When you’re scrambling to slim down for the New Year or burn fat fast to get ready for swimsuit season, doing a quick crash course cleanse may seem like an easy way to get things done.

After all, detox diets promise to help you shed pounds fast, flush out toxins from your gut, liver, kidney or colon, give your digestive system a much-needed break, eliminate brain fog, maximize energy levels, cure your food cravings, and even improve your hair, skin and nails. The problem is, detoxes can be dangerous.

Often, much of the weight loss is due to muscle wasting, self-cannibalization and dangerous levels of dehydration. This can result in a long-term lowering of your metabolism, hormonal imbalances and a body that easily becomes fatigued, overtrained, skinny-fat, and more likely to gain weight in the future.

Worse yet, as I discussed in the recent root canals podcast, many detoxes (especially heavy metal detoxes) leach metals and other toxins into the bloodstream. If you have a leaky blood brain barrier caused by lack of sleep, stress, inflammation, food intolerances, overtraining, airline travel or any other biological assailant, these metals and toxins can end up in your neural tissue and cause brain fog, mental fatigue and neural damage.

But not all detox diets are harmful. So to help you distinguish the difference between dangerous detox fads and truly helpful cleanse, to jumpstart your New Year and to give you a safe way to clean your body, balance your hormones and spark safe and lasting fat loss, Ben and Jessa Greenfield sit down in this podcast and give you their entertaining take on the 8 most popular detox diets, including:

-The BluePrintCleanse

-The Cooler Cleanse

-Jill Pettijohn Nutritional Cleanses

-The Master Cleanse

-David Kirsch 48-Hour Super Charged Cleanse

-Dr. Junger's Clean Gut Program

-Martha’s Vineyard Diet

-Kaeng Raeng

After Ben and Jessa tell you about the pros and cons of each detox diet, they then turn off the mic and keep going for Part 2 of this Detox Special Podcast, which is only available to BenGreenfieldFitness Inner Circle members.

In Part 2, available in both video and audio by clicking here and joining the Inner Circle, Ben and Jessa reveal Ben's #1 recommended way to detox (hundreds of dollars less expensive than popular detox diets), discuss Jessa's questions about detoxes, and answer listener questions about detox diets, including:

For more resources on detoxing, check out:

-The Zen of Taking A Good Poop

-How Much Fiber To Eat, Where To Get Your Fiber, And Is Fiber *Really* Killing Your Insides?

-How To Detox – A Quick Primer On How To Cleanse Your Body For The New Year (Without Going To Some Expensive Resort On A Mountaintop)

-How To Fix Your Gut: 9 Bad Things That Happen When Your Digestion Goes Wrong, How To Hit The Reboot Button & The Best Way To Detox Your Body.

-Why Healthy Eaters Can Still Have Broken Guts, and What You Can Do About It.

Other detox resources Ben and Jessa discuss in this episode include:

Testing:

-CDSA 2.0 with Parasitology Gut Test

-WellnessFX Baseline Panel or Top 10 Tests from DirectLabs

Diets:

-The Paleo Autoimmune Diet

-The SCD Diet

Supplements:

-Ben's recommended Gut Healing Pack (use the oil of oregano in this pack as the 15-20 drops 3x/day, and take everything else according to bottle instructions)

-Metal Free Heavy Metal Detoxification Formula -follow spray instructions on bottle, use for 30-60 days

-Liposomal Glutathione - 2-3 sprays under tongue and hold for 20-30 seconds, use for 30-60 days

-6mg of iodine per day – use for 30-60 days

-Oral magnesium in supplemental form before bedtime (around 400-600mg/day, or until you get loose stool)

-A high quality greens supplement – use for detox maintenance

-For colon detox, highly recommended to include 30-60 days of Colorectal Recovery Program if you get constipation, gas, bloating, diarrhea, etc. If you use this, then you can skip the magnesium and greens listed above

Gear:

-Use Squatty Potty for any bowel movements

-If you can afford one, sleep or spend 20-30 minute sessions each day laying on Biomat

-Clean up your house with Ben's recommended safe and clean household cleaners and personal care products

Questions, comments or feedback about the most popular detox diets or how to detox? Leave your questions at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, and be sure to sign up for the BenGreenfieldFitness Inner Circle for access to Part 2 of this episode!