I never would have guessed that I'd lose 31 pounds in one summer from a simple cleansing diet. Before that summer I thought cleansing diets were all about colon cleansing or liver cleansing--I didn't know that people were cleansing for weight loss.
I was 30 pounds overweight and had tried a bunch of things to lose the excess pounds: books, pills, special foods and even... exercise! Everything seemed to have some small effect but nothing came close to helping me lose that 30 pounds.
I started researching online, looking for an effective weight loss plan. In the course of my searching, though, I kept running across something that was hard to believe--I saw story after story of people losing 10, 20, 50, even hundreds of pounds on a specific type of cleansing diet.
Now, I'm a very skeptical guy (ask my wife) and normally I doubt claims that sound anything like hype. But I'm also a very logical guy and I figured if so many people were having success with this type of cleansing diet plan then maybe I should check it out.
What the Heck is Cleansing Anyway?
I knew nothing about cleansing diets before I started my first cleanse. It turns out that there are a lot of different cleansing diets out there but the one thing they all tend to have in common is one or two days where you don't eat anything--instead, you drink a cleansing drink throughout the day. The idea isn't that you lose weight from not eating; it's that you're removing toxins from your body which helps you lose fat.
The cleansing system I used included protein shakes, protein supplements (lots of protein to protect against lean muscle loss during the cleanse) and a specially-formulated cleansing drink. The protein shakes and supplements tasted fine. The cleansing drink, however, tasted like a really sweet tea and I don't like sweet tea (my wife thinks I'm weird) so that took some getting used to.
Having never "cleansed" before, I didn't know what to expect. Let's just say the experience was "different". The days when I was taking only the cleansing drink were challenging at first but I soon learned tricks (like drinking ice water) to keep my mind off the fact that I was temporarily on a purely liquid diet.
The Amazing Shrinking Man: 197, 185, 175, 166...
When I first started cleansing, I weighed 197 pounds. If you had asked me at the time what my target weight was, I would have said 185 pounds. That seemed like a lofty goal for me to shoot for since I recalled that I had once weighed 185 pounds in the distant past.
Well, I hit exactly 185 pounds after that first 11-day cleanse. I was astounded that I could safely lose 12 pounds in 11 days. It's probably not that easy for everyone to lose weight, though--luckily, when it comes to weight, i'm an easy "loser".
I figured if cleansing was that easy and the results were that dramatic, why not try it again? So a little less than a month later I did my second 11-day cleanse and lost another 10 pounds. Doing the cleanse the second time around was a lot less intimidating because I knew what to expect.
At this point I weighed 175 pounds but I still had some pudge around my waist. I figured I could lose another 8 pounds so I revised my target weight to 167 which would put me at an even 30 pounds lost.
I did my third cleanse a few weeks after my second and lost 9 pounds. I weighed 166 pounds which meant I had lost a total of 31 pounds with three cleanses. I thought that was very impressive weight loss over just one summer.
Is Cleansing For You?
Around the time of my third cleanse, people I knew noticed the weight I had lost and started asking me what I was doing. I was happy to share with them the experience I had with my cleansing diet and enjoyed helping them out if they wanted to try cleansing to lose weight.
Overall, my impression of cleansing diets for losing weight is very positive as long as they are done right. There are some cleanses like the lemonade cleanse or Master cleanse which I don't recommend because they don't include any nutrients or protein to keep you from losing lean muscle tissue.
Cleansing diets aren't for everyone. They require some will power to get through the cleansing days. If you have no will power you probably won't succeed with a cleansing diet. And, of course, speak to your doctor before starting any new diet or exercise program.
If you want to give a cleansing diet a try and your doctor says it's okay then I encourage you to do so--I think you'll like the results!
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