One of the main arguments against detox diets is how they could adversely effect our body’s rate of metabolism. After all, most of these detox diets always require a fasting period, or some days of not eating any solid food.

This is especially a big concern for people who want to lose weight through detox diets, and for good reason. With a lower rate of metabolism, you’re bound to gain all the weight you lost once you start eating solid foods again.

But to answer the question, “Do detox diets lower your metabolic rate?,”… If you go on a fasting period long enough, you can slow your metabolic rate. Thankfully, the body can be tricked into believing you’re still eating and thus maintain its regular metabolism.

Actually, what slows your metabolic rate are “hunger pangs”. Weight loss and diet experts have always warned against skipping meals in order to lose weight; the hunger pangs are what cause your body go on “starvation mode”, making it horde calories instead of burning them.

Since most detox diets are “restrictive”, meaning you don’t eat any solid food for some time, the trick to retaining your metabolism rate is to drink plenty of water when you’re detoxifying, and to eat some fruits.

Detox For Weight Loss?

You should never ever go on detox diets for long-term weight loss. What the detoxification process can do is to jump start your weight loss by getting rid of accumulated toxins and conditioning your body to eat healthier.

As it is, weight loss is a natural result of detoxification. After a detox process, most people lose substantial weight. Most of that lost weight comes from lost water retention and toxins flushed from the large intestines.

Never Use Detox Diets For Long Term Weight Loss

There’s been a lot of misconceptions about what detox diets can do about weight loss. To clear up the confusion, just remember that nothing can ever replace a well-balanced vegetarian (alkaline) diet to maintain the body’s health and its normal weight. Overdoing detox diets will starve your body of the necessary vitamin and mineral nutrients in the long term. (Whatever your detox diet, make sure it has a nutrition-giving ingredient in the meantime.)

What Detox Diets Can Do

What detox diets can do is to rid your body of accumulated toxins. It is easy to lose 20 pounds by simply flushing accumulated intestinal plaque, phlegm, and other wastes from your large intestines. (Watch your stool become more colorful as you complete your colon detox diet.)

Detox diets also remove water weight, or water that’s accumulated around the cells of your body. Overweight or bloated people usually have water retention problems as a result of having too much sodium in the diet.

In all, you can use detox diets to successfully complete your main weight loss diet program – one good psychological effect of detox diets is that they make you want to eat healthy.