Liquid Diets, Juice Diets, and Cleanse Diets for Rapid Weight Loss

Over the years patients have asked my professional opinion about liquid diets, (which are usually raw) for rapid weight loss. My answer has always remained the same, “Liquid diets are unhealthy. They are considered to be “questionable diets” or “crash diet” to the health care community. Sure, you will lose some weight. You will also lose muscle because once the body burns off the fat for energy it starts to use the muscles for energy.

Your body uses all the fat and muscle for energy because it is not getting enough energy from your liquid diet to sustain your life functioning’s. And then you start eating solid food again, will gain back the weight, plus some more weight. The muscle mass does not come back as easily, you have to exercise regularly to get it back. Loss of muscle equals weakness of the body. Patients who are already in physical pain due to weakness can worsen the condition. Sure you want rapid weight loss. Who doesn’t want to lose weight quickly? But the loss of health that comes with rapid weight loss it is just plain dangerous.

The following material, excerpted from my book Chinese Medicine & Healthy Weight Management An Evidence-Based Integrated Approach, discusses more details about how and why liquid and raw diets are not recommended by most health care professionals.

Usually patients declare their intent to diet with an anguished moan. But healthy eating and weight loss do not have to be a chore. It is much easier to lose weight and keep it off when the patient shifts perception about dieting. The most important shift is the realization that dieting does not have to be about deprivation. A dieter does not have to live on bland salads, eating only soups or prepackaged diet plan meals, or go on controversial induction or crash diets to lose weight. In fact, Chinese medicine advises quite the opposite. We advise balance, not deprivation, as the best way to achieve and maintain a healthy body. Depriving the body of food deprives the body of much needed qi, blood and body fluids.

Questionable diets. Advise the patient to avoid any diet that suggests they eat a certain nutrient, food, or combination of foods to promote easy weight loss. [This includes raw foods diets.] Some of these diets may work in the short term because they are low in calories. However, they are often not well balanced and may cause nutrient [and qi] deficiencies. In addition, they do not teach eating habits that are important for long-term weight management.

….source qi [energy] is derived from essential qi. Source and essential qi are mainly stored in the kidneys. Essential qi is made of both congenital qi and acquired qi. Acquired qi is derived from eating, drinking (nutritive qi) and breathing (air qi). Thus in addition to acupuncture and moxabustion treatment, instruct the patient to eat a balanced, healthy diet to cultivate source and essential qi. Crash diets and deprivation diets may cause detriment to the source & essential qi. If the body does not have enough acquired qi, it will draw energy from congenital qi. Congenital qi and acquired qi comprise essential qi which must be preserved. The loss of this extremely important energy source will cause detriment to every organ system in the body leading to chronic, long-term illness such as diabetes, infertility, chronic fatigue, cancer and possibly even death. We must advise our patients of these bleak possibilities if they are using crash or deprivation diets, liquid diets, or purgatives or laxatives. We must similarly advise our patients with anorexic/bulimic eating disorders.

As stated earlier in this chapter, preservation of essential qi is crucial to good health. Therefore, the use of overuse of herbal or non-herbal laxatives and many over-the-counter (OTC) weight loss remedies can become dangerous to the patient. Inquire if your patient is using these types of remedies or weight loss aids. If so, strictly advise against them and avoid overuse of herbal purgatives in clinical practice. Author and Chinese Medicine scholar Bob Flaws…asserts that, “[i]t should be obvious to all professional readers that none of these are healthy long-term solutions to the problem of obesity.” Any weight loss achieved is easily gained back when product use is stopped or when the patient resumes their previous unhealthy eating habits and/or gives up exercising.

There is no magic bullet or pill for weight loss in spite of how compelling the packaging or spokesperson look or sound. Rather than pursuing futile efforts with these ineffective or dangerous OTC products or diets, professionals and patients should proactively design an individually appropriate, program that integrates a variety of balanced, healthy, safe and effective therapies. That is why Traditional Chinese Medicine always uses its specific methodology called bian zheng lun zhi, treatment based on the specific pattern of energetic disharmony. In other words, we tailor the treatment to fit the patient. We treat the qi.

Educate raw food eaters to stop eating every food item uncooked because uncooked foods are cold which can be dampening to the spleen and can cause spleen yang vacuity, eventually leading to kidney yang vacuity. Rather then eating a diet of entirely raw foods, they should primarily eat vegetables which are lightly steamed. They should avoid fruit juices because the dampness impedes the spleen’s T&T function, and the glycemic load is too much for the pancreas to metabolize, causing weight gain. Some raw foods vegetarians consume an entirely liquid diet. Once these patients begin to eat whole foods again, they will gain weight so they should be made aware of this fact. Advise them not to get discouraged because they will eventually stop gaining as long as they eat balanced whole foods and exercise regularly. Encourage them to stay the course because a more balanced eating style will increase health and longevity.

Overconsumption of cool or cold foods (including raw fruits and vegetables) injure spleen and stomach yang qi leading to cold-damp. Cold-damp stagnating can lead to weight gain.  Likewise, Chinese medicine advises that the spleen hates cold and the spleen hates dampness. Cold and damp foods harm the spleen qi. The spleen is the vital organ to transform and transport food; it transforms the food into qi, blood and body fluids and transports them to other organs so that they can properly perform their functions in preserving physiological balance and harmony. When organ systems do not receive enough qi, the disharmony caused by that deprivation can lead to disease. Over consumption of cold foods may also injure the kidney qi.  Kidney vacuity with water spilling over is a yang vacuity failing to T&T. The water accumulates as edema and swelling of the tissue.

Fruits: Most fruits are sweet so avoid overconsumption. Eat whole fruits instead of juicing. Avoid over consumption of those raw fruits which are classified as cold. Many berries, such as blueberries, are warming. A common food therapy in Chinese medicine is to recommend that patients eat whole, cooked foods, to avoid overeating raw foods and to avoid juicing as meal replacement.  According to Chinese medicine, it is not advisable to overeat raw foods, juices and dairy products because they are classified as cold and damp.

Before juicers were invented fruits and vegetables were eaten in their whole form so that most of its fiber was ingested. We would eat the in-season fruit or vegetable freshly picked that day. If we drank the juice, we would do so by holding the piece of fruit over our mouth and squeezing it to allow the cool, sweet juice down the throat. Or we hand squeezed juice, which was laborious, and, therefore, drank a minimal amount. The advent of juicers relieves us of this labor, but if we replace whole food consumption with juice consumption, we will reduce the amount of fiber we consume and increase the amount of fruit sugars we consume. Instead of drinking large glasses of juices, advise patients to drink juiced foods in moderation and encourage the patient to eat their five servings of whole vegetables and fruits as often as possible. Serving sizes are one or two pieces of the fruit like apple or banana or one cup of berries or one to two cups of cooked vegetable.

It is my hope that these excepts gave you a better understanding about why dieters should avoid liquid diets, juice diets and cleanse diets.

Be Well, Lose Weight, Stay Healthy!