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Eight pills a day keeps the weight, appetite away |
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008 |
by NIKKI ROBERTI
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
With the organic craze becoming more popular, it’s no news flash the regular processed foods we’ve grown up on include some not so natural, and probably not so healthy, components.
Thus, to cleanse the body of toxins in everyday food, some students choose to take part in a detox program in order to maintain a healthy balance.
For one week I took Earth Fare’s Natural Cleanse Complex, a program designed for two weeks with a plant based formula.
I only took the first week’s worth of pills – that’s four pills taken twice a day, 56 pills in all.
The bottle said the program is designed to “naturally flush the body with all the essential digestive support ingredients.”
However, the bottle also says these same statements have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
 Photo by Alisha Park
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Dr. Bob Ellison, a staff physician at Student Health Services, said
when looking into certain programs like Earth Fare’s Natural Cleanse
Complex, students should be careful.
“There are so many health food preparations and homeopathic medications
or products, I certainly can’t keep up with what they are. It’s
confusing,” Ellison said. “But just because it’s from a health food
store, or homeopathic or herbal, doesn’t mean its safe.”
Registered dietician at the Student Wellness Center Janna W. Lyons said
the goal of such a program is to rid the body of unnecessary toxins and
to ultimately increase energy.
However, she does not advise students to take the detox path.
“There are different types of ‘detox’ diets, but all have potential
risks, especially if they entail long or repeated fasts, including
nutrient deficiencies, blood sugar problems, muscle breakdown, and of
course diarrhea, headaches, fatigue and more,” Lyons said. “Any weight
loss achieved is usually quickly regained. I would not recommend any of
these diets.”
For me, I felt pretty bad for the majority of the week, and literally felt sick constantly.
Not only did I lose my appetite on some days, I also drank large
amounts of water in an attempt to quench my insatiable thirst.
At times I drank up to six 20-ounce Dasani bottles a day.
You can guess what that leads to.
Let’s just say I found a new home with our campus’ restrooms.
As a result, I lost 4 pounds in one week.
“If part of the detox program is that it causes a tremendous amount of
fluid loss, you’re going to lose a lot of weight because it’s water
weight, and it’s not going to be long term,” Ellison said. “Whether you
follow a program for a week or whether you do it for a month, these are
not likely going to be sustainable weight loss approaches.”
Tedd T. Clevenger, a junior philosophy and religions major, takes part in a regular detox program.
However, his program does not involve pills, but is a more natural
approach where he doesn’t eat out, and is really conscious about what
he eats.
“I’ll do this for a while to get my system back to balance and then
I’ll just keep everything in moderation. It’s not like I won’t allow
myself a hamburger,” Clevenger said. “I’ll just do these periods for a
while where I’m really aware and try to knock out the bad things in my
diet.”
Still, Ellison said to avoid extremes when engaging in a detox diet,
especially since the body detoxes itself through the liver and kidneys.
“To say that I’m going to go through a cleansing or a detoxification
because I’m worried about a particular ingredient in processed luncheon
meat… It would be better not to eat the processed luncheon meat than to
go through a once a year detoxification,” he said.
Still Clevenger said after his periods of detox, he finds himself to have more energy and that he sleeps easier.
For me, I’m assuming the “feel-good” energy increase will probably come
once I am off the pills, because as of right now, I still feel terrible.
I survived one week of 56 pills and lost 4 pounds.
I think I would have preferred to not eat anything at all.
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