Cleanses are a trend that can’t seem to die. Juice cleanses, cayenne pepper and warm water cleanses, smoothie cleanses, you name it.
But in the end, these are really just crash diets, plain and simple.
Charlotte Palermino set out to prove it. She went on an eight-day pizza cleanse to prove, once and for all, that this “cleanse” trend is flawed at best.
Palermino theorized that most “cleanses” worked due to only two factors: you cut out most of your sugar and most of your alcohol. With these things eliminated, any “cleanse” will make you lose weight.
She said that as for the other purpose of cleanses, which is to start eating healthier, pizza could work just as well. She said in Cosmopolitan, “You’d certainly want to eat less pizza.”
As with any cleanse, there were ground rules. The pizza had to be real pizza. That is, it had to have real crust (no cauliflower or other substitutes), it had to have cheese and/or toppings, it had to have sauce (including olive oil), and veggies could be added if wanted or needed.
No other foods or alcohol were allowed, except coffee.
What happened, you ask?
In a way, the cleanse worked.
She had an adjustment period, as with any cleanse. She felt bloated for a few days, had a bout of heartburn, and went through repetitive meal fatigue. Still, she continued. And she didn’t get tired of pizza, even at the end. In fact, she even extended the cleanse for a day to eat pizza at a famous pizza restaurant.
The end result? She lost five pounds. Not from pizza specifically, but from eating fewer calories in general while on the cleanse. And it worked for Palermino, who had now proven that cleanses were mostly pointless as long as you cut out the obvious bad stuff. She said,
“Once I hit my stride, it was incredibly liberating. So many companies profit from the perception that certain foods are ‘good’ and others ‘bad.’ This cleanse felt like a giant ‘eff you’ to conventional dieting and the $40 billion weight loss industry.”
This doesn’t mean you should go out and start a pizza diet. No crash diets are sustainable. But don’t worry about doing that cleanse—just cut the bad stuff (sugar, processed food) and you’re already on the right track.
