How To Do A Weight Loss Cleanse Without Suffering
Here’s what you’re about to learn:
- How a weight loss cleanse is different from the detox cleanse
- Why juice cleanses are not the best way to lose weight
- A weight loss cleanse recipe
- How to do a weight loss cleanse
- How much weight can you expect to lose
- Are there side effects
- Tips for making a weight loss cleanse easier
How a Weight Loss Cleanse Is Different From a Detox Cleanse
A detox cleanse is done to purge your body of internal waste. Most people think of this as pooping out pounds of waste that has built up over the years. That’s part of it, but a detox cleanse will also remove microscopic bacteria and trace amounts of heavy metals such as mercury, lead, and aluminum that have built up inside your body. A disturbing number of products contain these toxic metals.
The goal of a weight loss cleanse is to lose weight – which I’m sure you already knew.
The biggest difference between a weight loss cleanse and a detox cleanse is the lack of natural sugars…
Why Juice Cleanses Are Not The Best Way To Lose Weight
Juice cleanses are great for detoxing, but you have better options if your only goal is to lose weight. The main reason for this is that juice cleanses are typically filled with sugar. Even if you avoid fruit, things like carrots and beets are still high in sugar.
Juicing fruits and vegetables makes it even worse for losing weight. Fiber is a natural buffer that slows down sugar from being absorbed into your body. Juicing removes that fiber, so the sugar is quickly absorbed by your body.
And you know what happens next…
The sugar spikes your insulin, triggers hunger cravings, then you crash and feel terrible.
The carbohydrates in juice also prevent your body from burning fat as fuel.
The Master Cleanse is not an ideal weight loss diet for the same reason – the maple syrup used in the Master Cleanse is almost pure sugar.
“But I’ve lost a lot of weight on juice cleanses”
I’m not saying you can’t lose weight by going on a juice cleanse. What I’m saying is there’s a better way.
Weight Loss Cleanse Recipe
A weight loss cleanse recipe contains 4 things:
- Healthy fats
- Low carb vegetables
- Easy to digest protein
- Unsweetened drinks
How much you eat on a weight loss cleanse is not as important as what you eat.
If you’ve ever done the Atkins diet you know that you can eat bacon cheeseburgers all day and still lose weight as long as you avoid carbs.
You are free to eat as much or as little of anything below as long as you keep your carb intake under 50 grams per day.
Healthy fats:
You already know the difference between healthy and unhealthy fats so we don’t have to spend much time here. As a general rule, if a cooking oil is very cheap, it’s bad for you.
Some healthy fats are…
- Walnut oil
- Hemp Oil
- Avacado Oil
- Olive Oil
- Flaxseed Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Fish Oil
- Grass Fed Organic Butter
That last one “Grass fed organic butter” is one you might not have heard of. It’s become incredibly popular since people started adding it to their coffee.
Putting butter in coffee is called “upgraded coffee” or “bulletproof coffee”.
Low carb vegetables:
You want to keep your carb intake under 50 grams per day. Ideally, you’ll keep it close to 20 grams. That obviously means grains, pasta, and fruit are off the table. A lot of vegetables should be avoided as well.
I won’t list the carbs in every vegetable here. A quick Google search or this nutrition calculator will tell you what you need to know.
As a general rule, if the vegetable is green it’s low in carbs. So go nuts eating lettuce, cucumbers, and spinach.
Easy to digest protein:
Avoiding heavy food is what makes this a cleanse and not a diet. Many people feel this is superior to Atkins because they not only lose weight fast but they feel good because they’re not bogged down from eating pounds meat a day.
The recommended proteins are:
- Nuts
- Quinoa
- Green Peas
- Beans
- Chia seeds
- Greek Yogurt
- Spirulina
Here’s more light proteins and recipes you can make with them
Unsweetened drinks:
This one’s self-explanatory. Water, coffee, and tea are fine. Avoid any sweetened drink, even it’s made with zero-calorie artificial sweeteners because the science shows they also make your body store fat.
Miscellaneous foods:
You’re welcome to eat garlic, ginger, herbs and vinegar. Spend a minute on Google and you’ll find some delightful salad dressings you can make with healthy oil and these ingredients.
How To Do a Weight Loss Cleanse
It’s real easy. You can consume anything listed above as long you keep your carb intake under 50 grams a day. Your daily calorie target should be between 1750-2250 a day, but as long as you watch your carbs you can go over that and still melt away fat at an astonishingly fast rate.
How Much Weight Can You Expect To Lose
If you’re extremely overweight the amount of weight you lose, and how fast it comes off can be shocking. 15 pounds a week is not uncommon.
If you’re just a little overweight, it will come off slower. 3-5 pounds a week is typical.
Are There Side Effects?
When you cut your carb intake and force your body to burn fat for fuel you will experience some side effects. The most common ones are headaches, hunger, frequent urination, and feeling lightheaded.
A detailed list of the side effects and how you can remedy them can be found here.
Tips For Making a Weight Loss Cleanse Easier
- Eat before you get hungry. The longer you wait, the greater your chances are of losing control and eating something you shouldn’t
- Get plenty of sleep. Being well rested puts you in a good mood. Being tired and ornery will only make the weight loss cleanse harder
- Remove junk food from your home. Just get rid of it. If you keep it around it will only tempt you
- Prep your meals. Have your daily meals prepared and ready to eat. Not having them ready when hunger kicks in will give you an excuse to quit
Overcome Hunger and Stress While Dieting
Hunger and stress are the two things that sabotage most diets. If you’d like to know how to overcome these two things while losing weight take a moment to read about The Rapid Fat Loss Framework
More Tips For Fast Weight Loss
- Halve-it: This is simple science, if you are only eating half the calories you normally consume, you will lose weight. Portion control is one of the best ways to shed weight quickly. Don’t change what you eat; just eat exactly half of what you would normally eat for lunch and dinner. For breakfast, eat a full, but well balanced meal before 9:30am, to ensure that you can burn it all off.
- Practice the Cinderella-Carb Rule: Avoid eating carbs after 12:00pm (noon). Increase your level of vegetables and proteins for lunch and dinner. You can keep the pancakes; just make sure they’re in the morning. This will ensure you have enough energy throughout the day but also gain the benefits of losing weight.
- Make better choices: OK, fried chicken is finger-licking good, but so is a baked chicken breast and it has fewer calories. Eat the foods you like, but eat them from cooking methods that are healthier. Steamed, baked, poached and pan-seared are all better methods than fried (and remember to halve it). Substituting whole milk to skim milk in your cups of coffee can shave off hundreds of calories.
- Snack Switch: If you crave sweet snacks, replace candies and pastries with fruit. You’ll satisfy your sweet tooth, with far less empty calories.
- Soda: Soda might be the worst thing you can put in your body if you’re trying to lose weight. Eliminate it all together. Instead, drink water or green tea. If you can’t shake the habit, at least move to stevia soda like Zevia, which has no sugar or artificial sweeteners.
- Take the Long Way: Find ways to walk more. Park in the furthest place possible at your work parking lot and walk. When you have breaks, walk somewhere, any where. Take stairs when you can. For lunch, go to a mall, eat your meal at the food court (bring your own lunch if there’s no healthy options available) and spend twenty minutes walking. You don’t even have to sweat…just walk. These tiny expenditures of calories are like ATM fees, they eventually add up–but this time in your favor!
- Sweat it out: If you belong to a gym, use the steam room and sauna. Sweating burns an amazing amount of calories and keeps your metabolism in high gear long after after your sweat. The other perk is that sweating is great for the skin.
- Wine/Beer/Liquor: Limit yourself to no more than one beer/glass of wine/or cocktail per day. In addition to the empty calories, being hungover the next day likely means a you’ll lay around feeling like poop when you could be out being active.