If you’re looking for a detoxification diet to help you lose weight and restore your health, read this article first.
The easiest and longest lasting way to detox your body is to make necessary changes to your diet. Changing what you eat has a profound effect on how well your body’s natural systems of defense and cleansing work. If you eat high quality organic, simple, fresh foods your system processes the foods faster, which leaves more energy for eliminating toxins that may be stored in fat cells.
I’ve dramatically boosted my own health through consciously detoxing and cleansing over the past several years. And I know many people who have done the same.
The underlying principle of the detoxification diet is to consume a relatively small number of calories from foods that are easy to digest. From this starting point there is quite a lot of variation. Here are the main ways to detox through diet – along with their pluses and minuses.
Fasting
Fasting involves consuming either only pure water or fresh juices for a given period of time – usually 3 to 10 days.
The good side of this approach is that it can help you lose weight quickly. This is because your calorie consumption goes down to either zero or next to zero.
The bad side of fasting is that it can produce detox symptoms such as headaches and low energy. It’s also very difficult for most people to complete. I usually only recommend it to people who have actually completed other kinds of detox diets in the past. Fasting is simply much to radical for most people.
The Lemonade Diet
This diet is also known as the “Master Cleanse” and involves consuming nothing but a drink made from fresh lemon juice, water, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for a period of 10 to 30 days.
The good part of this approach to detoxification is that it supports the cayenne pepper and lemon juice support the body to cleanse and detox more quickly than in a straight fast. The Lemonade diet is also a quick way to lose weight.
The bad aspects of the lemonade diet are, like fasting, the tendency to produce detox symptoms as well as “yo-yo” dieting. Often, people who complete the Master Cleanse will immediately revert to binge eating habits once they finish the cleanse. This happens because 10-30 days is a short amount of time to actually change your eating habits.
The Natural Cleansing Diet
This approach to detoxification involves eating only those foods which support your body to complete its natural cleansing processes. This means eating fresh foods and whole foods. It also involves eating specific foods that support your detox organs to function. An example is eating parsley to help Kidney function. The Natural Cleansing Diet can be completed for anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months depending on individual needs.
The good aspects of this approach are that it is gradual and rational. Most people have no trouble changing their diet and experience few detox reactions. Also, the fact that this detoxification diet lasts longer means that if you complete it you’ll have more likelihood of making permanent healthy changes to your eating habits. For these reasons it’s a great approach for beginners as well as people interested in long term health improvements.
The bad aspects of the natural cleansing diet is that it takes a little longer than other approaches to see results. More about the natural cleansing diet….
