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And then we’re going to spend the next 21 days scrubbing my insides clean.
Honestly, I’m a bit nervous.
I simply consume everythingkaleand pasta, salmon and steak, water and winein moderation.
But lately, I’ve started to wonder if this is enough.
One does a vegan detox as an annual New Year’s ritual.
Another lost 15 pounds before her wedding, doing juice cleanses.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, guilty and like we’ve all collectively lost the plot.
It’s a seductive idea.
Particularly the possibility that, fine as I feel, I could feel evenbetter.
Lately, my energy waxes and wanes throughout the day.
I’m still carrying 10 extra pounds from my pregnancy two years ago.
And when Dr. Berzin reviews my blood work, she discovers my liver enzymes are elevated.
But are my friends really feeling so good because they’ve rid themselves of some kind of toxic pileup?
Terms likedetoxandcleansehave no official nutritional definitionsthey’re marketing words slapped on everything from supplements to spa treatments.
Less muscle, overtaxed kidneys, got it.
Still, there are plenty of detox programs that let you eat actual food.
I look over my marching orders from Dr. Berzin: No alcohol.
I’m about to find out.
But your body comes equipped with its own automatic detoxification system, principally your liver and kidneys.
Your liver then uses a two-phase process to get those unwanted things out.
(You also excrete some toxins through stool, sweat and simply exhaling.)
“Your body is equipped to detoxify natural compounds found in the environment,” Dr. Merrell says.
“But your liver was never designed to process the amounts of industrial toxins it encounters today.”
Some chemicals, like leadabsorbed from pollution, old pipes and paintget stuck in the bone.
It’s whether we can do anything about such stuck chemicals that sparks debate.
Functional-medicine doctors argue that we can use food to optimize the natural detoxification process.
But other doctors and researchers point to the limitations of such experimental data.
My body is already rebelling.
Soon, I’m feeling nauseous, irritable and exhausted.
Is this my system detoxifying itself?
I call Dr. Berzin to check in and appreciate her honesty.
“It may be caffeine or sugar withdrawal, or it may be chemical detoxification,” she says.
“I can’t say for sure what’s happening to you right now.”
Which is what you want them doingjust not all the time.
“Once your immune response is on, it’s on systemwide,” Dr. Berzin explains.
“That leads to a chronic state of low-level inflammation, which can cause all sorts of problems.”
Think acne,migrainesand weight gain in the short term, with heart disease looming down the road.
Then she encourages her patients to gradually reintroduce potential triggers.
Some people discover they really do have trouble tolerating one or two foods.
Since Im lousy at extremes, week two is when I fall off the wagon.
Its my birthday, and I cant refuse my mothers homemade chocolate cheesecake and a single vodka seltzer.
The next day I wake up with a new breakout on my nose and later get a migraine.
Its very tempting to connect the dots.
Life is not a science lab.
A cleanse does require focus, notes Dr. Katz.
Its a chance to go from eating and living mindlessly to mindfully.
There can be some potential benefit in rebooting that way.
I ask Dr. Berzin whether she worries about how a detox-to-retox lifestyle can border on disordered eating.
I think the people who get obsessed with detoxing are a small minority, she says.
But I dont advocate for more extreme programs because I dont know if theyre safe in the long run.
So can you really detox with food?
We dont yet know for sure.
But we all might be better off if we forget the quasi-religious overtones of 100 percent clean.
Call it a change of pace, not a detox, Ali urges.
Any change can help you be more mindful and notice patterns you might not have been aware of before.
Its day 21, and Im ready to get back to making my own food decisions.
But I also feel…not transformed, exactly, but good.
Im enjoying each meal and staying satisfied for longer in between, which means less mindless snacking.
Ive lost 4 pounds and my blood work shows my liver function is back to normal.
Am I any less toxic than I was three weeks ago?
Im still not sure I was all that dirty to begin with.
Photo Credit: Andrew Purcell
