Source: NR News-Record.com / Greensboro, NC
September 8, 2006

A desert shown on TV suddenly morphed into swirls of chocolate ice cream.  The smell of hot-buttered popcorn at the movies almost knocked me to the ground.  I saw food everywhere I looked.

But that’s hardly surprising — I hadn’t eaten since the previous evening. And I didn’t plan to resume eating until the next morning.

Welcome to the sights, sounds and smells of the Detox Diet experience.

My wife Debbie and I recently decided to try out a detox diet her co-workers recommended. It’s a 288-page book by Ann Louise Gittleman called "The Fast Track One-Day Detox Diet."

The book proclaims you can lose up to eight pounds in one day. But don’t judge this book by its cover. There’s a little more to it. Detox diets, once popular in the 1960s, are making a comeback. Google "detox diet" and you get more than 850,000 results. Celebrities are also joining the bandwagon.

After giving birth, Angelina Jolie reportedly embraced a popular Hollywood detox diet. And hey, if it’s good for Angelina . . . Gittleman’s book, like many other detox programs, is based on the premise that you regularly eat unhealthy, fattening toxins found in animal fats and hormone-and pesticide-laden veggies and animal proteins. That can overburden the body’s natural detox system, supporters argue, causing fatigue, headaches and allergy-like symptoms.

By abstaining from those foods, the body recovers. Medical experts, however, remain skeptical detox diets work or are even necessary. "There’s no scientific evidence that can back it up," says Richard Neubauer, a registered dietitian with Moses Cone Hospital. "Your lungs, liver, your skin — everything else can pretty much detox, or get rid of contamination that goes on."

Gittleman’s diet, despite calling it a "one-day" program, is actually three stages spread out over 11 days. During the first stage, called the seven-day prequel, you eat from six categories including "the crucifers" (raw cabbage, broccoli), green leafy vegetables (raw kale, collards), sulfur-rich foods (garlic and onions) and juices including orange and lime.

So a typical day for me was a bowl of organic corn flakes topped with raisins and a banana and a ?-cup mixture of orange and lime juice. Lunch was a roast beef (organic beef and chicken are allowed) sandwich with provolone cheese, raw cabbage (or some other leafy veggie) and an apple. Dinner was a skinless chicken breast and a big salad of mixed greens topped with two hard-boiled eggs.

Stage two is the one-day fast.

Every other hour, you’re supposed to drink about 8 ounces of a "miracle juice." That’s 64 ounces at the end of the day. The juice includes cranberry water, orange and lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and water. You’re also supposed to drink 72 ounces of filtered water throughout the day.

The book tells you to avoid booze and caffeine for 11 days, although we still had our morning coffee. And try to avoid doing anything strenuous during the one-day fast. No problem there. I was feeling light-headed simply getting out of my recliner despite the book’s accounts of dieters who felt revived.

During the last stage, you basically revert to eating what you had during the first stage. 

Does it work? Yes and no. Yes, you lose weight. But it’s not eight pounds, at least for us.

I lost four pounds and Debbie lost five during the one-day fast. I lost about six pounds overall while Debbie lost five pounds.

The pros? You can shed some pounds quickly and find you really like foods such as mustard greens and Napa cabbage.

Cons? Buying all organic foods and foods you normally don’t eat will cost you extra at the grocery store.

And keeping the pounds off when you’re done, detox experts warn, is also tough if you revert to your normal diet. But we do feel better. A co-worker said my face thinned out just a little. I feel a little more energized.

But when I now look at the TV, all I see are deserts, not desserts.