How To Detox

At the heart of any detox programme is excellent-quality, highly nutritious fresh food. When you detox, you leave processed convenience foodstuffs strictly on the supermarket shelf, and instead eat lots of fresh, natural whole foods – cereals such as rice, millet and buckwheat, whole, unprocessed fruit and vegetables, nuts and seeds, beans and pulses.

This means, for a start, you are greatly increasing your intake of valuable natural fibre. Fibre is that all-important part of the food that your body does not digest, but which helps to get your digestive system working efficiently by carrying waste products out of your system.

A detox programme means you are changing to a diet rich in vitamins and minerals to help repair damage and improve your general, all-round health. By avoiding processed foods, which are generally packed with sugar, salt and artificial additives, you are also cutting out any extra toxic burdens on your system.

At the same time as changing to a better-quality, higher-fibre diet, detox nutritionists also advise making sure you eat lots of the foods they call the natural cleansers – foods such as wholegrain rice, apples, beetroot (red beet), garlic, grapes, onions and carrots. These, they tell us, help to speed up the cleansing process.

While you are following the diet, you should also be drinking plenty of fluids to help wash through your system and eliminate toxins and waste.

Diet alone, of course, is not enough. As well as changing what you eat, you need to support your detox programme in your daily life by giving yourself more good-quality rest, more positive relaxation and more regular exercise.

Is it difficult to keep to?

For most people, a detox programme means making definite changes to the way they eat, and these may feel a little peculiar at first. Most of us are creatures of habit, especially when it comes to eating and drinking, so breaking with the accustomed ways of doing things is bound to feel strange.

Once you have started the diet, however, you will soon realise that detox eating is surprisingly easy, enjoyable, varied and, above all, delicious, with a multitude of interesting textures and flavours to explore. In fact, if you arc a good-food fan, you will quickly discover that a detox diet is – metaphorically at least – a piece of cake!

No limits

Another major advantage of a detox diet is that you need never be hungry. This is not an eating programme that limits the amount of food you eat in any way. This diet is not about will-power or endurance or deprivation. I f you are hungry while you are on a detox diet, you should eat; eat enough to feel properly satisfied. If you become peckish between meals or in the evening, you should give yourself a snack. You need never deprive yourself of food while you are on this programme, but you must always make sure that what you eat is the right kind of food for detoxing.

You may find that because you are unaccustomed to t he bulky, satisfying nature of meals made from natural foods, the portions recommended in the recipes are too big and you cannot comfortably eat the amount suggested. That’s fine. Simply eat the amount that is right for you; respond to your body’s particular needs. Remember, everybody has different nutritional requirements and, indeed, an individual’s needs may change over time, depending on their circumstances.

It is important to become sensitive to your body’s needs, and to eat accordingly. In fact, you will probably find that once you start a detox diet, you will naturally become much more attuned to your body’s proper individual requirements, not only in terms of how much you need, but also as to the kind of foods your body requires.

Losing weight

You may find you lose a little excess weight when you follow a detox programme. This is nothing to be concerned about. Slimming is not the specific aim of the diet, but if you do gently shed a pound or two of unwanted ballast, don’t worry. Just enjoy it as a bonus, and a sign that your system is getting back to its proper balance. Indeed, if you keep up some of the good eating habits after you finish your detox diet, you will probably find those excess pounds will not return, unlike weight lost through faddish slimming diets which tends to pile right back on again as soon as you start eating normally.

If you are already very slim and find yourself losing weight because of a detox programme, you probably need to increase your intake of energy-rich foods. Make sure, for example, that you have regular snacks of highly nutritious foods such as unsalted mixed nuts, bananas, avocados and olives (well rinsed) and non-dairy milk shakes flavoured with fresh fruit juice, nuts and perhaps a little honey.

How much work is involved in the diet?

Because a detox diet includes lots of raw, natural foods, you can decide for yourself how much time you are going to spend preparing your meals while you follow the programme.

Some days, you will probably enjoy spending a leisurely time in the kitchen creating a lavish feast of carefully crafted dishes. At other times you can just throw together a huge mixed salad of fabulous fresh ingredients, or a glorious dish full of ripe fragrant fruit – the result will be delicious and good for you either way. a detox programme is flexible; the choice is yours.