By Carter Brown
In America we've grown accustomed to a lifestyle that leads to sickness and obesity. Without delving too deeply into the semantics of sickness and disease in America, it can be easily surmised that the food quality has just as much to do with America's obesity crisis as it has to do with America's health crisis. 
You only need to go back a few decades at a time and you'll see Americans are progressively getting sicker and fatter.
There's a positive outlook to be held these days, though. While junk food and restaurant going are a part of America's cultural make up these days, more people are shunning the junk food industry in favor of healthier living practices. With that, however, comes balloon segments of this market that focus on an unbalanced approach to weight loss and detoxing. People want to lose weight fast and there are products arriving on the market everyday promising to help them do just that. People also want to continue to eat bad foods then take "something" to make to make them use the bathroom. A more educated approach is certainly needed when it comes to weight loss and detoxing. Safety should be the first concern.
Weight Loss
No one can dish out the same advice to everyone in regards to weight loss because everyone is different. Some folks want to lose weight now and deprive themselves of a truly educational experience about the foods they eat, when they eat, and what they eat most often. There's undoubtedly a special connection to the way people eat and their lifestyle.
Another important observation is how diets have evolved over the years (the last 150 years to be specific). People’s relationship with food will always be a very intimate one. Sadly, there are people with intimate relationships with junk foods and it just hurts to witness such an adulterous affair. Nowadays everyone's obese and it's not because of what's cooking at home. 
It's mostly what they eat from the drive-through.
All the extra junk food has put extra junk in the trunk and additional stress on the heart. That extra junk comes with added weight in all the familiar places. When you gain weight from eating a lot of fast foods and junk foods, that extra weight is toxic because of the low quality food ingredients they use. Not only are we talking about food grown with the lowest of standards, but food prepared with the cheapest inputs. When you’re eating at a lot of fast food joints you’re consuming chemical preservatives, genetically modified ingredients, MSG, yeast, cholesterol, and damaged omega 6 fatty acids.
No matter how you spin it, none of this is good for people. There’s no question as to what some of these cheap food ingredients do to our bodies. It’s wreaking havoc on America’s waistlines.
The Best Weight Loss Advice
Develop a routine and make it a long term commitment. Don't try to lose the weight it took you five years to gain in only three weeks. Whatever product you find out there that guarantees you those drastic weight loss numbers is not entirely safe and is potentially damaging to your health. Don’t believe the hype! In no case should you push your body to such extremes, especially not to just end up doing the same thing over and over, because these extreme diets do not work!
Educating yourself about the foods you currently eat is your best start; what is high fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, fast foods, and red meat doing to your body? Fully understand why what you're doing does not work and make gradual changes.
But not so fast! Give yourself time. Don't go throw away everything bad before you even know what to replace them with. You’ve got to reconnect with food, and this may take a while. Learn what to watch out for and what to avoid as you transition into better eating. Set goals for what you’ll be subtracting from your diet and what you’ll be adding.
What you don’t want is to end up having an epic breakdown where you OD on all the bad foods you have cravings for. Learn how to treat yourself in order to avoid these kinds of breakdowns. Yet still, if you fall down in your journey, get back up and keep moving. A few mess ups along the way don't justify quitting.
Detoxing
There's always some kind of new detox, colon cleanse, "washout" product on the market that people use to cleanse themselves. This market does well because it makes sense to people. We all know we need to cleanse our bodies. Sometimes a good detoxing program requires you to be stationary for, let’s say 2–3 days, at least. But people are turned off by having to be out of commission for any extended period of time and that's why they turn to the quick colon cleanses and fast detox systems.
There have always been herbs and plants that people all across the world recognize as a good laxatives and it doesn't take much scientific research to find out which ones to package and sell to people. That’s what’s been happening. But not all cleanses and detoxes are created equally.
Most people look for some kind of over-the-counter laxative that, while it does make them use the bathroom, it is only cleaning out the lower bowels. The detoxing process is much more extensive than that and it should be respected as a process that takes time. It should be a peaceful process that you make time and changes for. It shouldn't be approached as a way to lose weight fast, it should be approached to heal. Any cleanse or detox regiment should be looked upon as a renewal or a rejuvenation of the body.
My Best Advice on Detoxing
Don't risk your health to any quick products. Think about your long term health, not your short term goals. Be careful! If you're new and you want something that can do more than just a little cleaning, you might want rethink that based on your current diet or your lifestyle. If you've never detoxed before, I don't recommend you doing anything drastic for your first time.
You can always eat your detox. What that means is you stop eating certain foods and increase the amount of living and unprocessed foods that you do eat. Keep it simple! Going vegan for anyone who traditionally eats meat, dairy, and eggs every day is a great, yet simple and effective way of detoxing.
The foods you eat can help you detox naturally over time without the adverse reactions that an herbal detox might cause. Going vegan is, in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to detox, but that certainly requires commitment. You can start there and work your way into a great cleansing program. Or you can choose a detox program that's suitable for your lifestyle and follow its instructions. There are a lot of great products that are out there, but you need to be prepared for detoxing. So don't let those “quick-fixes” fool you. Detox and lose weight in the healthiest and longest lasting way possible: eat healthier and improve your lifestyle.
Fast Food Road Sign photo by Daniel Barcelona
