Why You Shouldn't Start a Cleanse on January 1st
“I’m thinking of doing a cleanse,” is a refrain I hear a lot this time of year. As a dietitian, I know my clients like the idea of “cleansing” because it makes them feel healthier while avoiding the hard work that’s required for real dietary changes.
The trouble is, there is scientifically no such thing as a cleanse. Diet books and wellness brands will make us believe that our bodies have fallen asleep on the job and are desperately in need of a spa day. Cleanse programs tell us that we must purge to atone for the overindulgences of the holidays. By restricting calories and giving inflammatory foods the boot, a cleanse mimics health but it doesn’t mirror real eating. Because, when the cleanse is done, you’re left with a dilemma: how to confront the eating patterns and behaviors that cued your need for a cleanse in the first place. Here’s why you should ditch the cleanse and what to do instead.
Your body is an expert at detoxing
Toxins accumulate from food and the environment, but no supplement or juice program can expedite what a healthy digestive tract, liver, and kidneys already do for free. Cleanses are marketed to wash sins of gluttony with a flood of juiced nutrients, but there’s a limit to how much your digestive tract can absorb in one pass. While an occasional round of fresh juice can be a delicious, nutrient-dense addition to your diet, you can only draw in so many water-soluble vitamins in a day. Unless you’re severely deficient in Vitamin C or B complex, you’ll excrete way more of those nutrients than you absorb.
Cleanses are a waste of money
If you’re considering spending money on a program that involves a lot of supplements, consider the question of bioavailability: Can additives in synthetic powders, tinctures, and tablets be useful when they show up absent of nature’s packaging? Despite enthusiastic marketing, there’s often little (or no) credible research to prove they can.
Cleanses kill helpful microbes
Your microbes play a big role in dietary detox. There’s been tons reported on the importance of bacteria and immune function, but your microbial cells are also believed to help detoxify your intestines. Bacteria will scavenge toxic compounds, which eventually get expelled. Eating a diverse array of cruciferous and root vegetables, leafy greens, and seeds provides your microbiota with an important natural supply of cellulose and lignans. These non-fermentable fibers are a critical food source for intestinal bacteria. Cleanses that cut out solid foods or certain food groups will starve these bacteria and make it harder for your digestion to function in the long-term.
More of a good thing is not always better
Supplements feed fears of insufficiency, but you can get ample nutrition by eating a plant-based diet. Humans are not programmed for the nutritive deluge of a cleanse, and consuming some phytochemicals in massive quantities can have dangerous side effects. Excessive juicing can cause kidney stress and damage, supplying potentially toxic concentrations of oxalates. Additives sold with cleanse diets aren’t well regulated. For example, liver poisoning has been reported with supplements intended for colonic cleansing.
Inconsistent eating patterns can be harmful
While fasting has been used for several millennia to clarify the mind, inconsistent patterns of restrictive eating are ultimately harmful. Cleanses that severely limit calories offer quick results that are usually impossible to maintain. A practice of flopping back and forth between caloric excess and deprivation can wreak havoc on your metabolism, making it increasingly harder to manage a healthy body composition.
So what do we do if we want to eat healthier?
Fresh, whole food will always beat a meal of supplements or juice. Most people benefit from eating lots of produce and plant-based protein and fat and limiting fried food, animal products, and refined carbohydrates. How you choose to get this done is totally up to you. Some people can manage daily intermittent fasting. Others are just trying to decrease their morning coffee habit from three packs of sugar from one.
Whatever path you choose, changes to wellbeing happen gradually. There are no shortcuts. In general, it takes twice as long to get out of bad habits as it takes to fall into them, so it’s important to practice patience when getting into new food routines.
The best thing you can do is be honest with yourself about your challenges. If you arrive to your kitchen exhausted after work (who doesn’t?), then planning lengthy, multi-step recipes is not your best Monday-through-Friday plan. Think you’re not a good enough cook? Get comfy with the laziest techniques: roast or steam vegetables, boil whole grains like pasta and drain when they’re cooked through, and stir together a simple vinaigrette. And if you’re the too busy type, a pressure cooker Instant Pot recipes could be your new best friend.
A health reset shouldn’t feel like punishment or perfection. It should feel like something you can do for the rest of your life.
