What is a Weight Loss Cleanse?
As the word itself suggests, to cleanse is to clean something in order to remove the impurities in it. The major objective of a weight loss cleanse is to eliminate something from either your diet or your lifestyle so as to bring about the weight loss. There is no specific definition of what exactly a weight loss cleanse is or what it constitutes of. These are followed for a short period of time and involve certain steps for diet modification. Some cleanse facilitate weight loss while some help in shedding fat in some particular body areas.
How Do Weight Loss Cleanses Work?
Weight loss cleanses seek to remove unhealthy or allergenic foods while substituting them with nutrient-rich whole foods. Cleanse dieting focuses on weight loss. But they have additional benefits as well- they can treat several problems regarding digestion and food cravings.
Foods that are usually eliminated as part of a cleanse diet are:
- Sugar
- Processed Foods
- Alcohol
- Dairy
- Soy
- Corn
- Wheat
- Gluten
Most Popular Weight Loss Cleanses
Weight loss cleanses can be found in a large number probably because of lack of a specific definition. Following are the examples of popular weight loss cleanses:
Whole30
Diet cleanses to be followed over a period of 30 days that removes foods like sugar, dairy, legumes, grains, and alcohol from the diet. However, you can have fruits, vegetables, and proteins in abundance during this time.
Juice Cleanses
It lasts for 3-7 days. It eliminates everything but juice and water. Make sure to follow the specific list of fruits and vegetables that that this advocates.
The Master Cleanse
This cleanses diet consists of eating a mixture of lemon juice, water, and maple syrup for 10 odd days. This is why it is also called the lemonade diet.
Beachbody Ultimate Reset
This is a 21-day diet that looks to eliminate dairy, eggs, meat, sugar, and processed foods. It is inclusive of probiotics, nutritional supplements, and herbal laxatives.
10-Day Green Smoothie Cleanse
This cleanse replaces every kind of food with green smoothies that are made from various fruits and vegetables. However, you can take some amounts of non-starchy vegetables.
Do Weight Loss Cleanses Have Any Health Benefits?
Weight loss cleanses are usually low calorie and brief. It is believed that very low-calorie diets (VLCDs) have a positive effect on your bodies. They help tremendously in reducing blood sugar levels.
There has also been observed a glaring reduction in the risk of heart diseases for those who resort to weight loss cleanses.
However, there can be some difficulties as well. A VLCD in the form of weight loss cleanse does seem difficult to start with and not to forget, is socially isolating as well.
Are Weight Loss Cleanses Effective?
The efficacy of weight loss cleanses is yet to be established scientifically. However, the practical uses can be easily observed on people.
Their effectiveness in weight loss in uncontested. They consist of 450-800 calories per day. A study showed that short-term weight loss by VLCD was more effective in reducing cholesterol levels and blood sugar than other slower methods fostering weight loss. Even though both slow and rapid weight loss strategies led to a reduction in weight and body size, the group that used the slower weight loss strategy could not get rid of the muscle mass.
Be mindful of the risks
As we mentioned before, there are a lot of cleanses available to choose from. You should know that they can have detrimental effects on your body if not taken under guided supervision.
Rapid weight loss, such as that facilitated by most weight loss cleanses can have an adverse impact on your health like dehydration and the development of gallstones.
They can also have a negative psychological effect on people that are vulnerable to eating disorders.
Moreover, VLCDs come along with various cleanse protocols that can render you deficient in certain essential nutrients.
Juice and smoothie cleanse include taking in green vegetables in high amounts which can lead to the development of kidney damage in people who have been suffering from chronic kidney disease.
Thus, it is very important to be conscious of the negative consequences that weight loss cleanses might have. Just fixating on weight loss at the cost of other health issues harms both physical and mental fitness.
Bottomline
Almost an extreme dietary approach, weight loss cleanse do promote weight loss through following restrictive patterns. They are a hoot these days! There has to be a reason behind their popularity which can be attributed to the results that people have seen through it over a period of time. They are all the rage these days and rightly so. However, they can be dangerous to certain people. So, one requires to be well aware of the pros and cons that accompany weight loss cleanses in order to extract maximum benefits out of them.
Recommended Articles:
