Detox

Gentle Ways to Detox your Body

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Low energy levels, body aches and pains and a foggy bain?
Guess what? It’s time for a body detox!

Imagine, you have clearer skin, a sharper mind, you’re more revitalized than you’ve ever been, you have a stronger immune system and just feel like a healthier you. You can enjoy all of this by undergoing a detoxification program.

Detoxification basically means blood cleansing through eliminating impurities (toxins) from the blood in the liver, through kidneys, lungs, intestines, lymph and skin.

Take Action!

Don’t be scared, it’s easier than you think.
You have to reduce toxins in your body so what are you going to do?
Make a start by cutting down on the following; cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, foods with saturated fats and refined sugars (fizzy drinks and sauces contain lots!). These act as toxins in your body and prevent healing.

Using chemical based household cleaners and personal health care products such as shampoos, toothpaste, deodorants and cleansers should be reduced as well. These chemicals stay inside us and never fully eliminate unless going on a detoxification process.

There are so many ways to detox the body. You can choose which suits your lifestyle and preference. Here’s a quick handy guide we’ve put together.

Juice Fasting

Drink only fresh fruits and vegetables. A good juice will contain 5 vegetables and one to two fruits.

Choose from the following:
carrot
spinach
ginger root
kale
broccoli
celery
cabbage
apple
pear
pineapple
cranberry

Highly effective at discharging toxins, vegetables and fruit also provide loads of nutrients and enzymes to decrease the severity of the cleansing process to a stage that’s easier to handle.

As an added bonus, one the benefits from juice fasting is weight loss.
You may drop 10kg to 15kg on a 30-day juice fast (only do this under medical supervision), however juice fasting is usually done over a 1-3 day period!

Water Fasting

As it’s name implies, only water is consumed during a water fast.
Water helps the digestive tract and organs to rest completely, eliminating toxin build-ups and allowing all of your energy to self-repair.

Water fasting not only eliminates obstruction and aids in self-healing, it is also revitalizing and motivating to make a fresh start and, as always, only do under medical supervision.

Gentle ways to detox your body:

Here are some more gentle and safer ways to detox your body. Try them out or incorporate different methods as part your routine.

Massage

By increasing circulation, blood flow and releasing stiff muscles, massage can assist in removing toxins from the body.  It also feels great!

Change Your Diet

Fresh fruits and vegetables, organic where possible, instead of packaged and fast foods that are high in fats and sugar.

Sauna

Saunas and ‘heat rooms’ are widely used by many cultures regularly as part of detoxing. It’s a great way of removing toxic buildups in our body cells. Combine with diet, exercise and nutritional supplements and watch your body start to glow.

Skin Brushing

Again, combining diet, exercise and nutritional supplements, skin brushing is also a gentle way of detoxing. Our skin is the largest organ of the body and the main way that we detox. Skin brushing removes old skin cells, stimulates the lymph system and draws out toxins. Use brush made from soft vegetable bristles – good health food store should stock them.

Brush in the morning before showering for the most benefit.

Yoga

Different positions lightly massage the internal organs and stimulate them to slowly discharge toxins. Combined with breathing exercise, the bloodstream thoroughly oxygenates thus giving energy and improves the body’s physical process.
These cleansing methods are just a guide to what you can do to improve your health. It is necessary to know why detox is important and understand the different ways on how to detox the body before you begin with the different programs.

Remember to drink lots of fresh water while detoxing and consult a health practitioner before starting any health related program.

A Beginner’s Guide To Clean Eating

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1. Get your greens in.

Set “green goals”. Adding greens to your diet will leave less room for junk and it will leave you feeling more energized and nourished. Challenge yourself to eat greens at least at two meals a day. It doesn’t matter if it’s kale, spinach, swiss chard or something mild like a romaine or butter lettuce. Start making it a habit to incorporate greens in your meals and over time you’ll get more comfortable with the darker, more flavorful varieties.

2. Put color on your plate.

Nature’s beautiful colors that is, not artificial dye. Make an effort to put a rainbow on your plate: a good place to start is to aim for three different colors at each meal (bonus points if one is always green!). Nature had a lovely way of grouping vegetables and fruits in colors based on the key nutrients in them, so the best way to get a variety of nutrients is to diversify the colors on your plate.

Open your mind to all sorts of different vegetable/fruit combinations and allow your eyes to paint your plate. It’s always fun to get creative with your food. Maybe you’ll make some weird meals, but more likely, you’ll stumble upon some new winning combinations!

3. Make the farmer’s market your friend.

Look up your local farmer’s market and plan a date with yourself every week to go. It’s best to make this a time that you’ll be able to go so it can become a natural part of your weekly schedule. Make this date your “me time”; let yourself relax and just explore. Shopping is not part of your homework here, all you have to do is go, get interested, chat with local farmers, and make this outing part of your schedule. I’m confident the buying of delicious, colorful produce, and other great local products will happen naturally.

4. Become an ingredient snob.

Yes, it’s time for you to become THAT person. The person that always has to ask what’s in something before eating it. Let me tell you a secret, “People that put better ingredients in their bodies, get better, healthier bodies!” You are only punishing yourself by not being inquisitive.

Look at labels, not for the calories but for the ingredients. The ingredients should read like a shopping list. If there are some ingredients that you either couldn’t find in a supermarket or would never put in a recipe yourself (like high fructose corn syrup) skip it. It’s best if the ingredient list contains no more than six different items. It’s hard to say “stay away from all processed foods” because almost all foods that aren’t in their natural state when you ingest them, are processed.

Instead, in general it’s best to avoid mass-produced foods. Eat restaurant-made pasta instead of buying a box if that is what you crave. Apply that principal to anything that’s processed and you’ll be putting a better version of it in your body, it will taste better, and it is likely to have more nourishing ingredients.

5. Step outside your comfort zone.

One of the things I did when I first went on my elimination diet was to try a different vegetable each week. I would go to the supermarket or the farmer’s market and pick out something I had never eaten, never cooked or never heard of. I would buy enough to play with it all week and cook it in various ways and with different meals. It was incredibly fun and extremely educational. I learned about vegetables I would have never tried otherwise, created some really yummy recipes and discovered some vegetables that I loved eating. You can even use some vegetables you already know and use them in different ways than you normally do. It really opens your mind to all the possibilities and helps you build a bigger repertoire of healthy go-tos.

 

Reference: mindbodygreen.com
Author: Cassandra Bodrak