TodayTheresa Grisanti, the brains behind the new program Break Free From Dieting will take you through the one step needed to kickstart your diet.
Has this ever happened to you? You decide you are going to start your diet on Monday. You wake up and start out strong. Then by noon you are craving all the things you know you “shouldn’t” eat. Before long you can’t control it and you are off your plan before you even get started.
You are not alone. This happens more than you know. First let’s look at why this happens.
Two things are going on: 1. Your body is infinitely intelligent and remembers EVERYTHING. 2. When we have been eating the “wrong” foods and indulging behaviors that are not healthy for our body, the body compensates by storing toxins and waste in the fat cells.
Both of these situations lead to our body craving familiar foods in an effort to meet our nutritional needs. Once you change how you eat, or just cut back, the body tries to compensate to prevent starvation.
The good news is there are steps you can take to make sure you don’t fail before you even get started. The best way to reset the body is to remove toxins and encourage fat burning with a short detoxification diet.
Now don’t leave me yet. I am not saying you need to fast. There will be plenty of food to eat. If you follow these guidelines and customize it to your lifestyle your body will do all the work for you.
Detoxification Guidelines
The Food
The best foods to detoxify the body are high-water content foods. All raw fruits and vegetables fall into this category. Being that we are in the midst of winter, I recommend making soups with clear broth (no cream soups). This is a great way to make sure you have plenty to eat on hand and you can load it up with as many vegetables as you can find. Try to keep the soup as close to vegetarian as possible. Use beans for protein. This will give the body the fuel it needs without heavy meals to slow down the detox process.
Smoothies are a great way to get lots of food quickly and easily if you are in a hurry. If you need them to stay with you longer to prevent hunger crashes, add a little coconut oil. It disappears into the taste of the smoothie and will give your metabolism a boost.
You also want to increase your water intake significantly. Be sure to drink 80%-100% of your body weight in ounces of water everyday while you are detoxing. This will proved the fluid that flushes out the toxins when they are released into your bloodstream.
Things you don’t want to eat while you are detoxing: sugar, dairy products, eggs, meat, poultry, coffee, alcohol and anything that comes prepared in a box or packaging of any kind.
If you NEED something to stick with you, make roasted vegetables or grains such as quinoa, millet or amaranth. Keep away from any white rice, pasta, and wheat. You are trying to make your diet as alkaline as possible to promote healing.
After you are ready to return to eating a wider range of foods, add foods back in slowly. This is a good time to see how different foods affect you and make you feel. This is a great experiment in Intuitive Eating.
Other Tools To Detox
The next step is to start the external cleaning process. This will help your body to release toxins more effectively and efficiently. Although there are many ways to detoxify your body externally, here are just a couple to get you started:
Skin Brush Using a dry shower brush, gently brush along your skin starting from your fingers and toes and working towards the heart in circular motions. This will remove dead cells, stimulate your circulatory system and allow the skin to detoxify itself.
Gentle Movement Include 30-60 minutes of slow gentle stretching or movement to increase your circulation. Yoga, Tai Chi, and Qigong are all great ways to start moving toxins. I enjoy doing a daily Qigong routine for detoxification.
Hot Relaxing Baths Just before bed turn off the phone, lock the bathroom door and fill the tub with hot water and 1-2 cups of epsom salts. Add some lavender to help you destress. The salts will draw toxins out of the body and assist in the elimination processes while you are sleeping.
Sleep This is one of the most important tools you have to detoxify your body. While we sleep our body processes all the food we have eaten and the metabolic wastes from energy production in the cells throughout the day to clean out the body. To maximize your detox, get to bed before 10pm. This is when the body begins the detox process and gives it the most time and support in completing its work. Be sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep to support your body in properly cleansing itself.
Your Detox
Using any or all of these tools you can customize a 2-5 day detox for yourself. You may feel light and energetic while you are detoxing.
If you don’t feel well and start to notice symptoms of a flu or headaches, this is the result of the toxins moving into your bloodstream. Don’t stop your detox. It’s working. This is your body reacting to the excess toxins. I suggest you go to bed with a good book or movie and let your body support you in your health goals.
Detoxification is a powerful tool to help prepare your body for any changes you are planning to make to improve your health and well-being.
Theresa Grisanti has been studying and applying her understanding of health, nutrition and intuitive eating for more than 15 years. Her training at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, included instruction from leaders in the holistic healing field, such as Andrew Weil and Mona Lisa Schultz. Find out more about Theresa’s new program Break Free From Dieting and learn how to lose weight the natural way.
I actually had a trainer talk to me about the skin brush. He couldn’t say enough about it. I thought it sounded a little silly…but I guess others have heard of this too. Yoga is great at detoxification…I feel like I have had a full body massage after a yoga class. Thanks for the tips!!!
I am gonna try this. Lord knows I have fell of my get healthier wagon three times already.
These are some interesting tips. Thanks for sharing
I have heard that about a detox before, the flu like symptoms. But in the end it is worth it