So recently I’ve had a few of my female clients ask me about cleanse diets.

I personally would NEVER ever do one…or for that matter recommend that any of my clients do one.

This is what I think of when I think of cleanse diets (although many of them aren’t low carb).

I know they are the popular thing, but honestly, they are stupid.

Really? Drink juice for a week and your body will be cleansed?!?

Sounds like a week of feeling crappy and overloaded with sugar!

And when I tell most people that I think cleanses are stupid, they say to me, “Well then how do you rid your body of all the toxins that accumulate?”

UHM…I DON’T EAT CRAP FOOD MOST OF THE TIME!

You shouldn’t need to do a cleanse if you are eating a healthy diet 80% of the time. That healthy eating will, itself, make your body healthier and remove all of the “toxins.”

And really you think that one week on a “cleanse” is going to remove all the toxins from your body that you’ve been consuming for months and months and months eating a poor diet!?!

HA!

If you want to make your body healthy, you need to eat healthily most of the time…not for one week!

And the funniest thing is, when I say they should eat healthy 80% of the time if they really want a clean, healthy body, they tell me that only cleanses TRULY remove all of the gunk. That eating healthy doesn’t get it all out.

REALLY!?!

Some cleanse diet is going to remove some hidden gunk that eating only whole natural foods won’t remove!?!

UHM…NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Sometimes I want to ask people obsessed with cleanse diets what this supposed hidden gunk is? I mean really what is so supposedly stuck in us that only a cleanse diet can rid of us?

Also, I would just like to point out that most of these cleanse diets really AREN’T THAT HEALTHY OR GOOD FOR YOU!

You really thinking drinking juice for a week is that great for you? All you are consuming is a ton of carbs in the form of SUGAR!

That isn’t healthy!

But when I tell people that cleanse diets AREN’T healthy, I usually get a response like, “Well I saw a cleanse diet by Dr. Oz!”

Dr. Oz….Usually I would have a rant against him, but in this case…Well I actually kind of like him.

When they say that to me, I usually say, “Have you looked at the difference between your FAD cleanse and Dr. Oz’s?”

The Dr. Oz cleanse is basically like eating just a super clean all natural diet!

It isn’t juice with cayenne pepper! It is chicken and veggies. It is just SUPER CLEAN NATURAL FOODS!

If you want a TRUE cleanse, you don’t need to do some crazy diet that cuts out all but one food group! Just eat whole natural foods that aren’t processed at all!

Or you know what…maybe even add in some intermittent fasting…Now fasting a bit…that IS truly good for your body!

Oh but wait….you aren’t doing a cleanse to be healthy? No…you are doing the cleanse because your friend supposedly lost 10lbs in one week?!?

Oh well then of course do the cleanse! It must be the magic pill for weight loss!

NOT!

Cleanse diets might help you lose a bit of weight, but the second you stop the cleanse, do you really think you are going to maintain the weight loss?

You haven’t changed your normal daily eating habits so how do you think you are going to keep that lost weight off?

YOU AREN’T GOING TO!

So why waste a week of your life on a completely miserable diet only to lose weight that you will probably gain back in less than two days when you return to your old eating habits?

DON’T!

There is no quick weight loss solution. If you want to lose weight, eat clean whole, natural foods. Eat a well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables and meat. (Shoot I would even say a well-balanced diet of vegetables and meat, which is completely the opposite of some of those fruit and sugar-laden cleanses!)

If you want to truly lose weight, you need to start a diet you can maintain for more than a week.

And if you are completely and utterly set on doing some sort of “cleanse” go super strict the first couple of weeks on your diet. Eat only vegetables and meat.

Then maybe after those two weeks of super clean eating, add back in a few healthy treats…like fruits or maybe a glass of wine or some dark chocolate or a little full-fat dairy here and there.

The point is that these fad cleanses aren’t healthy AND they don’t truly help you lose weight. If you want to be “clean” and lose weight, your only solution is to eat whole natural foods.

Even Dr. Oz says so!