The Oprah detox 21 day cleanse

Part of my trepidation came from my own stuff (naturally). I've done some really dumb detox programs in my time. At least I told everyone else I was "detoxing". But if I'm totally honest I have to admit, it was just another of my wonderfully warped attempts at fastest weight loss.

For about seven years, I religiously followed 'The Grape Diet'. Yes, there's even a whole book written about it. Every year religiously, out would come my copy of The Grape Diet. How they manged to write a whole book about it is a mystery seen as: "eat any grapes and drink water" pretty much sums it up!

It was like doing my version of the 21 day cleanse every year except that I can't imagine lasting that long. My longest grape diet detoxing effort lasted 10 days (grapes only for 10 whole days - was I nuts... I mean how did my blood sugar levels enjoy that little lark?).

It came to a rapid halt though when, out doing my 40 km daily cycle (did I ever mention that I used to be a little extremist) I got so light-headed that I knew if I didn't stop I was going to faint (ironically right next to a vineyard near Stellenbosch). I guess that was my very wise body saying in a way that even I couldn't ignore: "NO MORE!!!"

Of course during the time that I was grape diet detoxing - I was oh so very very good but when I stopped, it didn't take me long to turn very very horrid and eat everything under the sun to make up for the deprivation. It also had the inclination to make me pretty food obsessed.

At one stage I was so into detoxing that I even investigated enemas but um....well let's just say that I found that whole idea embarrassing so it never happened. But I've sure heard of people getting pretty obsessive about colonic cleansing. I cleansed the other way - grapes, laxatives and diuretics combo. My poor body!

The other reason I watched the Oprah detox with trepidation was that our online group had just been discussing a rather fascinating bit of research shown on the BBC food channel about detoxing.

They took ten healthy young women on a retreat and started off with a myriad of baseline tests on each. They then randomly assigned the girls two one of two groups.

The control group - was allowed to eat and drink freely. The other group were the Detox group. They had to follow a strict detox for 5 days of liquidized drinks and macrobiotic foods.

Even within the five days they were asked to follow a detox diet, the BBC program showed just how fast their mental state deteriorated - especially when they saw the control group eating spaghetti bolognese, and chocolates!!

At the end of the five days, all ten girls were re-tested and much to the detox groups disgust there was absolutely no difference between the two groups at retesting. Researchers concluded that normal eating didn't produce any different results than a five-day detox diet.

Ok, so maybe five days was too short-maybe they should have tortured them a little more. The Oprah detox was a 21 day cleanse in which she avoided animal products, caffeine, sugar, gluten and alcohol, with the idea being that cleansing jump starts an inner make-over.

In this case her 21 day cleanse was about obtaining spiritual integrity in which you're eating consciously and noticing why you're eating and how food got to your plate (for example) of animals being sacrificed for human gluttony.

Personally, given that thoughts are energy that literally change our physiology, I believe that our body is way way more intelligent than what we give it credit.

I'm a great believer that when you're fasting as the Muslims do during Ramadan (or as some Christians choose to do at Lent) and you're in that place of higher spiritual consciousness - your body doesn't read this as 'deprivation' as it would when I was going on my grape diet detox or when this group of BBC women were detoxing.

When your motivation is spiritual cleansing, your state of mind is vastly different than when you're on some sort of a humanly contrived fast. Part of the Oprah detox was starting her day with a meditation, just as Muslims and Christians start their fasting day with prayers.

But here's the problem with anything like an Oprah detox: people just see a magazine cover or hear she's on a 21 day cleanse, assume that because weight has always been her issue she's doing it for weight loss and next thing you know thousands are off on a cleansing and detoxing regime. No thoughts of a higher spiritual practice, just weight loss.

Oprah also has a few other things to make fasting just a littler easier than for you or me: a wonderful housekeeper to prepare her totally delicious vegan meals. Also, as part of her 21 day cleanse she had a 'Vegan Cleanse team' to keep her motivated.

Now grapes are grapes, so I may not have ever needed any help preparing my food during my Grape Diet days, but heck, it sure would have been nice to have had a little Grapist 'detox' team to keep me miserable company!

The one thing that struck me as I followed her online blog was how often she mentioned fatigue or being tired though. And sure, I'm quite sure she has a hectic schedule but I know that every time I've tried detoxing I've initially felt energy-filled but ultimately landed up feeling energy less. And believe me The Grape Diet hasn't been the only detoxing I've tried. There have been plenty others too!

Frankly, I'd far rather just eat generally healthily overall every day (or at least for the vast majority of days) and go without the detoxing number. Because inevitably, unless you're cleansing or detoxing as part of a spiritual practice you're likely to make up for what you've been deprived of (either in quantity or variety) not long after the detox ends.

The other problem is that you have to guard against becoming obsessive about 'cleansing' and 'detoxing' and eating too purely because if you have those tendencies, before you know it you could be on the path to Orthorexia (which can sometimes take on a type of kitchen-spirituality) and ironically be far more unhealthy than when you started this whole 'health kick'.