subject: Detox Program For Weight Loss: Do Detox Diets Lower Your Metabolism? [print this page] One of the main concerns about detox diets is the effect that they might have on our body's metabolism. After all, most detoxification diets always involve a period of fasting, or not eating anything solid, for a period of time, which could last from one day to ten days.
For people who want to lose weight through detox diets, this is especially a major concern, and not without reason. With a lower rate of metabolism, you're bound to gain all the weight you lost once you start eating solid foods again.
But to answer the question, "Do detox diets lower your metabolic rate?,"... If you go on fasting long enough, you could slow your metabolic rate. But there is a way to trick your body so that it maintains its regular metabolism.
Actually, what slows your metabolic rate are "hunger pangs". Weight loss experts have always warned against skipping meals to lose weight; the hunger pangs are what cause your body go on "starvation mode", making it horde calories instead of burning them.
Since most detox diets are "restrictive", meaning you don't eat anything solid for some time, the trick to maintaining your metabolic rate is to drink plenty of water during the detox process, and to eat some foods that won't jeopardize the detoxification process, like fruits.
Detox For Weight Loss?
You should never use detox diets for long-term weight loss. What the detox process can do is to jump start your weight loss by ridding your body of accumulated toxins and conditioning your body to eat healthier.
As it is, weight loss is a natural result of detoxification. Most people who go on detox lose weight after the process. Most of the weight comes from lost water retention and toxins flushed from the colon.
Never Use Detox Diets For Long Term Weight Loss
There's been a lot of misconceptions about what detox diets can do about weight loss. To clear up the confusion, just remember that nothing can ever replace a well-balanced vegetarian (alkaline) diet to maintain the body's health and its normal weight. Overdoing detox diets will starve your body of the necessary vitamin and mineral nutrients in the long term. (Make sure your detox diet has a nutritious ingredient in the meantime.)
What Detox Diets Can Do
What detox diets can do is to rid your body of accumulated toxins. You can easily lose 20 pounds just by flushing accumulated phlegm, intestinal plaque and other wastes from your colon. (Watch your stool become more colorful as you complete your colon detox diet.)
Detox diets also remove water weight, or water that's accumulated around the cells of your body. Overweight or bloated people usually have water retention problems as a result of having too much sodium in the diet.
In all, you can use detox diets programs to successfully complete your main weight loss diet program - one good psychological effect of detox diets is that they make you want to eat healthy.
