I started my first detox diet when I was 14 years old. And for the next 20 years, I rollercoaster dieted. I invested hundreds and hundreds of dollars and mental time and energy in obsessing with my weight. I was really good at dieting; I would follow every crazy schedule and weigh all the food and do everything perfectly. And with glee, I would watch the scale decline. But inevitably, as soon as I got off the program, the pounds and inches would return rapidly and bring more friends with them. When I learned about detoxing, it had gotten to the point that I didn’t even enjoy losing the weight on diets anymore and instead, I would wonder how fast it would be coming 
back and how much more weight I would gain. I had my size 8 to 12’s in my closet and would look longingly at those 8’s which I had only gotten into once, following 2 months of zero carbs. I couldn’t bear the brain fog and exhaustion I was in when I was depriving myself of carbohydrates. From the stress of my 2 jobs and 2 kids, I had adult onset acne which was leaving scarring because of my darker melanin, it was impossible to build any muscle, and even when I was dieting my belly always had fat that wouldn’t seem to budge beyond a certain point. I had little dry patches on my skin, particularly the back of my arms. There are a lot of symptoms, little and obvious that were ailing me.
I met a woman at a leadership conference who looked so vibrant and healthy. Her skin was clear; her eyes were white, she was lean and energetic, with a bounce in her step, even though she had 2 kids already like I did. I was so grateful when she told me about the importance of Detoxing and the benefits of specifically nutritional cleansing. She was a holistic nutritionist and had discovered some whole food anti-aging and detoxing technology that was spreading like wildfire. It had been on ABC News and Fox News and featured in books by Dr John Gray and Jack Canfield, both New York Times bestselling authors. I was curious about this product and its detox diet.
Detox Diet to Lose Weight
Through her guidance I was introduced to that technology and released 7 pounds and 14 inches in just over a week. That was two pants sizes. I was excited, but, again, I was concerned what would happen when I finished the program. A few things were definitely different than other diets I had done. I had incredible energy; my skin cleared up and started glowing. The bumps and dry patches on my arms disappeared. I had incredible mental clarity and motivation. I was sleeping deeply and waking up rested. I have been on that program now for 10 years. I have wonderful technology that has already formulated the right combination of herbs, minerals, plants, vitamins, trace minerals, phytonutrients, probiotics, prebiotics, live digestive enzymes, adaptogens, and the various numerous types of ingredients that the hundreds of different kinds of do-it-yourself detox diets offer.
I had heard of many different kinds of detoxes and cleanses before. My sister is a massage therapist and acupuncturist so she was always doing crazy concoctions of Chinese herbs. She once did a gall bladder cleanse where she drank apple cider vinegar for a few hours and then a cup of olive oil and laid on her side with a hot water bottle. I have known many people that have done the “Grand Master Cleanse,” where they literally have to take off from work and stay next to the potty for days. They feel great for a while afterward and gain all the weight and symptoms back. My mother had done 6 days of fasting where she slowing introduced various fruit and vegetables. She had been weak and lost a lot of muscle, but she felt like she had a lot of mental clarity. I had another friend that had lost close to 100 pounds drinking only juices he made in his juicer for 90 days; his heart function had much improved and his skin looked amazing, but he had gained it all back very quickly once he went back to solids.
Why Do We Need a Detox Diet?
I have come to understand from my now decade of study of Toxicity, Nutritional Deficiency and Stress, that diet by restricting caloric intake ignores the reality of how these three giants. contribute to the Obesity crisis we are in in North America. Detoxing instead of dieting is the missing link that most people do not know about yet.
According to Time Magazine, Harvard Medical School and a growing body of research, environmental toxins are wreaking havoc on our bodies. The Red Cross was asked by the Environmental Working Group to do a study of umbilical cord blood, and what they found was shocking and sent flashing red warning lights to all observers that the old model of health being achieved by ‘eating healthy’ or ‘counting calories’ was absolutely obsolete. They found 287 toxins in the umbilical cord blood of newborns, with 100+ of them known to be carcinogenic and 3 of them out of use for 30+ years. How and why are these toxins appearing in babies who have not had any direct exposure? Even when their mothers have had no means of exposure either? And there lies the connection between toxicity and overweight, and the importance of detoxing regularly, but especially for weight loss: fat is manufactured to store toxins, to protect our organs from these unknown foreign substances. According to Harvard, fat is now acting as an organ in the body, pulsating and circulating toxins in the body.
Further research is showing what scientists are calling obesogens, chemicals that actually interrupt our normal hormone and endocrine system balance and, among other things, turn on our fat manufacturing function in our body. The primary place that this sort of toxic fat shows up is around our bellies on the outside in subcutaneous fat around our “muffin top” or “pooch” but also more alarmingly and much less visible, in visceral fat. This visceral fat wraps around our kidneys and liver and inhibits their proper function. The medical establishment are very concerned about 
visceral fat because it is a marker for higher risk of heart attack, cardio-vascular issues, many types of cancer, a decreased prognosis in those with cancer, elevated cholesterol, and blood pressure.
What Should the Ideal Detox Diet Do?
The idea of the ideal detox diet is that it is not a diet, meaning deprivation. It floods the body with all the nutrients the body needs to function properly, to release these environmental impurities from itself, and to lower the effects of stress or “fight or flight” on the body. No amount of dieting and restricting will address the #1 killer in North America, stress. Proper combinations of adaptogenic and alkalizing herbs can help the body get out of that stressed out mode and get into a place of abundance, where it has what it needs to thrive instead of push through and ‘make do.’
A good detox diet will also flood the body with incredible nutrient dense ingredients. Because of the toxins used in Big Agri farming methods now, soil that was alive and had microbes in it are no longer present. These microbes would turn the inorganic minerals into organic forms that would be absorbed by the plants and then consumed by us. We are raising plants on veritable “Miracle Grow” which makes plants thrive with the three minerals they need, potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous. Humans, however need 90 nutrients. With crop rotation non existent and soil preservation a thing you read about in history books, it is no surprise that our food, even the “healthy” fruits and vegetables, is nutritionally bankrupt.
I urge everyone who cares about their future health and their current best performance, to embrace a “nutritional cleansing lifestyle” instead of a quarterly “detox diet.” Please check out my Isagenix tab on my website to learn more about the beautiful technology that has me feeling and looking 14 pounds lighter than I was in high school. Now I have restful sleep, clear skin, lean muscle and abundant energy.