Weight Loss Cleanses : Is it still working?

Weight loss cleanses have taken center stage

as one of the most popular ways to lose weight rapidly.

Things like the Whole30 diet, Beachbody Reset,

juice cleanses, the Master Cleanse, and another smoothie cleanses.

But should you actually do one of these?

Well, let's take a look at their effectiveness and risks.

So generally speaking, the overarching goal of the cleansing process is to remove something from your diet or lifestyle that will elicit weight loss.

These cleanse are typically brief and involve a specific set of instructions for diet modification to achieve a certain goal.

Some simply aim to reduce weight while others promise fat loss in specific body areas.

Are they effective?

So there are no scientific studies that have been conducted on specific types of weight loss cleanses.

So the scientific credibility hasn't been established.

But if we had to compare them to something, they're most comparable to what's called a very low-calorie diet, or VLCD.

And there are a lot of studies on those.

So most research defines a VLCD as consisting of 450 to 800 calories per day.

This number is comparable to that of some popular weight loss cleanses, and this is quite low.

The average person requires 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day.

Now some of these studies on VLCDs in obese people revealed significant reductions in weight at least in the short-term as you would expect.

It should be noted that most of the VLCDs in these studies also incorporated total nutrition needs as part of the dietary strategy.

So these methods were closely monitored while planned and nutritionally balanced.

Now weight loss cleanses differ from these as they, often eliminate vital nutritional components, such as protein without providing any guidance, for replacing them during the cleanse.

So these restrictions could ultimately lead to severe nutritional deficiencies, making such cleanses unbalanced and unsafe.

Additionally, although appropriately planned very-low-calorie diets can help people lose weight in the short-term, the only way to maintain weight loss long-term is to follow a healthy, balanced eating pattern after that very low-calorie diet has finished.

So I guess the question is do this weight loss cleanses actually set people up for life after the cleanse is complete?

There are inherent risks and safety concerns.

So aside from the nutrient deficiencies that I just mentioned, the restrictive nature of weight loss cleanses could have a negative psychological and behavioral impact on those who are prone to eating disorders.

For most people focusing solely on weight loss, at the expense of other health issues not only jeopardizes physical, and mental well-being but also hinders, the development of skills to implement long-term healthy, behaviors post-cleanse after the diet is complete.

Look, weight loss cleanses are extreme dietary approaches that achieve fast weight loss through very restrictive eating patterns.

Much like medical very-low-calorie diets, or VLCDs, they work because basically, you can't eat anything.

And when you don't have any new calories coming in as fuel, your body turns to fat stores as energy.

The problem is to cleanse is not nutritionally complete.

They encourage eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors in those who are susceptible, and probably the biggest risk factor and what everyone will experience is that they don't set you up for long-term healthy eating and weight loss success after the cleanse is over.

So post-cleanse you end up back where you started, just with a little less time than you had before and a little more out of pocket.

Instead, try to eat mainly healthy foods, don't drink too much, and try to be active when you can.

You don't need to cleanse yourself.