With a new year comes a sense of a fresh start, or a new beginning. For this reason, many people choose this time of year to do a cleanse. There are health benefits to cleansing, but there are also myriad beauty benefits. From brighter eyes to clearer skin, shinier hair to stronger nails, a cleanse can benefit your external body too.
We talked to three experts about cleansing and got the real deal on why you’d do it, what it’s really like, and what results you can really expect.
Everyone from Oprah to Kevin Bacon to Maggie Gyllenhall has praised Dr. Frank Lipman’s approach to a balanced lifestyle. The integrative and functional medicine doctor recommends everyone cleanse at least twice a year, “whenever you feel you have been having too much junk, want to get rid of food cravings, feel sluggish, want to reboot, want to reset your appetite, lose weight, feel more alive … and so on.” Many of us feel this way after a holiday season of parties and pastries!
Dr. Lipman says, “My attitude is that a detox is really an entry point into a healthier lifestyle and way of eating.” His REMOVE cleanses consist of a food-restricted diet and cleansing shakes, and last for 14 days because he says, “for most people it takes at least 10 days to reset one’s appetite and get rid of the sugar cravings.” Most of Lipman’s patients do see weight loss, though Dr. Lipman notes that patients do a cleanse to improve “how they feel and look” as opposed to for their health.
