Cindy answers:

I am afraid the Acai berry is quite worthless as far as contributing to weight loss.

Do you see the box near the top of the page?
The one labelled ‘Search for questions: ‘?
Well type in ‘lose weight’.
You will find over 20,000 preexisting questions.
Try the misspellings ‘loose weight’ and there are another 5,500.
In all there are over 60,000 Health section questions requesting solutions to being or thinking you might be overweight.
On average these each yield 6 answers, that is over 360,000 answers.

I can usefully summarise these answers in 4 words:

EAT LESS DO MORE. Are you desperate enough to try this???

Cindy answers:

There is a detox program that’s called the Lemonade Diet or the Master Cleanse. It involves making a drink with lemons and sweetening it with 100% raw maple syrup (grade B or C) which is a very healthy sweetener, unlike sugar. You might want to Google this detox to read more about it and to get the recipe and directions of use. It should be safe for you to do this as you are very young and proly have no health conditions. This detox is a temporary one, though. You may want to follow it with a diet high in raw fruits with and a few greens (like a salad for your last meal). Not only will you lose weight, but you will be so much more healthy with lots of energy and an overall sense of wellbeing. Good luck to you!

Cindy answers:

All these fancy fad detox therapys are a load of bull and are just money making schemes….the best, cheapest and most natural way to detox your body is to get at least 8 hours of sleep,drink 8 glasses of fresh water each day,stay away from tea and coffee,drink herbal teas only eg green tea helps flush out the toxins and prevents water retention, cut out all processed foods, eat a diet low in animal and trans fats but rich in fresh fruit,vegetables, white fish and oily fish and nuts. Cheap and easy !!!!! Oh and take a least 20 mins of heart pumping excercise each day…a brisk walk on the beach does the trick,blow the cobwebs away !!!

Cindy answers:

Do a three day water fast. Be sure to obtain purified water only. During these three days, slow down your daily activities – specially physical activities. Some may even find it is better to take to bed and keep warm if the weather is cold.

After these three days – for one week put yourself on a monotrophic diet , i.e. Eat only one type of fruit at each meal.

For example: BREAKFAST could be melon only. Eat as much as you like and feel satisfied that you have had enough. All types of melons are good. Honeydew, Cantaloupe, Gala or Watermelon.

LUNCHTIME: Eat only oranges and grapefruit or pineapples or plums whatever you fancy but don’t mix the fruits. Eat till hunger is satisfied.

4 p.m. Have a large (12 oz.) glass of freshly pressed carrot juice.

EVENING: Eat only apples, pears, grapes or bananas. Eat only one fruit at a time and eat till hunger is satisfied. During the week you can vary daily the fruits you want to eat on that particular day.

You can resume your household duties or light office work but do not exert yourself physically. Conserve energy. It is possible that some of you may feel some reactions, like light headedness, nausea at times, a little listlessness and feeling of tiredness and mental irritability. Persevere – Rome wasn’t built in a day. After all it took you years to get into the toxic state that you now find yourself into. The symptoms will go away eventually. Lots of sleep and rest are essential at this stage so do not plan any social events.

After these ten days – I suggest you go for one month on an all raw food diet as follows:

DETOX BREAKFAST
Fresh fruit only of oranges, kiwi’s, pineapple, apple, plums, grapefruit or any other acid fruits. You can now mix the fruits. Eat enough to satisfy your hunger. Just one orange and one apple will not be enough. You have to get your calories from the fruit you eat.

DETOX LUNCH
Eat heartily of grapes, pears, bananas, mangoes, fresh dates, and with this meal eat a head of lettuce, 1-2 sticks of celery and a handful of dried raisins or sultanas, or 3-4 dried figs or 10-12 dried Hunza apricots.

DETOX SNACK
4 p.m. A large 12 oz glass of freshly squeezed carrot juice.

DETOX EVENING
A large Rainbow salad of grated red cabbage, grated carrots, grated beetroot, chopped up celery, watercress, cucumber, and red or green peppers. A dressing could be made as follows: Put 2-3 tomatoes in the blender, 1 whole peeled large size avocado and a pinch of marigold bouillon powder and 1 tea spoonful cold pressed linseed oil or olive oil. Blend the lot and pour it on your Rainbow salad and mix thoroughly. Enjoy it with some lettuce leaves. To this salad you add 3 ozs of nuts and seeds. Not salted nuts and not peanuts. Brazil, Cashew, Almonds, Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds. Whatever you fancy. Chew well or grind the nuts dry and sprinkle on the Rainbow salad or put ground nuts in a blender, add just a little water and make it into nut cream.

On such a regime — if you have not cheated in between — at the end of that month you will feel cleaner, fitter, a little slimmer and more energetic with the added bonus of some of your symptoms disappearing. No cooked food should be eaten. Full activity can be resumed on this raw diet.

Cindy answers:

Skipping meat is a whole lot different than going raw food.
Many raw foods are incredibly hard to digest and can cause great discomfort, as you found out.
And it has noting to do with ‘detoxing”.
Back in the day, no one ate fresh vegetables in the winter; they simply weren’t available…no one had to detox…Nothing bad happened in the spring and summer when fresh veggies were available again other than maybe a little diarrhea.
I bet you already don’t eat meat at every meal and since you are talking about rice milk products, you are over half way there…

Cindy answers:

Don’t do it.
Instructions are in the link below. Some people use honey instead of maple syrup (which is only there to add a few calories).

Against…
“Purposefully irritating your gastro-intestinal tract is never a good idea, but salt water flushing actually removes healthy, helpful bacteria from the lining of your colon. By engaging in this practice for an extended period of time, you are effectively wiping out one of your first lines of defense against infection and sickness.

In addition, prolonged fasting has many negative side effects, including all the symptoms that go along with malnutrition: insomnia, cravings, nausea, depressed mood, hair loss… The list goes on. Proponants of the Master Cleanse will tell you that these are signs that the toxins in your body are being eliminated, but you would experience the same symptoms on a water-only fast.”

Cindy answers:

Diets don’t work in the long term. You need a lifestyle change. Change your diet and eat fruits, veggies, complex carbs, beans, lean meats and low fat dairy. And allow yourself to cheat once a week so you don’t crave bad things all the time.

And you have to exercise!!!! Start with something easy like yoga or walking.

Cindy answers:

From what I gather detox diets don’t help much. If you like what you can do is to stay one day without consuming solids and drink juices. Doing it once a month should be more than enough to clear your digestive system. Otherwise, make sure you eat enough fiber, a balance diet, and always, always, eat in moderation.
Truly, that’s the key to pretty much everything in life: Moderation.

Cindy answers:

100. Seriously, your body doesn’t need help cleansing or detoxing itself if you eat a healthy diet rich in fiber along with portion control. Plus, that is just a fad starvation diet, not real weight loss. You lose weight from not eating, not the liquid. You gain it all back again once you start eating normally again. Clean up your diet instead if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

Cut out sweet, fried, processed, junk, and fast foods. Eat lots of fresh fruits and veggies with each meal and as snacks instead of chips, cookies, crackers, bars, etc. Even supposedly healthy varieties and 100 calorie packs aren’t as good for you. Drink just plain water. Do not skip meals. Switch to whole grains and lower portion sizes for rice, pasta, cereal, and bread.

Cindy answers:

To tell you the truth, the only good that will come out of a one day detox diet of only eating fruit, eating drinks and water is that you’ll probably end up being really hungry and/or sick and that the next day or night, you’ll eat too much and maybe gain a little weight. I suggest that (if you want to lose weight) you try a longer eating regime for like a month or two and see how much better results you can achieve as well as how much better you could feel! I suggest you trying Xenical because it works much better than other diet pills like the Acai Berry!

Cindy answers:

I have tried every diet under the sun but nothing worked as effectively as acai berry. I know they say that pills do not work, nevertheless they certainly worked for me, and they have been featured on CBS News too. There’s a free trial happening at the moment at http://dequls.mykeepfitpro.info , give it a try, why not?

Cindy answers:

Absolutley not..it would not be safe. Next question..

Cindy answers:

Go buy the book Skinny B**ch. It will tell you in a no nonsense way how to convert from awful eating habits to a vegan lifestyle. I am reading it now =)

Cindy answers:

Detoxing, and getting rid of build up inside you is really easy if you fast correctly. Organic food is still just food. Your body loves being cleaned and fasting is a good way to do it, but only if you do it, right, maybe 24 hours at first. If you like how good you feel afterwards, try again next month.

Just drink tea, water, hot broth, clear soups- ginger and fresh mint leaves clean you out very well- boil them up in a pan of water, and drink.

Your body heals itself when you leave it alone a while. ONce there’s food inside you, your body is at work. The more meat, cooked food, dairy and other hard to digest stuff you put in there, the harder your body has to work. Vegan food is better, and raw vegan is the best. But that’s not for everyone, so I can recommend giving yourself a break if you can wrap your head around a day long fast. It’s the one thing that really DOES clean your body out, and gets rid of toxins, poison in the build up.

Cindy answers:

I would like to advise you to consult with your doctor as this is critical issue.

Cindy answers:

The master cleanse or lemon detox diet you are referring to is a calorie deficit program.
You WILL lose weight on this diet. But understand, the only weight you will lose is emptying the digestive system of several days worth of food. Depending on how healthy or unhealthy you are this can add up to 10 pounds or more. Little if any of it will be body fat weight. You will not change your size!
The signal these starvation diets send the body is that there is no more food available.
The body immediately stores any fat it can and begins to burn muscle mass for fuel instead of the stored fat (metabolism). Stored fat will be used as a last resort when needed.
When you start eating again the body immediately stores any food as fat because it doesn’t know when the next famine is coming. You really don’t detox since a substantial portion of the toxins in the body are stored in fat cells. So if you don’t lose the fat, you don’t lose the toxins.
The complete opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.
There is no build up of bad plaque, toxins, or sludge in a normal, reasonably healthy system.
If this was the case we would have people dying left and right from malnutrition since their small intestines couldn’t absorb nutrients.
The majority of the water from food and what we drink is reabsorbed through the colon, if our colons were clogged we would all be walking around looking like sponges right?
Detoxing is ridding the system – liver, kidneys, and intestines of toxins both internal and environmental. Additionally, many toxins are stored in our fat cells so in order to truly “detox”, you need to lose excess body fat as well. Our liver and kidneys aren’t clogged with toxins. Otherwise we would be dead.
The liver does in fact get layered with fat when we become overweight.
We “cleanse and detox” naturally 24 hours a day through respiration, sweat, liver, and kidneys.
We can help by eating a healthy diet with minimal added sugar and salt. Lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grain foods, beans, peas, and brown rice keep a system as healthy as it can be.
Minimal alcohol, caffeine, soda.
Read food labels. If you can’t pronounce it, don’t put it in your body.
A healthy high fiber diet works every time.
Increases the speed and efficiency of the digestive system and helps the body rid itself of both internal and environmental toxins.
Cleanses actually flush out the beneficial bacteria and enzymes in the digestive system.
Search gut flora to learn about the beneficial bacteria we need in our colon.
We have more beneficial bacteria in our digestive systems than all the cells in our bodies!
Did you know the digestive system is one of the largest contributors to our immune system?
They don’t tell you about the gas, cramping, and bloating you will experience when you start eating again and the body has to rebuild this bacteria population.
Spend your money in the produce department.
Good luck.

Cindy answers:

I can relate… I’ve been doing this walk/jog/run training. I highly recommend it as if it wasn’t for this program, Im sure I’d have quit by now. It’s a FREE podcast on iTunes called 5k101. It’s approx. 30 min long, 3 days a week, 9 weeks long. Starts out easy, and every week it gets harder until you eventually can jog (as intense as you want) for 30 min straight. If a certain week gets too hard for me to handle, I simply repeat it until Im strong enough to advance. It’s working out perfect for me! A trainer chimes in periodically and tells you when to walk/ run.. Also there is a website 5k101.com..that’s just my experience, but good luck!

Cindy answers:

Try to drink plenty of water and eat really healthy! X) cut down on sugar and salt. The fun is over now haha

Cindy answers:

Substitute two meals for a meal replacement (shake or similar) AND eat one healthy meal per day. (Not JUST the one meal like that other person said)

I can’t stress this next part enough! If you starve yourself, you kill your metabolism.

If you can’t do the two shakes a day, find a protein powder and mix it in a blender with some fruit or veggies for two of your meals.
If you find that you get hungry, eat an apple (it will take some time to peel, slice or chew it au-natural – so you will be burning calories and snacking healthy)
Take walks a couple times a day if you can, you might need 30 minutes to an hour a day of exercise.
Dieting is meant to be a long term solution. If you lose a lot over a small amount of time you might get stretchmarks, saggy skin, etc.
I lost a lot of weight when I went Vegetarian and then Vegan for awhile. So that’s also a diet option to cut tons of fat out of your diet.

Cindy answers:

Well, i might be able to convince you, since i am fasting until easter ;p when you fast, just don’t eat any meat or dairy products. There are always other sources of protein, don’t worry. Instead, you could eat beans, nuts, fish(which is considered meat cause it bleeds i guess, but i can never give up my fish) any other seafood is fine. Wheat bread. The list is endless ;p good luck with the fasting. Don’t EVER not eat for a day or whatever. Not only is it not healthy, you’re just gonna gain more weight afterwards. Not worth it if you ask me, not eating delicious food at all and you still gain weight