7 Things You Should Know Before You Detox
THE DETOX DILEMMA
Have you ever tried a detox before?
When I first tried to detox I had all of these ideas of what a detox should be like – I thought that any cleanse would be a miserable time complete with me feeling hungry while sipping on gross green juices (for the record, I did try this a few times and it was awful).
After many attempts at unsuccessful detoxes over the years, I realised that detoxing does not have to be an awful time – in fact, it should be FUN!
A detox should be fun because it has been scientifically proven that we get the best benefit from things that we enjoy doing… from things that are FUN!!!
Here are 7 things that I have learned about detoxes, after many years of detox attempts – these are 7 things that you should know before you attempt your next cleanse… or your first cleanse.
7 THINGS TO KNOW
1. Detoxing doesn’t have to be a miserable time – it can be fun!
Most people think that while you detox and cleanse your body, you will feel miserable and grumpy – but this does not have to be true! Detoxing can be fun and exciting, how you feel about is all about how you think about it. When you detox, you are cleaning and nourishing your body. Looking after your body is something to celebrate and to be excited about! If you believe that a detox will cause you to be miserable, then it probably will. Be excited about taking care of your body and enjoy how great your body feels because of it!
2. It doesn’t have to be extremely expensive or very time consuming.
While detoxes can be expensive and time consuming, they don’t have to be. It really depends what kind of cleanse you’d decide to do. A juice cleanse for example can be very time consuming because it takes a long time to make several fresh juices every day and it can be very expensive to do a juice cleanse because you need a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables to make a fresh juice. But doing a juice cleanse is not the only kind of juice cleanse that you can do, in fact there are lots of simpler ways to detox that are actually more effective.
3. You don’t need to juice everything or eat disgusting food that you hate.
You don’t need to eat food that makes you want to gag – it’s actually best if you don’t do this. Juicing is a common way to detox, but it’s not the only way to cleanse your body and it’s actually not the most effective way. It’s also not a good idea to force yourself to eat disgusting food that you hate. A lot of people force themselves to eat strange green juices that taste terrible and eat things like raw garlic while cleansing, but if you don’t enjoy this then don’t do it. Studies have shown that when you enjoy food, your body gets more benefit from it than from food that you don’t enjoy. If you don’t enjoy something and force yourself to eat it, you will actually not get as much benefit from it. The best way to detox is to base your diet on simple, whole, unprocessed plant-based foods.
4. You don’t have to eliminate entire food groups for your detox.
A lot of people only eat fruit and vegetables while detoxing and while this is good, it’s still important to get good protein and healthy fats in your diet too. When you detox your body, it’s important to get all of the nutrients that your body has needs so that your body can detoxify itself. Eat plant-based protein and healthy plant-based fats with fresh fruits and vegetables while detoxing to ensure that your body gets all of the nutrients that it needs.
5. You can eat normal food while you are on a cleanse.
You can eat normal foods – in fact it’s best if you do! Just because you are cleansing, it doesn’t mean that your life has to be put on hold. The best, simplest way to detox is to eat normal whole plant-based foods like salads, fruits and vegetables.
6. Your detox meals can be tasty and delicious.
Your detox meals can taste good – it’s actually best if they are because then you will enjoy them and will therefore get more benefit from them. Use natural fresh herbs & spices to bring flavour to your food while you detox and find combinations of fruit and vegetables that you love to make your meals more enjoyable. Simple plant-based meals can be absolutely amazing as well as nourishing!
7. You don’t have to invest in gross, expensive health supplements.
A lot of people avoid detoxing because they think they will have to purchase all kinds of expensive health supplements but this is so not true! While certain health supplements can be very beneficial, a lot of them can actually cause more harm than good. A lot of health supplements on the market are being sold primarily to make money and are actually not essential for better health. In fact, getting too many nutrients can actually be worse than getting too few nutrients. For example, it can be very harmful to consume too many fat soluble vitamins. While an excess of water soluble vitamins will be bypassed by the body through urine, an excess of fat soluble vitamins will be stored in fat and can cause all kinds of health problems.
TAKE NOTE + TAKE CARE
Here’s a few important things to remember while detoxing
While detoxing, remember that it’s important to exercise. The body gets rid of toxins through sweat. But you don’t have to spend all day exercising – 16 minutes is all that you need to work up a sweat! Join my 16 minute workout challenge!
Also remember that it’s very important to drink lots of water while cleansing. You should drink at least 8 glasses of water per day and even more if you are exercising on a normal day. While on a detox you should be drinking more than this each day, aim for 10-12 glasses or water per day so that your body can flush out any toxins. Drink only filtered or pure water.
Make sure you get plenty of sleep while cleansing and some sunshine if you can!
Liezl Jayne xo
Photos by Liezl Jayne for liezljayne.com
