Looking at a few TikTok nutrition challenges, such as “drink XYZ smoothie daily for 3 weeks and see yourself lose XYZ pounds” or “take a smoothie containing these foods for 3 weeks and lose the bloat”, is always strange.
First and foremost, challenges are always a bad idea. They may last for a few days, weeks or months. They’re like a diet, and as we know, diets don’t work. The challenges that we looked at also didn’t contain a balanced view of nutrition, meaning they would leave you deprived if followed over a long time.
Before you do anything, answer this question: why are there countless weight loss diets out there? If any one of those worked, the others wouldn’t be around, surely? While we are always fans of learning to eat a healthy diet you can keep for life. Your own daily “diet” can be delicious, filling and super healthy. No challenges are needed.
TikTok employs a clever concept. Short, colourful clips with barely any content, simply put, challenges. Because they’re dressed up to look fun, achievable and real, users are drawn to them and might try them. Trouble is, as good as the content maker looks, who has vetted them? We don’t know anything about their background or qualifications. We always urge clients to check the qualifications of any diet advice they’re thinking of following. This is needed because, more often than not, dietary advice isn’t founded on science but on “personal experience”. This is always limited and can be hugely erroneous in its assumptions. Our tip is always to check.
One TikTok Challenge is the smoothie fasts. So, this is basically replacing one meal a day with a smoothie containing specific vegetables and fruits, claiming to support health in some way.
What is a smoothie?
Smoothies are blends of fruit, vegetables, yoghurt, nut butter, nuts or seeds and whatever else you fancy. A smoothie is basically a blended raw meal.
What is a fast?
Fasting is the idea of not eating at all for a period of time. This could be one fasting day a week, a three-day fast, or intermittent fasting of eating only between certain times of the day. It’s an age-old idea that fasting helps to improve degenerative conditions and clears the mind.
Does a smoothie fast work?
You may see that this is an oxymoron, a contradiction in itself.You’re either fasting or eating, right? And drinking a smoothie very is eating. You may like smoothies, but I’m not a fan unless you really replace a meal with a smoothie and make sure that no more than 20% are fruit.
Bloat-reducing smoothies? Do they work?
The answer here is maybe. We are all individuals, and what works for one person won’t work for the next. There are some classic foods that bloat, and not surprisingly, in the TikTok Challenge I looked at, the “anti-bloat” smoothie duly contained foods classically known to cause bloating in most people.
Which foods may cause bloating?
Raw foods actually often cause bloating as cooking destroys some of the complex carbohydrate structures that make fibre and makes food easier to digest. Brassicas and alliums (cabbages, kale, broccoli, leeks, onions, garlic) often cause bloating because of the health-giving substances and fibres they have. Can you see where this is leading? Yep, food may bloat you, but it still is very good for you.
Drinking meals, i.e. smoothies, may also bloat because you’re taking in a lot of raw foods that you don’t chew but drink. This may lead to bloating as chewing actually starts the digestion process in the mouth, mixing food with digestive enzymes. I always recommend chewing your food well to help reduce bloating.
What is detox?
Do we need to detox and purge ourselves to be able to live clean and healthy lives? No! Your body has several detoxification mechanisms, all of which work pretty much whatever you eat. You need to drink plenty of fresh, clean water, exercise (sweat and breath being two of the elimination pathways), you need to sleep well (your liver works hard while you sleep), and eat well (after all, you are what you eat.)
Your liver produces countless enzymes called CYP450 that detox substances in your body 24/7. So while it’s important to eat well and eat fresh and nutritious food, really, a smoothie diet or dietary purge won’t necessarily do you any good.
FinalNote
TikTok Challenges can be dangerous to your life. Sadly, we periodically hear of a challenge gone wrong and a beautiful teenager paying the price for entering one of those silly challenges and hurting himself in the process. Life is too precious. Your daily diet isn’t a challenge. It should be a pleasure. Looking after your body should be something you do, but nothing is something that takes over your life. A balance of a healthy diet and a solid workout regime will go much longer than a challenge will.
