If you’ve been considering doing a juice cleanse to lose weight, “detoxify” your body, or simply boost your diet, it’s essential that you have all the facts before you begin. While specific fasting regimens may offer short-term benefits, there are several reasons why juice cleansing may not be an effective means of “detoxing.”

In this blog post, we will examine why juice cleanses may not be advantageous for improving overall health and wellness. Then, we’ll talk about other effective detox strategies.

Restricting Your Food Intake Deprives Your Body of Nutrients It Needs to “Detox”

Our bodies are constantly working to detoxify and remove toxins from our blood and organs. The liver, kidneys, intestines, and immune system are built-in mechanisms to eliminate waste and unwanted substances. Ensuring they’re operating at their best is critical to detoxing your body effectively. 

Your immune system, liver, kidneys, and intestines depend on nutrients such as zinc, iron, and complete proteins to function correctly. Without adequate vitamin and protein intake (like on juicing diets), your immune system, liver, kidneys, and intestine function will likely struggle – impairing your ability to detox. 

Okay – maybe you’ll take vitamins while you juice. That is a good idea, but there are other reasons why juicing might impede your body’s detoxification processes.

Decreasing Your Food Intake Will Slow Your Motility, Decreasing Your Ability to Detox

“Going #2” is one of your body’s primary methods of eliminating waste products. Consuming enough solid food and fiber is necessary for normal motility. Juice cleanses are practically void of solid food and fiber, which may cause constipation or prevent you from thoroughly getting rid of waste products.

If you are dieting, try increasing your fiber, caffeine, and electrolyte intake to encourage stool movement.

There Are Other Ways to Detox

The following methods will help your body detox: 

  • Sweating in the sauna
  • Drinking a gallon of water per day
  • Trying the organic paleo diet for a week
  • Sleeping for 9+ hours
  • Consuming IgY Max for eight weeks

Why the sauna? Sweating not only helps cool us down when we’re exercising or feeling too toasty but also aids our bodies with detoxification. That’s right – sweating helps our body flush out toxins from unhealthy eating, environmental pollution, mold exposure, and other substances we’re exposed to.

Drinking plenty of water supports your liver, kidneys, and digestive system. Staying hydrated is especially important for digestion. It will help to regulate your motility.

Consuming lots of inflammatory processed foods and pesticides can be difficult for your liver. The organic paleo diet is void of processed foods and minimizes pesticide consumption. Though here at IgY, we don’t promote prolonged diet restriction, it might be worth it to try the diet for a week just to see how you feel.

If you were looking for an excuse to sleep in, here it is. Your immune system works hard while you sleep – think of it like your body’s time to get its you-know-what together. Give it plenty of that time, and it will thank you. 

Binder supplements, like activated charcoal and bentonite clay, are making waves in the health world as detoxification methods. Recent research shows that activated charcoal seems to bind to toxins in the body and carry them out of the body through your stool. Bentonite clay, another binder, functions similarly to activated charcoal by attracting heavy metals, bacteria, and toxins so they can be eliminated from the body. If you start taking them, make sure to take them away from other supplements or medications since they can interfere with absorption.

Lastly, getting rid of bad actors in your gut microbiome is vital to a detoxified body and gut. The best way to do that seems to be by using enteric antibodies rather than antibiotics. You can get your hands on enteric antibodies in IgY Max, which contains antibodies that target 29 common pathogens. The antibodies bind to dysbiotic microbes, neutralize them, and allow them to be excreted out of the body. 

If you have “detox” issues that you are attempting to address, consider consulting a healthcare professional. Thanks for joining us today!