Are "Detox Diets" the New South Beach?

By Ava Feuer, REDBOOK.

The aughts were all about cutting carbs--Atkins says no grains, no problem, South Beach eliminates them in its first phase--and those wanting to lose weight fast came in droves, with some success. But that moment has passed, and now, if there's one thing experts agree on, it's the importance of eating real food-the stuff that doesn't come in packages and in which you can easily name all the ingredients. However, that doesn't mean the body-fixing quest has gone anywhere.

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Enter juice cleanses. These three-, five-, or seven-day regimens during which you drink nothing but cold-pressed, veggie- and fruit-packed concoctions went from Hollywood to the mainstream, and it's difficult to find someone who hasn't at least thought of temporarily ditching solid food. It's a marketing trend as much as a diet one, but despite what advocates claim, the scientific community is skeptical that a liquid diet has the power to detox our bodies any better than our systems naturally do.

We're guessing that people are getting a little sick of not chewing, which may be why we're starting to see less extreme cleanses. One that intrigued us: The SoCal Cleanse, a 30-day program that eliminates all meat, alcohol, caffeine, dairy, and white flour while adding in a series of supplements. Created by a husband-and-wife team and used by celebs like Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis, it's pricey--$395 for the package--but evidence says it works. After six months, an in-house test group of 150 participants lost an average of 14.3 pounds and 89 percent of people kept the weight off--a big difference from your typical juice cleanse.

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But given we're unable to function without morning coffee, tout the benefits of Greek yogurt, and enjoy a good glass of wine with dinner, 30 days sounds like a hell of a long time.

"Seven days isn't enough time to get the toxins out of your system," says SoCal Cleanse cofounder and certified clinical nutritionist Cynthia Pasquella. "In 30 days, you support your body's natural progress and its ability to keep cleansing. You don't get withdrawal systems, like debilitating headaches."

There are three phases of detoxification, explains Pasquella, and juice cleanses only get at the first, during which your body releases toxins. "If you stop there, it's like you've stirred up the muck at the bottom of the lake and left it there," she says. The flushing out of said toxins comes in phase two, supported by lots of protein, B vitamins, and most importantly, fiber, which binds to the toxins to release them. Finally, during phase three, your body eliminates toxins.

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The problem with holding onto those toxins? "Your body tries to naturally eliminate as many toxins as possible, but ultimately, the burden is so high that it stores them in fat cells," says Pasquella. "The body then holds onto that fat because it knows that if it does metabolize it, dangerous and harmful toxins will be released. Cleansing with proper nutrition, herbs, and lifestyle practices helps your body remove toxins to free up the fat to be metabolized into a usable source of energy and eventually eliminated."

But we've interviewed countless doctors, most of whom have told us that your body is built to do this naturally--that it really is about just eating healthier whole foods and moving more--not toxins and chemicals somehow acting like a weight magnet. When asked to respond to this, Pasquella explained that yes, our bodies do detox naturally, but perhaps not so well in our modern over-toxic world filled with chemical-laden foods and air pollution. And while we can't argue with the findings that the SoCal cleanse lowers toxin levels in participants, who knows if that stuff was really doing any harm? It could very well be a case where knowing more isn't better.

Pasquella admits that it's a gray area, but is operating under the better-safe-than-sorry premise. "We know that people are being diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, autism, and ADHD more than they were decades ago," she says. "Is that caused by chemical components and our overconsumption of toxins? We don't know. It's not causation, but we can't rule it out, so it's worth looking at."

It's unclear whether toxins are hurting us, but there's one thing we're sure of--people will try anything if it gets results.

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