Facts and fallacies of health and fitness

If you still have your summer holiday to look forward to and want to feel inspired to keep fit then a great read is Lucy Sykes’ and Jo Piazza’s new book, Fitness Junkie.

The book takes a look at the extreme fitness industry and discloses quite a lot of information about the bizarre practices that some people involved in the world of wellbeing get up to.

One of the issues raised is the practice of clay eating.

There has been a recent upsurge in some quarters in the eating of clay.

Bentonite Clay that is inexpensive and easy to source is alleged to have many health benefits.

It is made up of ancient volcanic ash and has been used in treating medical conditions for many years.

Articles online will also claim that the clay can be an aid with viral infections, food allergies, colitis as well as being an aid in cleansing the liver, helping your skin and improving your immune system.

The clay is mixed with water and the theory is that you take it for three days on an empty stomach, then you stop for four days, then you restart for four and so on for a period of four weeks.

There are, of course, more refined stipulations that go along with this course of treatment and I would imagine that consultation with a doctor would be the best way to approach this.

In the book, the action is mostly centred on the actions of practitioners in New York, and the eating of clay is one of the rituals used by characters in the book to lose weight.

As well as ingesting the clay or mixing it with water and drinking it, clay is also used as an aid for muscle damage, skin conditions, headaches and infected wounds.

It appears that the practice may have arisen from cultures that could not get the nutrients they required from their diet.

Clay has iron and calcium in it, so the desire for these substances may have led initially to some cultures eating clay out of necessity.

Obviously this is a problem that we no longer face, so the initial reason for clay eating is now redundant.

As far as removing toxins from our bodies, well that’s really the job of your liver andd kidneys.

If they are healthy then you shouldn’t need clay to help you along.

So as is always the way with fitness fads, there is often much more research that needs to be done before embarking on anything as dramatic as ingesting dirt and clay.

Unfortunately though, the fitn fitness industry is often filled wit with people that are longing for a quick fix solution that wil will be the answer to their praW prayers.

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P Perhaps we are all looking for the magic potion, and so far it seems that it just isn’t the there.

M Maybe one day it will, but til till then we will have to keep on putting in the hard work ifwif we want to look and feel gr great.

Fitness industry is often filled with people that are longing for a quick fix solutionution that will be the answer to their prayers