"I recently lost about 80 pounds," says 22-year-old Maria, who is now struggling to keep up her weight-loss plan. "I get really sluggish and don't feel like exercising, and I sit on the couch and eat snacks." She is curious if the latest cleanse craze will do the trick and get her back on track. "When Beyoncé did the whole Dreamgirls thing and she was doing her interviews for it, she said she did the Master Cleanse diet; she slimmed down quite a bit!"

Rachael asks the author of The 4-Day Diet, Dr. Ian Smith, for help getting Maria started on a new plan. His diet begins with a 4-day detox, which he says can be used to lose weight and boost your energy. The plan involves different foods each day, such as leafy vegetables, broccoli, lemons, chickpeas, fruits, berries, low-fat yogurt and cabbage soup.

"It's about eating natural foods to help cleanse your system, to instill your vigor, make you feel vital," he explains, while discouraging against the kinds of detoxes that require fasting or a liquid diet. "Saying you didn't eat for a day? That's not cleansing or detoxing ... to do something like that, where you're restricting yourself from your important minerals and nutrients? Not a good idea." Instead, he says it is the food that makes the detox work. "You are getting all this bad stuff that's in your tissues and your blood system - you're getting it out and you're restoring your vitality!"

Dr. Ian suggests doing a cleanse once every five or six months, while paired with healthy eating year round to continue to enjoy the benefits. "People will cleanse and they go right back to eating those bad things again! The idea is get your system back to ground zero and then reduce the amount of preservatives and additives you put into your body so it will last," he says, while warning against lengthy detox programs. "Detoxes are addictive," he says. "Don't keep doing detoxes. You know, do a detox and then go on to eat regular food again. People do it for 30 or 40 days? Not good for the system." He offers some of the basic foods to use during his detox plan - click on the video for his tips!

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