Colin’s Detox Programme

Between Monday and Friday last week I lost 2.4Kg. I also felt a higher level of energy, was more mentally alert and slept better. And I didn’t feel hungry at any stage. Let me share my detox programme with you.

I have been eating nothing but fruit and raw vegetables, with just a small amount of soft cheese. So basically it was carrots, celery (which went nicely with the soft cheese), apples and bananas. I didn’t ration myself – just ate whenever I was hungry. I did have a monetary lapse and eat a strawberry Corneto. It was a hot sunny day, a rare event in the UK, and I was unable to resist it.

But despite that lapse it was a pretty good week’s work. I can now regard myself as thoroughly detoxed, apart from a few traces of ice cream and whatever horrors they put in strawberry flavour. I have lost weight and I feel great. I have obviously hit on something.

All I need now is to think of a name for it, produce the DVDs and the paperback and I will be well set up.

Except of course that it would be a lot of nonsense. I have exactly the same level of toxins in my body now as I had last week, and a fully functional liver dealing with them. Remaining alive at all is basically a continual struggle against the environment we live in and you can’t escape toxins whatever you do. And although it might sound healthy, the diet I put myself on for a week would kill me if I kept it up for any length of time. I don’t think anyone has ever defined what constitutes an unhealthy diet, but one that leads to death would have to be considered distinctly unhealthy.

What was really going on was that I was avoiding highly processed food in a rather drastic fashion. This reduced my salt level which in turn reduced the amount of water I was retaining. That accounted for a big chunk of the weight loss. I was also losing weight because I was avoiding large intakes of food with easily absorbable sugar. (If you ignore the ice cream.) Your body can only store fat when it has surplus energy. This is easy to do if you eat a chocolate bar, where the energy is already in just the form you absorb it in. You make the process much harder by eating things that have not been processed like an apple. Basically if you keep your blood glucose level fairly low you won’t put on any fat.

So that explains the weight loss. But why did it feel good? In particular why did this unhealthy diet give me more energy and let me think more clearly? Again I think it is mainly down to blood sugar levels. The brain takes a lot of energy to run. It gets that from sugar. The steady breakdown of the carbohydrates in the fruit and raw vegetables supplied my brain and my muscles with a more even energy source, so I was able to keep thinking or remain active longer.

I haven’t quite been able to explain the better sleep I got, but it was very welcome nonetheless.

I don’t recommend this diet in the long run. The low fat and protein content would soon lead to health problems. And it is really really boring. By the end of five days I really wanted a pizza like I have never craved one before, and really enjoyed it when I got it. But I intend to do it again soon. I want to see if I can use it to get my weight down from its current level – which has me just inside the obese region – to the BMI recommended for my height. I’ll be doing it perhaps every third week – I’ll see how it goes.