Will Learning How To Detox The Body Boost Your Natural Defenses
For as long as I can remember I’ve always been lucky with my health. I don’t get ill, and can’t remember the last time I had a cold or virus of any kind – at least nothing that struck for longer than a few hours. So it was completely out of the blue when I began feeling constantly tired and lethargic, and getting out of bed in the morning was becoming quite a chore. I’d visited the doctor several times and had quite a few blood tests, but they all came back negatve.
Over dinner one evening a herbalist friend of mine intimated that I could do with going on a detox diet, and put some effort into learning how to detox the body and eliminate the build up of toxins in my body. From what people were telling me it was clear that detoxing had a lot to offer, so figured it was a worthy investment of my time to at least check it out, and try to understand why alternative health therapists say it’s so popular and advocate detox diets and recommend starting with the 7 day detox diet so strongly.
Another thing she suggested to me was to try a foot detox. I have a foot spa two or three times a week now, if I have the time, but if you don’t have one of those, the foot detox patches can work just as well – but doing it this way you miss out on the relaxing foot massage at the same time
Here’s some healthy detox diet tips I discovered.
Lots of water and herbal teas
Drinking plenty of fluid is absolutely vital while you are following a detoxification diet as it will prevent the build up of toxins and man made chemicals in your body. There’s lots of other health reasons to drink water as it helps prevent constipation, helps your internal organs function more efficiently, and hydrates your skin which improves your skin tone. Your goal should be to drink about 8 glasses (or 2 liters) of water each day, and more when you exercise.
As a rough guide, for every hour that your exercise each day, drink an extra 2 glasses of water. Filtered or bottled water is best as tap water contain chlorine and other toxins. Keep your water at room temperature as it’s more refreshing that way. Feel free to substitute herbal teas if you can’t face all that water – preferably loose leaf rather than tea bags. Dandelion root, yarrow, roibosch and green tea in particular are great choices as their hidden ingredients naturally support the detox process. Green tea and redbush is also beneficial as it is rich in antioxidants.
Choose Organic Food Where Possible
You do not need to switch to a totally organic diet on a detox diet, unless you can afford it, but a little organic produce will go a long way to getting you started.
If you can’t buy many organic foods, don’t worry. Concentrating on eating fresh (and ideally raw) fruit and veg is the main point regardless of them being organic or not, rather than not get enough of them. Having said that, there are some very beneficial health reasons of going organic on a healthy detox diet.
The use of artificial chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers are not allowed when growing organic foods, so they contain the lowest possible amounts of artificial, potentially toxic chemicals (such as nitrates). Although it’s a controversial area, there’s a lot of evidence that the build up of pesticide residues overtime may cause health problems in the future.
Organic foods are subject to a lot less processing. Ultimately this means organic foods not genetically modified and are free from hydrogenated fats and artificial additives. On top of that, organic foods usually taste better too.
