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If there’s one thing you should know about healthy weight loss, it’s that there’s no magic pill or tea which will help you achieve it. In order to see significant and sustainable changes on the scale, you must adjust your diet to be filled with nutrient dense foods which will keep you full and limit cravings while promoting positive habits.
That being said, the diet industry has created the unrealistic expectation that certain detox teas can help you reach your goals more quickly without making any real changes to your lifestyle otherwise. While this would be convenient, there are a number of frightening side effects of detox teas which are not often advertised alongside the products, which can permanently affect your digestion, and even make it more difficult to lose weight.
We spoke with registered dietitian Amy Shapiro to understand the possible implications of drinking diet tea for weight loss, and this is what she had to say.
The primary issue with detox tea stems from the fact that they are not required to be regulated by the FDA before they’re put on the market and claim to help you reach your weight loss goals.
“Many detox teas contain ingredients or instructions beyond tea leaves such as chemicals or medications like ephedra which can be detrimental to your health while causing you to lose your appetite,” explains Shapiro. When it’s ambiguous what ingredients are actually included in these detox teas, you potentially put your digestive system at risk by consuming foods not vetted by the FDA to help you lose weight.
Not only this, but diet teas may also contain an excess of caffeine which can create a laxative effect. While this might allow you to lose water weight at first, it’s ultimately not a sustainable approach to losing fat. Instead, you may find yourself more dehydrated than before, and even have a lessened appetite which will come back with a vengeance once you stop drinking these teas.
“Any results you get from tea will be temporary just like any other fad diet you participate in. Unless they teach you how to eat a balanced and healthy diet, a tea that causes you to lose water weight or to poop more often only works in the short term and can actually provide you with the reverse effect long term as you may create damage to your system and metabolism,” warns Shapiro.
Your GI system falls into a delicate balance of gut bacteria, and can very easily be thrown off when drinking detox teas which merely run through you and can cause uncomfortable side effects such as diarrhea, dehydration, and even loss of electrolytes without helping you achieve any long term or lasting results. Many people assume they need to detox after a weekend of eating unhealthy foods or binge drinking, but the best way to do this is not with a tea to flush out the system, but rather by making healthy diet changes that support better digestion. There’s no easy way to detox, and attempting to fast track the process with a tea can ultimately cause more harm than good.
“If you are looking to detox, I recommend taking a break from ingredients that are inflammatory and or insluting such as alcohol, caffeine, sugar beverages. Drink more water, add lemon and dandelion root to your water, drink green tea which has been shown to boost metabolic rate, and make sure to eat hydrating foods including lots of fruits and vegetables,” suggests Shapiro.
Something else to consider is including foods which offer a natural diuretic effect, such as celery, cucumber, and certain spices and herbs, into your diet for a healthier approach to a detox without potentially damaging your system.
While tea is generally a positive addition to your diet that can help to boost your metabolism, increase your energy throughout the day, or soothe you to sleep in the evening, you should never be turning to teas that make large and unattainable promises about rapid weight loss and detoxing. Although you may see temporary results, they’re unlikely to be long lasting and are more at the surface level with water weight than true fat loss.
In order to achieve these bigger changes, a larger lifestyle overhaul is needed to integrate healthier habits into your day which can support the goals you hope to reach without cutting corners. As nice as it would be to find a tea which can actually help you lose weight, detox teas are not the solution if you truly care about your digestive health.
