January 15, 2014
Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/nutrition-podcasts/most-popular-detox-diets/
[00:00] Introduction
[02:55] What Are Detoxes?
[08:22] On The Blueprint Cleanse
[14:59] On The Cooler Cleanse
[18:19] On The Jill Pettijohn & Master Cleanses
[21:57] On The David Kirsch Cleanse & Clean Program
[26:45] On The Martha's Vineyard Diet
[33:42] On Longer Diets Based On Real Food
[38:45] End of the Podcast
Ben: In this Detox Special podcast, “The 8 Most Popular Detox Diets, How To Detox, A Detox Q&A, And Much More”.
Well Jessa, we are live, we're on video. Wow look at our messy office.
Jessa: This is not my messy office, this is Ben's messy office.
Ben: Okay, why don't you move over a little bit so we can get on camera. This is going to be fun, detox. Let's do a little clink-clink with our wine glasses here.
Jessa: ‘Cause we're not detoxing, our liver detoxing.
Ben: So we can show that we do not indeed lie around our house drinking alkalized water and getting coffee enemas, so this is not going to be one of these detox webinars. What we want to go over today is first of all, some of the dangers with detoxes and some of the big issues that happen when you detox, and then we want to cover some of the most popular detox diets that like celebrities in Hollywood.
Jessa: They get that glow, that hair and that body.
Ben: Yeah, that Jennifer Lopez to Matthew McConaughey are doing, and then we're actually going to break about halfway through because the second part of this workshop is for our Inner Circle members only. And after we talk about those eight most popular detoxes and kind of the pros and cons of each one, what we are going to do is really delve into what I personally recommend that people do, and I think it's going to surprise a lot of folks, what I recommend versus what the eight most popular detox diets are, and then we'll also answer your questions. Your questions from Facebook, for those of you who are on the call live right now, for you Inner Circle members who are on right now. I already see some questions coming in. We're going to answer those as well towards the end, but first let's just jump into a basic overview of detoxes in general. Including what's this book that you have, Jessa?
Jessa: Well we got this in the mail.
Ben: “The 21-Day Sugar Detox”, you know why we got that in the mail?
Jessa: Why?
Ben: ‘Cause the same publisher that published that, published my new book.
Jessa: Well anyways, I've been looking at this 'cause one of my girlfriends is doing it, and she wanted me to do it with her.
Ben: The sugar detox?
Jessa: Yes.
Ben: We can talk about that one, I think you have some questions about it, right?
Jessa: Yeah, I have some questions about it.
Ben: Okay, cool. Well first let's talk about detoxes in general. So the whole idea behind a detox is it's specifically meant to clean your gut, clean your liver, and in many cases, clean your kidneys, and then also, if you really want to take things to the nth level, clean your colon, and that's what a detox is. The purpose is to do things like remove heavy metals from the body, to remove a lot of toxins that the liver has theoretically not been able to get rid of itself. In some cases, some folks will argue to get rid of mucosal plaques and build-up in the colon and also taking out the small intestine from the meat that is rather than the small intestine for years.
Jessa: You mean the sixteen pounds and mythically losing your stomach?
Ben: Yeah, which we'll talk about. Now the problem with detox is a lot of people will live in a relatively unhealthy manner, and they get a detox. And you experience, because of a lot of detoxes, and we'll talk about the eight most popular ones. A lot of the detoxes are low-calorie or they are relatively nutrient-void, so not nutrient-dense, and a lot of the weight loss that you experience is (a) muscle cannibalization where you lose muscle and literally that down regulates your metabolism if you do that for more than four weeks.
Jessa: It's your body trying to survive.
Ben: Yeah, you mess up your metabolism in many cases for life, and it's a lot easier to get fat or to gain weight in the future when you do that. I know not everybody detoxes to lose weight, but it's something you should be aware of. It can also really dehydrate you, and if your cells are dehydrated for days and weeks in a row…
Jessa: That's kind of interesting because isn't it a lot of vegetable-based which are full of water, isn't it?
Ben: Yes, a lot of these green juices and cleanses and smoothies, they have water present in them, but what you'll find is a lot of folks will rely on the juices and the cleanses, and those actually don't give your body adequate hydration, especially if you are releasing toxins from the liver that are passed typically via the stool and the urine. You actually need much more water than you normally need, and a lot of the folks rely on the juices, cleanses, the supplements and kind of forget the hydration part? So there's also a diuretic effect of a lot of the things that are used from juices, from dandelion.
Jessa: Well especially if you're not used to any of this.
Ben: Exactly, dandelion to milk thistle extract, etcetera. Stuff moves through you a lot more quickly, and when you're forming stool, a large, large part of stool, up to 80% in many cases, is just water. And so your body's going through water a lot more quickly, and so you get dehydrated, and then the other big issue with detoxes is that a lot of these toxins that you are releasing, let's say you're doing like a heavy metal flush, and this is something I talked about on a recent podcast, a lot of these metals, if they are getting released into your bloodstream…
Jessa: Really fast?
Ben: Really quickly or in really high amounts, so they're not say chelated, which means bound by a bunch of amino acids, they can cross your blood-brain barrier, and they can actually cause neural damage. They can kill nerve cells when something like mercury, or let's say you've been eating a bargain-bin protein supplement from GNC or super-supplements and it came from China, and it's laced. I mean even those ones that don't come from China, they're laced with lead. Usually not mercury, but arsenic and lead are two biggies. People who do protein shakes on a daily basis and then do a metal detox, a lot of those heavy metals wind up in your brain, depending on the type of metal chelation or metal detox that you do. So there's some pretty dangerous roads that you tread down when you slide into a detox that folks need to be aware of, and we're going to talk about specifics.
Jessa: A lot of people just take it as like its crash course into dieting, and then they're like if I can do this, I can do anything kind of mentality. So these people are nowhere were they should be to even be entering into a detox. Well you know what I mean, that's how I perceive a lot of it.
Ben: Yeah, it's a quick fix which you need to be careful with. Now, I'm not saying that I don’t personally detox and then there's not a place for doing kind of like, okay, so if you look at some long, living populations, say like the Mediterranean diet. Well, the Mediterranean diet that we eat in the US is kind of a bastardized version of the actual Mediterranean diet where they were fasting for a hundred plus days out of the year, and each one of those fasts is a mini-detox. You can do something like a 24-hour fast, once every two weeks or once every four weeks. You can do a period of 30 days every year, kind of like the Ramadan where you are just restricting calories and you're giving yourselves a break, you're giving your digestive break. There's nothing wrong with living in that kind of cycle, but what you don't want to use it as an excuse to kind of eat trash and then clean up the trash and then eat trash again. It's just like exercise, the best way to go with exercise, ideally…
Jessa: Is be consistent.
Ben: Yeah, 20 or 30 or 40 minutes a day rather than exercising for two hours a day for five days in a row once a month when you throw up your hands and decide you're going to get in shape, again.
Jessa: Yeah, exactly. Generally happens around January 1st. [laughs]
Ben: Exactly, so let's jump into these eight most popular diets. Sorry, are you ready for these, Jessa?
Jessa: I'm ready.
Ben: The first one is called the Blueprint Cleanse, so here's how the Blueprint Cleanse goes. It's a very popular juice cleanse, it was originally invented by a couple of gals at a health institute in Puerto Rico, and they actually brought this to New York City originally, and the way that works is everyday you sip these six number juices that get delivered in a cooler pack to your door. And so you get to customize the cleanse, and choose whether you want to go three days. You could pick your level of intensity, meaning to have like beginner level up to I guess like blow your colon out, all out intensity. The more intense your cleanse, the more green juices that you drink, and the less intense, the more fruit juices that you drink which is kind of interesting. Now the number of calories that you take in on this particular cleanse, the Blueprint Cleanse is 900 to 1,100 calories per day, depending on whether you're doing on the beginner or the advanced level.
Jessa: So is the advanced where you do like 900?
Ben: They also have a juiced ‘till dinner option where you're actually doing 1,400 to 1,650 calories per day.
Jessa: I don't think I've ever been that low in my life. [laughs]
Ben: Well it’s a little bit low, when you're getting up above 1,500 calories, that actually will be enough to satisfy the metabolic needs of a lot of people. This is something that we'll get into in part two of this podcast, and that's kind of the exercise and physical activity component. That needs to be taken into account, and I'll get into some of the issues there. But for now, that's where the Blueprint Cleanse involves. Here's the price, $85 per day, unless you live in New York City in which case it doesn't cost quite as much.
Jessa: That's insane.
Ben: That's a spendy cleanse. So I looked up the Blueprint Cleanse online, and I got to tell you. When I look at the actual ingredients of the Blueprint Cleanse, it's not too bad in terms of the actual ingredients. I think one of the reasons it costs $85 per day is because this is a little bit different than like the Naked Juice or what are some of the other brands of these green juices that you get in the grocery store?
Jessa: I don't know, there was something like Bonner's Farm Brew or something like that?
Ben: A lot of those juices, they're not organic, and a lot of them have been pasteurized.
Jessa: A lot of them had bananas in them, lot of thickener and stuff like that.
Ben: But these particular ones have some amount of fruit in them, but the donors made preservatives, fillers, thickeners, things that like the naked juice and some of the popular juices at the grocery store have. So you're paying a premium for like a cleaner juice, but if you look at the sweeteners present in most of these juices, especially if you're doing like more the beginner level fruit juice, the main sweetener that you see in almost every single one is agave.
Jessa: Yes, I knew it.
Ben: And agave is a laboratory generated, sugar-based syrup.
Jessa: The equivalent of corn syrup, except for natural.
Ben: Well its fructose, it's almost completely devoid of nutritional value, even compared to like raw honey because it goes through so many different laboratory steps when they make it. It's got a higher fructose content than any other commercial sweetener which means that it is highly likely to elevate your triglycerides which can cause some pretty serious cardiovascular risk factors. And granted fructose is the primary sugar in most fruits, but it's not quite as concentrated as it is in agave nectar. High-fructose corn syrup average 55% fructose, and agave is 70 to 85%, sometimes higher. Some versions of agave that are 97% fructose, and this Blueprint Cleanse, if you look at the ingredients of almost every single juice on this cleanse, it’s got agave in it. The other interesting thing about this is if you look at the ingredients of the juices themselves, most of this stuff can be made at home for a fraction of the price, and you're going to find this with a lot of these. For example, here's the cashew milk one that they do. Its three ounces, unsalted raw cashews, twelve ounces water, a tablespoon of agave nectar, a teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Jessa: So they give you the actual recipes?
Ben: They actually give you the recipes.
Jessa: That's bizarre.
Ben: So it's really one of those done-for-you things.
Jessa: Well that's fine, but I find it strange that they're charging you for the juice to come to your door, but they give you the recipe.
Ben: I did the math on the ingredients, and you could do this yourself for about 7 to 9 dollars a day, versus $85 a day. If you were going to do the Blueprint Cleanse.
Jessa: You could buy your own juicer by the end of the week.
Ben: So here's the other issue, and this is one of the issues with many kind of plant-based raw foods diets, juicing diets, vegan-vegetarian diets, things of that nature, this particular diet, even though it has some nut milks, is almost completely void in protein, and it is very high in sugar and it's almost completely void in healthy fats.
Jessa: So you're probably getting hungry a lot more often?
Ben: You're going to be hungry, but you're also looking at neural degradation and muscle wasting, especially if you're on the lower calorie version. So the Blueprint Cleanse, I'm going to give the thumbs down on.
Jessa: But (a) for convenience. I would love all my meals prepared for me.
Ben: For convenience and they're not using a lot of preservatives, so that's the Blueprint Cleanse. And by the way, you don't need to go on a juice fast to reduce your number of calories. You can do (a) kale smoothie for breakfast, you can do a nice salad with some nuts and avocado for lunch, and you could do a fish with some roasted vegetables for dinner and easily be at 60 calories.
Jessa: Well remember I had logged my diet for a week, and it consistently was right around 14 on route to maybe 1,600 calories a day, and I was totally never hungry, not one time, and I was eating sardines and nuts and salad and oils and avocado and stuff like that.
Ben: But a lot of the foods that you eat, they're either raw and unprocessed, or they're not in their concentrated form, they're not in their packaged form , and so you're always looking at foods that are lower in calories when you're doing that versus juiced foods. So Cooler cleanse is the next one. This is one that was created by Salma Hayek's nutritionist when she wanted a custom juice detox.
Jessa: No wonder it's popular, it's got a celebrity behind it.
Ben: Similar to the Blueprint Cleanse, you get six daily juices delivered to your door, and you start the day with a green juice and you end the day with a nut milk. Different to the Blueprint cleanse on the Cooler cleanse, you have to choose between a three or a five-day cleanse. That's it, and remember, anytime a cleanse lasts three to five days, usually it's going to be extreme, it's going to be uncomfortable, and it's not necessarily something that I would recommend. Short cleanses are usually not that great for you, and they're very tough, and they're also very expensive. This one's $58 per day for the all juice version.
Jessa: It's a bargain deal compared to the other one.
Ben: And then $72 per day for what's called the Raw Cooler version which also includes snack and a small meal made from raw foods. So I looked up the Cooler Cleanse, and you actually get, if you do like the complete menu, the $72 a day, you get three different cold-pressed juices, you get what they call an energizing snack, a nutritious entree and a delicious gluten-free dessert. For instance, their apple pie that you get is apples, raw almonds, dates, agave once again, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla bean, cinnamon, nutmeg and sea salt. So not too bad, really, and when I look at the ingredients like for example, their entree, their cashew cheese ravioli, it's basically turnip, cashews, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, some kale, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, some herbs, some black pepper, some garlic and lemon. Like these are actually pretty solid meals.
Jessa: I was going to say that's not bad.
Ben: You're paying a premium, and this is much unlike like a TV dinner type of meal that's going to be a chockful of sodium and preservatives and vegetable oils. Again, very expensive, you could make that at home. You could make a ravioli like that at home for super cheap.
Jessa: But that's what's hard about detox is this people, it's the planning. I think for most people, it's just like, you know?
Ben: Right, but you could go to the Cooler Cleanse website, you could read their ingredients, and you could easily do this, and you learn a lot about healthy eating too, right?
Jessa: Yeah, that's actually what I'm kind of excited about. This one is because I'm going to learn a lot in the recipes.
Ben: You mean the sugar detox?
Jessa: Yeah.
Ben: Now remember, it's 1,100 to 1,200 calories a day for the Cooler Cleanse, so once again, we're looking at potential for muscle cannibalization, and it does come with some e-mails that they send to you to kind of support you as you're going through. There's a little bit more fat in the Cooler Cleanse. Like their Brazil nut milk gives you 54 grams of fat per bottle. I like that about it, it's still pretty low in protein. But of the two, between the Blueprint Cleanse and the Cooler Cleanse, just because the Cooler Cleanse is less expensive. It includes some extra entrees. If you were to like top this off with a little bit of extra calories so you're not kind of depressing your metabolism, not too bad of an option, so that's the Cooler Cleanse.
Jessa: Just seven day, two dollars a day, that kind of thing.
Ben: So next we get to the Jill Pettijohn Cleanse, and Jill Pettijohn was Donna Curran's personal chef for three years, and she introduced her first cleanse about seven years ago at a yoga retreat in the Caribbean. And so her cleanses get delivered nationwide here in the US. They're all organic, she includes blended soups made with whole fruits and veggies. She typically includes kind of more exotic pairings, like you get a butternut, squash and curry soup or like a berry aid with flax and Himalayan sea salt. Once again, everything is raw, it's very low in calories or relatively low in calories. It's about 1,200 calories a day, $410 for the five day cleanse.
Jessa: Wow, so that's really expensive.
Ben: It's again pretty expensive, and I'll talk about this towards the second part of this podcast. I added up the cost of what I recommended in terms of a cleanse, and it's about 30 days for around a hundred and thirty dollars. But I looked at Jill Pettijohn's actual fact sheets for her nutrition labels…
Jessa: I'm convinced you're saying that name wrong.
Ben: I could be 'cause I'm just reading it, and again, her ingredients are not bad. So you're not dumping a bunch of crap into your body. The only thing I'm concerned about is that it's a quick fix, it's very low in calories, and it's again, low in protein. So you're going to have low energy levels and it's going to be a little bit tough on your body, but it's not too bad. Once again, you could get all the recipes off their website and make a lot of this yourself. Now next we get to the Master Cleanse. The Master Cleanse, you've heard of this one before.
Jessa: Okay, this sounds scary.
Ben: You know this one, I'm pretty sure you know this one. The Master Cleanse is the lemonade diet, so that one is basically a liquid only, DIY detox that involves drinking six or more glasses of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper, and you're also allowed to drink salt water in the morning.
Jessa: Oh boy, salt water in the morning. That's awesome.
Ben: And an herbal laxative tea at night to flush your body. You get about 670 calories per day, and you actually can do this obviously, quite easily yourself. Beyonce said she lost 20 pounds on this one to get her ready for Dream Girls, and that was in 10 days.
Jessa: Twenty pounds in 10 days?
Ben: It's very low in calories, even compared to the others, very low in calories, and once again, we're looking at maple syrup as being one of the primary ingredients.
Jessa: Which is very high in glucose… It's higher than honey isn't it?
Ben: Yeah, you're drinking multiple tablespoons of this high glycemic index, sugar-boosting maple syrup.
Jessa: You would not want to be around that person until they were done with that.
Ben: Oh it's a blood sugar roller coaster.
Jessa: They were really like screaming maniacs at the end of that thing.
Ben: Very tough on your pancreas, and this is another one that I would be very careful with and steer clear of, and it's especially because of the potential for some metabolic damage. So I'd be pretty careful with the Master Cleanse, even compared to these others, it's less expensive but it's even more difficult on your body and completely void of most nutrients.
Jessa: I'd be an angry horrible person.
Ben: You basically just have diarrhea and fatigue the whole time you're doing it.
Jessa: And then like spikes in your sugar level and then crashes into your sugar level, and that doesn't make any sense.
Ben: So number five is the David Kirsch 48-Hour Super Charged Cleanse. Once again, be careful with two or three-day cleanses. It takes longer for your body, so you're looking at several days for your gastric mucous saying your gastric cell to turn over. You're looking at a good 20 to 40 days for most of the other cells in your body to turn over and for you to kind of be made anew to get a little woo-woo. So a two-day cleanse is something I raise an eyebrow at. It's used by celebrities like Anne Hathaway and Liv Tyler, and it's a fast, intense detox diet that built around the philosophy: “If you're chewing, you're cheating.”
Jessa: So everything's blended?
Ben: Everything is a bottled, lemonade-like supplement that's basically a pre-made Master Cleanse, but there's a few fancy add-ins. So you get what they call fiber salt to cranberry extract, milk thistle seed extract. Over 48 hours, you drink half of the cup of the lemonade supplement mixed with equal parts water, so it is hydrating, four times a day. Get this, 80 calories per day.
Jessa: What?
Ben: 80 calories per day. Now there's no way that living on 80 calories per day.
Jessa: Like how do you even function?
Ben: Is that great for anybody, especially if you're living a modern lifestyle and you're trying to get around during the day. Starving your body create a lot of side effects, and this is another one that I'd be pretty careful with. Now Kirsch also has a five-day detox that gives you protein shakes and a meal a day, you had about 800 calories per day on that one. And I looked at the ingredients of this five-day…
Jessa: Something, you looked at me like that. It was generous or something. [laughs]
Ben: Compared to his other one, yeah. And it's actually not too bad. Again it's very expensive, but the ingredients that he uses when I go over them, you know if you look at his protein plush shake, it's a whey protein isolate, some L-glutamine, some medium-chain triglycerides, silica and sea salt. So not a lot of the nasty stuff you get in the average crap protein powder, but once again, pretty intense on natural detox.
Jessa: So the first one was like a sprint triathlon, and the third on was like an Olympic, an hour into the Ironman detox because these are the hard ones. How do you do that?
Ben: So finally, we're going to get to another one that I'm going to give kind of a thumbs up on, and that one's called the Clean Program, and this was founded by a guy who's been on The Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. His name is Alejandro Junger, and he actually tried this self-healing experiment where he used the detox to cure his irritable bowel syndrome, and he works with his patience doing a 21-day cleanse. It's called the Renew & Rebuild Cleanse, and you actually get two solid meals from meats and fruits and vegetables to liquid meals that actually give you decent amounts of protein and a little bit of fiber, and then you also get three pills that can provide some extra nutrients. Now with this one, you get a 1,100 to 1,500 calories per day, so it's not super-duper low. It's 250 to $425 for 21 days, so it's expensive, it's pricey. You're not getting an unhealthy calorie deficit, you're getting a lot of the vitamins and minerals, but you're paying a pretty big premium for the supplements that come with it. There are, and I'll get to this later on in the podcast. There's less expensive ways to go to get the same amount of nutrients and not have to pay top dollar for these type of supplements, but this one, you're getting adequate protein. He's even including some healthy fats, you're getting your nutrient bases covered. So the Clean Program of everything that I've gone over so far is probably one of the better ones because (a) it's not super short so it's not a sprint, and (b) it gives you adequate nutrients and protein.
Jessa: Yeah, my biggest problem with all of these, you learn absolutely nothing. It's all done for you.
Ben: Yeah. Well the Clean Program actually, you are choosing from an approved list of meats and fruits and vegetables and preparing meals from his book.
Jessa: So you actually prepare the food?
Ben: These are not shipped to your house, the supplements are shipped to your house and the liquid meals are also shipped to your house, but the solid meals you're making yourself. And this is the reason I had them on the podcast 'cause I read his book and a lot of the people that I have in the podcast are people I agree with. So this is one that I'm okay with, but it’s spendy if you add in, and this guy makes a lot of money on his detox. It's called the Clean Program and it's not too bad.
Jessa: Okay, well at least you're learning something in this one.
Ben: Yeah, the next one is the Martha's Vineyard Diet, and the Martha's Vineyard Diet is a three-week liquid fast, and it's designed by a registered nurse, RN and a PhD, and the way that it works is they combine supplements and juices and soups with herbal teas and digestive enzymes. You give your body one of these drinks every two hours, and it's got like a mixed berry supplement, a green supplement, what they call their Regenicare Joint supplement, a glass of juice and a homemade vegetable soup, and then between those meals, you get to drink water and tea. That adds up to 800 to 1,000 calories per day, and this one is about 12 bucks a day which in my opinion, is still pretty expensive.
Jessa: Going from what was the first one?
Ben: Compared to what you can be eating. Well the other on was $85 a day, so I still think $12 a day is expensive though. Like if you send me to the grocery store, I could eat like a king on $12 a day. I'd be eating salmon, wild salmon and kale and vegetable oils and raw nuts.
Jessa: People go on this route because they don't feel they can do it themselves, that's what their pain is for.
Ben: Part of this is setting yourself up for success for life.
Jessa: I know that, that's what I'm saying, but the draw to a lot of these is because people don't want to do it themselves.
Ben: Well if anyone has ever tried to do just liquids for 21 days, that's hard and it gets boring and you also are against sending your body a message that there's a food shortage, and you tow pretty dangerously close to that four-week timeline of actually doing damage to your metabolism on this diet. Now when I look over the ingredients of a lot of the shakes and mixes that you're getting in the Martha's Vineyard Diet, they use a lot of sunflower oil. The top three ingredients are fructose, maltodextrin. You get cherry juice crystals, orange juice crystals. It's kind of like the Master Cleanse in terms of the amount of sugars that you're dumping into your body. So again, we're looking at a little bit of an issue with the pancreas and overloading yourself with insulin production. I'm going to give the Martha's Vineyard Diet a thumbs down.
Jessa: Yeah, I would too.
Ben: So far, for those of you keeping track on the tally.
Jessa: Only one has gotten a thumbs up.
Ben: I'm giving the Blueprint Cleanse kind of a sideways glance, but it's super expensive, the Cooler Cleanse, same thing, expensive but you could do it if you added in a little extra protein, the Clean Program by Dr. Junger is getting a thumbs up, and then we're going to move onto the next one. It's actually got a Thai name and in Thai, it means “be healthy and be strong”. It's called Kaeng Raeng, K-A-E-N-G R-A-E-N-G, and this one was started in a kitchen of a Stanford graduate who was experimenting with creating her own detox. It's a vegan cleanse, and you get three drink mixes a day. You get to eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want, it's a dairy-free and gluten-free and caffeine-free, which most of these are, and then you get some pre-made mixes of like probiotics and fiber and protein and freeze dried fruit. I looked over the ingredients, and it is nice that they freeze dry their fruits, so there's not a lot of preservatives or chemicals. They use a lot of like probiotics, you're supporting gut health, but this one I got to give the thumbs down on. There's a couple of reasons.
There's a lot of soy protein. Even though its non-GMO soy protein, especially for men, that can cause some serious issues because it will bind to a lot of the receptors that testosterone would normally be bound to, and it can also upregulate estrogen present in men's bloodstream which can cause like man boobs and guys trying too much and stuff like that. The other issue with this one is it’s a little low in calories. It's about 600 to 700 calories per day, and for 14 hot dollars per day, if you're just eating 600 to 700 hundred calories…
Jessa: Yeah, I'd be like I'm getting jiffs here.
Ben: Kind of a bummer. Once again, you could eat like a king on $14 dollars per day, and that actually does not include the produce cost for your own produce that you're eating over and above what they send to you. So it’s a little spendy, you're getting very little of the essential nutrients that your body needs. You're not getting any of the healthy fats, so you're missing on all your fats…
Jessa: So what is the logic behind that?
Ben: Vitamin-D, Vitamin-A, Vitamin-E, Vitamin-K, the logic behind this is the logic behind a lot of these different cleanses, and that is that they feel that animal based compounds are full of toxins, which is true in some cases if you're eating commercial meats. They're all based on the fat is bad concept which is totally not true. Coconut oil for example has potent antibacterial and antiviral properties. Most essential oils, those are fats folks, like oil of oregano is a fat. You know golden seal oil is a fat, fennel oil is a fat. Like a lot of these essential oils, they have strong detoxification properties or fats. Grass-fed butter, which also has really good detoxification properties. That's a fat, so it's kind of based around our understanding or a lot of Western diet understanding of fat being bad, commercial meats being bad, and I'll say that for commercial meats. If you were going to do commercial fats and like wild-caught organic meats, you could easily do a detox, and I'll talk about that more in part two. Like how you could do a detox, I've actually got a specific diet that will cost folks about $12 total. Teaches you how to do everything at home, I'll get into that in a little bit, and it includes meats, it includes adequate fats, it includes adequate carbohydrates, and then if you combine this with a specific supplement protocol, you'd really have a nice one-two combo, so we'll get into that. Gosh, KaengRaeng was the last one. Those were eight of the most popular detox diets, and again…
Jessa: Here's my big thing, I asked you if the logic was about these calorie restrictions. I really think these people are more appealing not to health and rejuvenation, but more per weight loss.
Ben: Well yeah, a lot of them are rapid weight loss diets in, and there's been some really good studies on rapid weight loss diets that show a yo-yo effect where the yo-yo up is higher than what you actually lost. So it's something that you really need to bear in mind. Now granted the longer diets that are based more on real food that give you adequate protein, healthy fats and most days, exceed 1,500 calories are going to be more supportive for long term weight loss. Then some of these low-calorie, protein-void, healthy fat-void detox diets like the cleanses and the juices, and again, you pay a lot of money for these. Now one of the other things you need to be aware of is a lot of these are extremely high in fiber, and the basis behind that is they want to cleanse your colon.
Jessa: What I've heard this refer to is fiber is what sweeps out you.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. What they say is that based off this idea that the colon has this toxic mucoidal plaque in it, and that's what a lot of colon cleanses are based around these mucosal plaques, and if you were to go get a colonic or shoot a high-powered jet of water through your colon to dislodge plaques…
Jessa: Just do skiing, just crash really hard on the water.
Ben: I actually did that, it was a gross story. Snowboarding last week when I crashed, I had to make a trip to the men's room in the lodge 'cause I crashed hard.
Jessa: No I'm talking about water skiing, that's like you go water skiing, and just crash really hard. There's your colonic right there.
Ben: You put enough pressure on the colon, yeah, exactly. Anyways though, there have been literally thousands and thousands of intestinal biopsies performed in medical research studies that have found zero presence of these ubiquitous colonic plaques, or these seemingly ubiquitous colonic plaques. So I really very much have a raised eyebrow at the idea of doing.
Jessa: It's like the mythological 16 pounds that's just sitting in your intestines?
Ben: Yeah, either coming in from the mouth end and doing a high-fiber and herb-cleansing formula or doing the enema or the colonics when in fact there are safer, lower fiber, mineral-based ways that you can cleanse your colon, and I'll get into those in a little bit, that are lower in fiber because fiber… the whole idea behind fiber, is it attached to your digestive tract. It actually causes your digestive tract to create mucosa which allows you to digest your food a little bit better, but the idea that fiber is actually able to break down the lining of your gut, your small intestine or your large intestine. It's roughage, that's what it is. It's called roughage. There's a law of diminishing returns, and once you get above about 40 grams of fiber a day which many of these cleanses do, you can start to experience effects like Diverticulitis and internal bleeding and hemorrhoids and a lot of these issues, you know?
You can even get this rectal prolapse kind of issue where too much fiber can actually cause your rectum to kind of come out your butt hole. That's what a prolapse is, so there's a lot of things that you got to be aware of when it comes to these high-fiber, colon-based cleanses. I'm not saying that Gerson therapy for cancer or enemas and colonic cleanses won't necessarily do anything for you, but it is probably a myth that you have these large build-ups of colonic plaque, and likely the mechanism, via which those enemas or colonics are working are by improving the health of the colon through enhancing the bacterial presence which is going to do things like produce fatty acids, allow for production of a lot of vitamins and minerals, are they going to get reabsorbed in the large intestine. So there's some other stuff going on above and beyond just like cleaning Tootsie Rolls out your backside.
So with that being said, we are going to actually get into part two of this podcast in just a second in which we're going to answer listener questions about detoxes, and then we're going to get into what I recommend. I've got five steps to go through detox that I recommend. I also want to get into your questions Jessa about this sugar detox, but unfortunately, we are going to have to say goodbye to our non-Inner Circle listeners for this part of the podcast, and I'm going to press stop recording on this part and then we're going to keep going for those of you in the Inner Circle. And for those of you listening who are not in the Inner Circle, pretty easy to join. Just go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle, we've got 60 plus workshops, we've got more than 800 different forum threads on a variety of topics from natural health remedies to fitness to exercise, it's a 24/7 support forum. Awesome community inside, it's 10 bucks a month, and it's a real bargain in terms of what you get and Jessa and I are always popping in and helping folks out. So check that out, and for those of you who are in the Inner Circle, in on the call right now or listening to the replay or watching the video, let's jump into part two of this detox podcast.
When you’re scrambling to slim down for the New Year or burn fat fast to get ready for swimsuit season, doing a quick crash course cleanse may seem like an easy way to get things done.
After all, detox diets promise to help you shed pounds fast, flush out toxins from your gut, liver, kidney or colon, give your digestive system a much-needed break, eliminate brain fog, maximize energy levels, cure your food cravings, and even improve your hair, skin and nails.
The problem is, detoxes can be dangerous. Often, much of the weight loss is due to muscle wasting, self-cannibalization and dangerous levels of dehydration. This can result in a long-term lowering of your metabolism, hormonal imbalances and a body that easily becomes fatigued, overtrained, skinny-fat, and more likely to gain weight in the future.
Worse yet, as I discussed in the recent root canals podcast, many detoxes (especially heavy metal detoxes) leach metals and other toxins into the bloodstream. If you have a leaky blood brain barrier caused by lack of sleep, stress, inflammation, food intolerances, overtraining, airline travel or any other biological assailant, these metals and toxins can end up in your neural tissue and cause brain fog, mental fatigue and neural damage.
But not all detox diets are harmful.
So to help you distinguish the difference between dangerous detox fads and truly helpful cleanse, to jumpstart your New Year and to give you a safe way to clean your body, balance your hormones and spark safe and lasting fat loss, Ben and Jessa Greenfield sit down in this podcast and give you their entertaining take on the 8 most popular detox diets, including:
-The Cooler Cleanse
-Jill Pettijohn Nutritional Cleanses
–David Kirsch 48-Hour Super Charged Cleanse
–Dr. Junger's Clean Gut Program
After Ben and Jessa tell you about the pros and cons of each detox diet, they then turn off the mic and keep going for Part 2 of this Detox Special Podcast, which is only available to BenGreenfieldFitness Inner Circle members.
In Part 2, available in both video and audio by clicking here and joining the Inner Circle, Ben and Jessa reveal Ben's #1 recommended way to detox (hundreds of dollars less expensive than popular detox diets), discuss Jessa's questions about detoxes, and answer listener questions about detox diets, including:
Summary and Detox Resources
For more resources on detoxing, check out:
–The Zen of Taking A Good Poop
–How Much Fiber To Eat, Where To Get Your Fiber, And Is Fiber *Really* Killing Your Insides?
–Why Healthy Eaters Can Still Have Broken Guts, and What You Can Do About It.
Other detox resources Ben and Jessa discuss in this episode include:
Testing:
–CDSA 2.0 with Parasitology Gut Test
–WellnessFX Baseline Panel or Top 10 Tests from DirectLabs
Diets:
Supplements:
-Ben's recommended Gut Healing Pack (use the oil of oregano in this pack as the 15-20 drops 3x/day, and take everything else according to bottle instructions)
-Metal Free Heavy Metal Detoxification Formula -follow spray instructions on bottle, use for 30-60 days
–Liposomal Glutathione – 2-3 sprays under tongue and hold for 20-30 seconds, use for 30-60 days
-6mg of iodine per day – use for 30-60 days
-Oral magnesium in supplemental form before bedtime (around 400-600mg/day, or until you get loose stool)
-A high quality greens supplement – use for detox maintenance
-For colon detox, highly recommended to include 30-60 days of Colorectal Recovery Program if you get constipation, gas, bloating, diarrhea, etc. If you use this, then you can skip the magnesium and greens listed above
Gear:
-Use Squatty Potty for any bowel movements
-If you can afford one, sleep or spend 20-30 minute sessions each day laying on Biomat
-Clean up your house with Ben's recommended safe and clean household cleaners and personal care products