UK Health Radio guest presenter and blogger, Rebecca Lane (pictured), a health and fitness expert, shares her personal thoughts on the detox versus calorie counting debate.
Most people associate losing weight with counting calories. This is not the best and ideal way to achieve your weight loss goals and here is why:
When a person counts calories their aim is to create a calorie deficit. For example; consume 1,200 calories but use 2,000 calories will create an 800 calorie deficit. Then at the end of the week will result in a few pounds lost. This is great for a short while but your body will start to conserve that energy and become wise. It will notice that not much food is entering the body and will switch on the fat storing hormone and you will plateau.
I used to work in an office of women and we were rubbish at keeping to diets, we constantly spoke about food and we binged uncontrollably. One of my colleagues used to have a can of diet coke to keep her hunger at bay. Before I started in the fitness industry I never really thought about why she did this. The reason for this was because it was curing her sweet fix for a short period of time but what she didn’t realise and probably still doesn’t today is that these drinks are crammed full of toxins which slows down metabolisation and in fact make you hungrier.
Diet drinks are full of aspartame, which is a lethal synthetic chemical combination found in thousands of foods and drinks and is dangerous! Stay away from the diet cokes.
So, what is the difference between traditional and fad diets…
Fat is stored to protect our bodies from impurities. When someone goes on a fad diet (calorie counting, points, shakes) the body becomes smaller but because the body hasn’t been detoxed there is an increased amount of impurities within the body. Skin will be bad, lethargy will be present. The body knows there is an increased amount of toxins so will go into emergency fat production – known as rebound where the fat goes back on.
When we nutritionally cleanse (aka detox) – the impurities are released and the body will shed fat at the same time. You will feel grotty when you start on a nutritional cleanse, my detoxers will tell you this! But after a few days – one week they feel fantastic and will have an increase in energy. This is because there are less impurities and therefore better overall health, less fat and more lean muscle.
Follow Becky at @beckyfitness