Vanessa: 0:00

Hey, ma'am

Emily: 0:02

so, have you ever done a cleanse before yourself?

Vanessa: 0:06

You know, I don't think I have, and there's definitely a time in my life where I think I definitely could have, but I don't think I have. What about you?

Emily: 0:18

I was not able to escape that myself and I ended up falling prey. Fall prior to this whack influencer. And I think I did it with someone else, but I can't even remember who now, but it was like a set of specific meals and they were pretty much like only vegetables and we had to do it for three full days. It was three or four. And by the end of the second day, I was like, yeah, I'm tapping out. Like I can't do this. I did not make it. I remember being so angry at work. And then also I tried to go to yoga, like at the end of the first or the second day before I tapped out. And I was just so exhausted because of the intense food restriction, there was like no snacks. It was like three meals a day. And they were like, look, it's a cleanse. You can eat on like, you're so lucky to be on this one instead. And yeah, I was like halfway through and I was like, forget this. Like, I can't do this.

Vanessa: 1:14

You know, it's really wild, how we've convinced ourselves that not eating is better than eating. You know what the funny thing is is people will say, I need to do a detox yet. They'll smother a bunch of per sprint in their armpits and then get Botox injections in their hairline. So they're not sweating and that's wildly backwards.

Emily: 1:37

right. It's just so confusing. Like. That people are on this giant quest to cleanse and detox. And they're still like drinking multiple glasses of wine every night. It's a really interesting sort of trend we're dealing with right now. And I can't wait to talk about it.

Vanessa: 1:56

Yeah, and let's just let's get right. I know.

Emily: 2:06

Welcome to this week's episode of wellness myths today, we're here to talk all about cleanses which is kind of a favorite topic of mine, especially living in Portland on the west coast. It kind of comes up often. I feel like I know somebody on a juice cleanse pretty regularly. And so I'm really excited to just get all my feelings out right now.

Vanessa: 2:27

And honestly, it's kind of a weird topic to cover because cleanse or detox, it doesn't really have one definition. It could be potentially a lot of different things like, like Emily was talking about when we started your cleanse could be something where you're just eating vegetables or it could be something where you're just like drinking water and lemon and cayenne. It could be something where you're like getting sent meals and you're taking a bunch of supplements. So it kind of is like all across the map.

Emily: 2:59

Yeah, totally. Some cleanses have some sort of sweating component, like in a sauna. Or some sort of dietary supplement maybe you're only drinking juice. Basically the general idea is you eliminate this wide amount of foods in the goal of eliminating toxins, quote unquote, in your body overall. And these demonized foods could be kind of the ones that you probably think about like sweeteners and animal products, dairy, soy. Even peanuts or corn additives, anything like that in addition to alcohol and caffeine are commonly restricted in a cleanse. The one thing that I kind of want to share right off the bat is that your digestive system is not tired. Like, that's something that I hear so often like, oh, you need to give your digestion a break. No, like it's not sleepy. Like it's, it's, it's still going. It doesn't need like a rest from eating by restricting your calories in a cleanse. It really doesn't mean.

Vanessa: 4:02

And there's always this idea of you need to give your body time to diff detoxify itself. And while we know our body has natural detox systems and we'll talk more about that in a minute. You need fuel, your organs need fuel to do what they need to do. So the fact that people say, oh, you know, you need to do this thing so your body can work on it yet. You're not giving your body any fuel to do. What it needs to do is very, very backwards thinking.

Emily: 4:41

Yeah, it's kind of like how, every time last night, I always saying this, it's like not really about what you can subtract and what you can restrict, but it's really about what you can add in. And so that's kind of like the end of this. To the cleanse idea and the fact that, you know, thinking that we need to eliminate things and give our body a break while our kidneys, liver and colon are all responsible for eliminating toxins. And those are just working all the time in the body. They don't like shut down for a little nap or anything like that. Like that's happening all the time. And if you're an otherwise healthy individual, like I think a lot of the folks doing cleanses are then your body's doing all this work for you all the time.

Vanessa: 5:18

Yeah, And I mean, like I mentioned before with, you know, talking about antiperspirants and injecting Botox into your hairline, your skin is your largest organ and sweat is the way you detox. In that particular route, I guess. So. The fact that it's just crazy to me that we we think we need to not eat anything and that's going to help.

Emily: 5:47

Yeah, totally. Just another piece of diet culture, demonizing certain foods and making us think they're poison or toxic.

Vanessa: 5:54

So something else when we think of, you know, starving ourselves in for the sake of detoxing ourselves, for certain heavy metals, like lead, you actually absorb more lead on an empty stomach. So, by starving yourself, you are actually exposing yourself more to certain metals, like lead that you don't want built up in your school.

Emily: 6:20

Yeah, totally. And I think that another, maybe even a myth is like, oh, well, if I'm eating some foods, it's okay. Or, you know, I'm not starving myself on this cleanse. Well, you know, if we look at a juice cleanse, for example, I mean your blood sugars like could be sky high during your juice cleanse. You've got no fiber. It's just like a bunch of fruits. And nothing else. You're not getting protein. You're not getting enough calories. I highly doubt you're drinking enough juice to like reach your calorie limit because that would be kind of hard. Juices are fairly low in calories.

Vanessa: 6:54

Yeah.

Emily: 6:55

So your body is just sitting there, like, what the hell I need all of this food. And so even if you're just getting it a little bit, it's still not enough. You need to be meeting your needs. And when we don't meet our needs, then the body starts feeling those negative side effects. It could be something like weakness or fatigue, irritability, you could start having indigestion. And those things are so commonly written off as like, oh, that's just part of the cleanse. Like that's just the toxins leaving your body. No, that's just you not eating enough calories.

Vanessa: 7:23

Yeah. And it's really funny too, because there are so many books and people that are promoting these cleanses and detoxes so heavily, but this, this episode was actually kind of hard to research for because there really is no research. Emily and I were on the phone before we jumped on this recording and I was saying to her, like, there's this review that I was looking at. It's basically just saying that all of the there's not very much research that's been done on cleanses or detoxes, but the ones that have are basically just garbage, like super poor quality, not peer reviewed, and basically just showed weight loss because of calorie restriction.

Emily: 8:08

Exactly. And that, that usually almost assuredly leads to weight gain afterwards, once the person resumed their normal diet which our listeners know all about that.

Vanessa: 8:19

And we run into an Emily was touching on this before. Another thing where it's kind of, it makes me think of salary juice, right? People start doing detoxes where maybe it's a juice cleanse or something like that. And they are like, oh my gosh, I feel day one. They're thinking, oh my goodness, I feel so much better. I feel lighter, whatever it might be. But it's kind of. Okay, well, what were you eating before, or were you not eating anything at all before in the morning? And now your, for example, drinking celery juice and hydrating yourself and getting a bunch of nutrients in the morning. I mean, yeah, you're going to set yourself up for feeling a little better during the day, or, you know, maybe instead you're like driving through a fast food. Restaurant to get a quick breakfast and then it's like sitting in your stomach, like a brick all morning versus having this like light juice that has a lot of vitamins and nutrients.

Emily: 9:19

Yeah, totally. I agree with all of that. And then of course, placebo effect you feeling like you're taking control over an area of your life which is also a really common feeling with people with disordered eating. It's kind of. Feeling of like, okay, at least I can control how many calories I have for breakfast, or at least I'm doing the right thing for my body by doing this juice cleanse. So I think it really has to do with how much you're believing in it as well. And it really could be a window into some information. You know, if your cleanse, has you avoiding something that you're usually intolerant to, maybe you do feel better off of that. Maybe you're eating less sugars so that your blood sugar is a bit more stabilized. You're eating more fiber you know, on a cleanse that does happen to include food. And then, you know, sometimes people are really just excited about this water, weight loss, which in our culture I can, I get how that's really a measurement of success, but yeah, unfortunately, Right back on, no matter what, anyways, after you start eating your regular diet, again, it kind of reminds me to like, you know, about people who feel better. I have a cousin who did this cleanse and I feel like maybe we even talked about this before Vanessa, but like she was in this cleanse, it was a person like an Institute for integrative nutrition person, which is kind of the. Nutrition coach things certification you can do. And a lot of these people who graduated from there do these cleanses and all of the food was like super, super restricted. Like, you know, you couldn't have peanuts. Phase of the cleanse, took out all night, shade, vegetables, like all this stuff. And for a long time, she was like, this literally changed my life because she learned how to cook. She ended up veering more. Plant-based like, now she's ethically vegan and it's, it's a part of her life. And she was like, oh my God, without this cleanse, I never would have found any of this stuff. And while that's all true, could she have found all of that stuff made all these realizations discoveries about herself without the club?

Vanessa: 11:20

Right.

Emily: 11:20

just a different way, you know? So it's like, yeah, I see how sometimes people feel this benefit from it, but there's also, I mean, another thing was that she believed herself to be gluten intolerant for awhile and was missing out on all of these nutrients that involved gluten and unnecessarily now she eats it all the time. You realize it's really just more of a dairy thing, but it's like, Kind of helped her figure things out, but I mean, she was gluten-free for a really long time. And it makes me sad that, you know, these cleanses can kind of prey on people like, oh, this is going to change your life. And look, I gave you this benefit, but what about the downsides that we kind of just don't really hear about as often?

Vanessa: 12:01

Yeah. Yeah. And it makes me think of two and Emily you'll be able to talk about this way more than I would be able to, but even the cleanses that. That are taking away all of your solid foods and someone who maybe does have more of a, you know, disordered pattern of eating. Especially if you're taking away all solid foods as like these aren't good. And the only. That are good, are like juices or something like that. I just can't imagine that going well for someone who is already, you know, maybe triggered by some solid foods and then is having all of the solid foods taken away.

Emily: 12:46

Yeah, it it's really funny say that she actually my cousin just texted me like all of these lessons that she learned from her cleanse. And so I'll just Sarah. It's in line exactly. With what you're saying, the idea that ingredients or foods can be clean, something's bad or inflammatory. That really isn't like with gluten or you know, the demonization of sugar. And then. And she had said a lot of it was like feeling shamed, like when she was in the group, I remember she had asked something like, oh, you know, is anybody feeling these cravings for chocolate or wine or whatever. And the. Facilitator was like, shut that shit down so quick and was like, Nope, like you guys don't need to be talking about this. Like, it's just not good for your cleanse. Like, you don't need to be like ruminating on what you can't have, which is like, well, that's really natural human behavior. And then also this person when they were talking about, they ate for breakfast, she was eating You know, a slice of toast with peanut butter and she has seeds some honey on it and a cup of black coffee. And she was like, Nope, Nope, Nope, absolutely not. You know, that's like not a good meal for you to be having. So it's really interesting, like for what, you know, I never tell anybody that they're having a bad meal. I'll just say like, oh, what about like adding a banana to that? Right. Something like that. Like what about a piece of fruit? Like identifying that kind of like hole in the meal. But to be shaming people, which I think even if it is less outward than her experience is really the undercurrent of the cleanse. Like if you don't finish the cleanse, you did a bad job. And. You know, they're really not supportive and feeling that food freedom, especially if you do have disordered eating, which pretty much everybody does at this point, it was some sort of disordered eating. If you say clean foods or, you know, junk foods all the time, then you know, I'd invite you to do some examining cause it's really insidious.

Vanessa: 14:37

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's crazy. All the ways that. Can creep up for people like, even the things that you don't think about that you're going to struggle with for a long time. And it takes a really, really long time to unlearn that. And even if you consciously unlearn it, it's kind of an unconscious, unconscious thing at a certain level.

Emily: 14:59

Yeah, definitely. And it's so normalized. So people are like, oh, whatever, you know, especially in certain cultures and circles cleanses are just like, oh, that's what you do. It's kind of your punishment for like, doing something bad. Like if, you know, you're like a lot of taco bell and like drank some vodka this weekend, you're like, oh, I need to do a cleanse. Like I need to just reset all of these things, which that might totally be true for you. You know, just eating fruits and vegetables and drinking water is going to set you on your right path.

Vanessa: 15:26

Exactly. And if someone were to come to Emily or myself and say, I really want to detox my body, I want to cleanse my body. The first thing we would be doing. Adding things to their diet versus taking things away. I would never be, unless there's a food, that's triggering them for some reason, but that has nothing to do with the detox or cleanse. If there's a certain food, that's not making them feel good. Of course you might want to take that out, but we're going to be suggesting foods to add in. We're not going to suggest foods to take out.

Emily: 16:00

Yes, definitely. And it kind of makes me think about probably the most restrictive cleanse besides like a full water cleanse where like you only drink water for a long time, whatever. I don't even want to give that hair time to be honest. And I don't want to with this one either, but it's kind of funny. The master cleanse, you kind of touched on it at the beginning. And this was something that was so popular and it was really like the Hollywood celebrity

Vanessa: 16:24

Well,

Emily: 16:24

and

Vanessa: 16:27

yeah. Yancey, you did it for dream girls.

Emily: 16:30

And the, and they know they sell juices at like, like the Soulja brand sells like master cleanse juices. And they're literally just like maple syrup and water, whatever. Okay. So what the, what you do in this cleanse is you take a core of warm salt water in the morning. And then you consume a 60 ounce concoction of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper throughout the day. And then you finish with a cup of laxative tea in the evening, and they want you to do this for 10 days. So this is no food for 10 days. And. Like kind of, a little list of Harvard review of cleanses. And they're really clear that there's absolutely no data on this particular diet. But they're quick to point out that many studies have shown that fasting completely and extremely low calorie diets for 10 whole days in a row. Do invariably lower the bar. Metabolic rate as we're really struggling to conserve the energy that we do have. And typically once that diet or resumed normal eating rapid weight gain will follow. It's usually related to fluid loss, as we've said. And these frequent bowel movements provided by your salt water and your laxative tea. So really once normal intake. Regained then the weight comes back as well. And it's an all carb diet and it's 600 calories a day, which I mean, no, not at all. You could impair your bowel function, deplete electrolytes. You can mess up your gut doing that. I mean, you can get metabolic acidosis. It's very bad and dangerous. And so I don't want to understate that.

Vanessa: 18:06

Yeah. I mean the little to know, I guess the only benefit would be, there are No, benefits.

Emily: 18:16

No, let's just say there's not because like, yeah. You're drinking 60 ounces of water. Okay, cool. Like that's the only thing. I'm happy that you're doing it also. Why is there maple syrup in it?

Vanessa: 18:26

Yeah. Just I

Emily: 18:27

just like to give you some carbs. Yeah.

Vanessa: 18:30

brain fogged, but it's

Emily: 18:33

God.

Vanessa: 18:34

It's crazy.

Emily: 18:36

It's so nuts and it's really not doing anything for you. So I feel like we should leave everyone with sort of. Okay. You're not going to do a cleanse anymore. Like if you were considering it now, you're like, I'm going to throw that idea out the window. So really what can we do instead if we feel like, oh, We really want to cleanse the body in some specific way. For whatever reason, maybe you are, you've been exposed to toxic mold or some sort of environmental toxin. Vanessa was bringing up like the lead issue earlier. So there's definitely a small population of people that might want to cleanse or what you can do just to support those detox pathways.

Vanessa: 19:20

So our liver kidneys, skin, lungs, and GI tract are constantly detoxing our bodies naturally. So again, like we mentioned before, these are the organs that you want to support to make sure. You're healthfully, detoxing your body. And the way that I would recommend you do that is eating lots of fiber. So, I would say 30 to 35 grams a day. Drinking, lots of water. Cruciferous veggies like cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and prebiotics and probiotics for gut health. If you've listened to our probiotic episode, you'll remember our goals, which are our prebiotics, just garlic, onion, artichokes, leeks, and shallots. And then probiotics of course are like our fermented foods.

Emily: 20:12

Yeah, totally. And there's some supplements even that have been proven to help support your liver function like milk thistle or dandelion teas. Definitely working with the guidance of the health care provider on that one, just because taking a bunch of just random liver detoxifying supplements is not your next move. Start eating the vegetables first. And then if you still feel like you need a little more than you can talk to somebody and get a little more specific with the supplements and all.

Vanessa: 20:38

is great too.

Emily: 20:40

Yeah, absolutely so many antioxidants and another thing too, from kind of where I practice is working on your relationship with food and exercising from a non-restrictive standpoint you know, this can mean more vegetables, more walks, more water, all those kinds of basic things that aren't really that sexy or new to talk about. But if you're constantly restricting every day, your detox pathways are not working. Quite the way that they should. So, you know, if you're restricting yourself under 1200 calories a day, it's it, they're not working. And so it's going to be difficult to heal, really anything that's going on. If you're in that state and, and to also, if you feel like you really have some sort of intolerance, then an elimination diet, ideally with the help of a dietician could help. If you feel like there's certain things that bother your system specifically, that you feel like you need to cleanse from.

Vanessa: 21:29

I mean, first and foremost, foremost, just drink enough water, sweat it out, poop it out.

Emily: 21:37

yeah, yeah. Make sure you're also having good bowel movements. Right. Okay. Let's see. So everyone's got.

Vanessa: 21:44

skinny tea right now.

Emily: 21:46

Oh my God. No, I was literally just going to say, everybody's going to be able to see, well, I don't think the Cartec Kardashians do the flat tummy tea anymore,

Vanessa: 21:57

they don't.

Emily: 21:58

used to do their asses used to. I remember seeing that a lot. But you know, now the next time when you see one of these little advertisements or your friends, like, oh my God, let's do a cleanse together. We were so bad this weekend and ate all this bad food. You're going to know exactly. What's telomere to say, listen, check out wellness myths. And they told us all why we don't need to do this. And let's just go get some salads together.

Vanessa: 22:24

Tell your friend no need for the skinny teas. Maybe just go to the gym or go to the sauna and sweat it out instead.