The Summer Detox Diet
Woman's World - 7/9/2002
Lose 15 lbs in 14 days!

Spring may be the ideal time to clean your house, but now is the ideal time to “clean” your body-freeing your system to burn maximum fat. A top nutritionist shares her clinically tested plan, one that has already magically melted trillions of inches from the hips, waist and thighs of millions of women-women like Callie, who flushed away 30 lbs. and no longer struggles to stay slim! Read on to discover how you can get the same great amazing, health-boosting results….

Last summer, as Callie Zoske timidly stepped on the scale in her friend’s bathroom, she silently prayed, Please don’t let me be over 200 pounds. Cringing, she watched as the needle bounced back and forth, finally settling on 199.5.

Relief and dread washed over her. “This isn’t the body God wants me to have,” she sighed. Yet nothing the diet veteran tried had worked to turn things around- until she met her Bozeman, Montana, neighbor, Ann Louise Gittleman, that is.

"I got a part-time job cooking for her in the evenings, and it turned out she was a nutritionist,” says Callie, who also works as a live-in nanny. “She had me prepare meals that help increase your liver’s fat-burning power.” Huh? Your liver burns fat? “Your liver is the key organ for fat metabolism,” says Gittleman, author of the best-selling Fat Flush Plan. “Keeping the liver in tip-top shape is the best kept secret of weight loss.

Callie was intrigued when she heard this, so she began sampling the liver-boosting meals as she made them. “By that point, I had given up and was trying to accept myself as a large woman. Losing weight as an unexpected blessing,” says the 28-year-old, who shed 15 pounds in about a month, 30 pounds in all. “I thought the food would be bland, but the flavor was amazing. I ate large portions and still lost weight. I was never hungry-and my cravings stopped!” Slimming down felt so easy, explains Gittleman, because Callie didn’t do the work-her liver did. Here’s how….

The amazing link between your liver and weight loss

The liver is your body’s hardest-working organ, say scientists. And among its 400+ known functions, many are crucial to maintaining a healthy weight. Two prime examples: “The liver is largely responsible for breaking down all fat,” says Gittleman. “It also filters away impurities that cause fluid retention and cellulite.” Unfortunately, we get so many impurities in our bodies these days-everything from car exhaust to caffeine and chemical food additives-that its common for the liver to become clogged or even damaged, says the pro former director of the renowned Pritikin Longevity Center. “Most people also fail to get enough of certain nutrients vital to liver function, further impairing the organ’s ability to do its job,” she adds. Whatever the cause, as the liver becomes less efficient, the effects are both unhealthy and utterly fattening….

Is poor liver function making you fat?

“If you have a roll of fat at your waistline, you may have what is commonly called a ‘fatty liver’,” says Gittleman. “Your overloaded liver has stopped processing fat and begun storing it just under the skin.” Meanwhile, she says, hormone imbalances often develop, triggering additional weight gain along with fluid retention. Unable to properly control blood sugar, a toxic liver can lead to hypoglycemia and intense sugar cravings. Unfiltered toxins may linger in your bloodstream, draining you of energy and promoting the appearance of cellulite. In short, “when your liver is sluggish, weight-loss efforts are blocked,” pro says. That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: this happens to be the best and easiest time of year to “detox” your liver and entire body. Why? First, nature’s best detoxifiers-fresh vegetables-are available in abundance. Second, researchers say the warm weather and bright sun “adjust” our body rhythms in such a way that it actually feels easy to use detoxing tricks like these….

Getting 8 ounces of protein plus two eggs daily

Such unlikely diet fare as juicy steaks and lamb chops supplement the liver’s production of l-carnitine, a toxin-neutralizing substance with an amazing side effect. “One study showed a gram of 1-carnitine daily-the amount provided by my plan- was enough to burn off 10 extra pounds in 12 weeks,” says Gittleman. Eggs, she adds, are the single richest source of sulfur-bearing amino acids, “which play a vital role in the liver’s ability to produce bile, the substance that breaks down fat,” says Gittleman. So no wonder a recent study found that dieters who ate two eggs a day for six weeks “lost weight without exception, especially around the waistline. One woman lost 21 pounds.” One last thing: protein has been found to raise the metabolism by 25%!

Regulating fat-storage hormones with flax-seed oil

Each tablespoon plies your body with omega-3 fatty acids-wonder substances clinically proven to help regulate insulin, the body’s fat-storage hormone. That means omega-3s can pick up the slack until your liver is able to resume full hormone-regulating duties, says Gittleman. Flaxseed oil also binds to oil-soluble poisons and carries them out of your system. A slimming bonus: studies have shown that omega-3s also rev up the metabolism and reduce hunger by as much as 20%!

Trapping toxins and calories with “nature’s magnets

This time of year, they’re piled high at your local farm stand: tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, lettuces, any and every low-starch vegetable. These “colorful carbs,” as Gittleman calls them, are high in natural enzymes, vitamins and minerals-especially potassium, which will ease the fluid retention caused by a toxic liver. Their best trick, however, is releasing thousands of fibrous “magnets” into your system, which attach themselves to toxins and fat globulesm, whisking them out of your system before they’re absorbed. This reduces the liver’s workload and cuts calories-up to 175 a day-from the food you eat! All that roughage staves off hunger, too.

Wisconsin engineer Kari Wheaton credits vegetables with making 30 pounds of fat and water weight disappear. “I started eating every type of vegetable imaginable. My favorite lunch became a salad with chicken or salmon, assorted greens, mushrooms, jicama, carrots, celery, and parsley,” she says. “Vegetables are unlimited on the plan, and I learned to eat them when I felt hungry. I was eating all the time, losing weight and I just never felt better.”

Activating new fat burners with evening primrose oil

When researchers testing the effects of this centuries-old cure noticed unexpected weight loss in patients with PMS, new studies were launched. One at the University of Montreal eventually determined that the gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) in the oil has the incredible ability to “turn on” the fat-burning power of a type of tissue that pads the liver and other organs. So if your liver isn’t keeping pace,” GLA will trigger fat burning instead of fat storage,” Gittleman says.

As soon as Callie heard this, “I went right to the health-food store and bought some,” she says. While she can’t say for sure this one part of the regimen deserves all the credit for burning off extra fat, she can say this for sure: “In no time, I lost three inches off the heaviest part of my thighs!”

Blocking fat absorption with “long-life cocktails”

Gittleman calls her own blend of 8 ounces water, 1 ounce unsweetened cranberry juice and one teaspoon fiber-rich psyllium husks or 1 tablespoon ground flaxseeds, “my secret weapon against cellulite.” Why? “Because of it’s ability to emulsify any fatty globules in the lymphatic system that haven’t been processed by the liver before they’re stored in fat cells,” she says.

“My thighs and butt used to have a lot of cellulite,” confesses Callie. “It went away! Nothing I had ever tried worked nearly as well.” Adds Kari: “After under two cheese dimples were gone!”

Avoiding the worst liver stressors

For the most part, our livers work overtime processing substances that get in our bodies naturally or unintentionally. But there are some we have control over-such as caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine, notes Gittleman, who advises eliminating them altogether during your detox. We also have control over sugar-which happens to be one of the biggest and most unexpected culprits. “In the process of being metabolized, sugar robs the body of valuable nutrients-including zinc, which is essential for liver function,” says the expert. “Sugar also inhibits your liver’s production of enzymes needed in the detoxification process. Plus, sugar is a favorite food of candida, a yeast that can overgrow and cause severe fluid retention and liver stress.

Once a fan of fat-free cookies and ice cream, Callie went cold turkey on sweets and doesn’t’ even crave them anymore. “Before I always had puffiness around my face and my eyes. I could gain seven or eight pounds of water in a day and felt like my skin was going to pop,” she says. “I looked and felt so much better, and I had zero desire to go back to my old ways.”

Callie couldn’t agree more. “Before, I thought I was just lazy. I had to force myself to do things. But after a week on the plan, I was shocked by how fast everything changed,” she says. “Not only were my clothes loose, but my energy, shot up so much. I’m happy with my weight now, but I know I’ll keep following most of the principles anyway-this feeling is just too good to give up!”

This article was an adaptation from the July 9, 2002 issue that appeared in Woman's World entitled 'Lose 15 lbs in 14 days on The Summer Detox Diet.'