than it has been at any other time — much of it man’s doing — and the foods we eat are treated with chemicals from field to table, the human body still does more than an admirable job of cleaning itself. All said, the organs don’t require additional help. That is, unless you have a serious health problem, in which case you would either be dead within hours or require medical attention, not a potion sold exclusively by some supplement company!
Don’t trust your body to keep up with its housekeeping duties?5You know, like how your mobile ventilator using ass doesn’t trust it to breathe on its own!
Well, for you worrywarts there are better cleansing alternatives than laxative and/or diuretic-laden drinks.
For example, incorporating fiber in your diet and drinking cranberry or lemon juice can help move food through the digestive system faster.6Choose freshly squeezed juice if possible, not the sugar bombed shit in grocery aisles!
Another possible solution is to avoid processed and packaged foods high in trans-fat, omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, and sugar in order to stop stressing the liver and kidneys.
But that calls for limiting the amount of Krusty-O’s, Big Kahuna burgers, and pizza slices from Sal’s Famous that you can stuff your face with.
Sounds like a lifestyle change, and as we all know that’s a major bummer!
One of the supposed benefits of detoxing is weight loss. But drinking some green, yucky goop isn’t necessary for it.
All you need are diet and exercise, and the requisite time for them to work.
Anyone who tries to tell you that there’s a weight loss method that doesn’t call for you changing your lifestyle is a huckster, charlatan, flimflam man attempting to sell you something.
That should be your first opportunity to get some exercise in by running as far away from that snake oil salesman as possible.
Glossary: detox, diet, exercise, fat, gym, hypertrophy, metabolism, muscle, supplement