Are you trying to plan detoxification and don’t really know how to start? Here you can find some tips and my experiences.
What does Detoxification mean for your body?
By means of a healthy diet consisting of plenty of fruit and vegetable juices, yoga, Pilates, exercises, and baths, pollutants, and toxins in the body should be bound and eliminated.
Fortunately, the human body has the ability to self-cleanse and eliminate toxins through the liver, kidneys, intestines, and skin. Due to the increasing lifestyle of consuming more comfort food, coughing, and environmental toxins, more toxins are absorbed by our body than they can excrete on their own. Especially the unhealthy diet consisting of many unfavorable fats and sugars as well as increased alcohol consumption and stress can negatively influence this.
The deposits in the large intestine, or more precisely on the intestinal walls, ensure that the absorption of vital nutrients is difficult or even impossible. If nutrients such as vitamins and minerals cannot be absorbed, important endogenous processes are blocked and your body can no longer heal itself.
Regular detox cures should support your body to remove toxins quickly and support the microbiome.
What should I look for when I decide to start detoxification?
Before you can start your detoxification, it is advisable to perform a bowel cleansing. You can do this with laxatives, colonic irrigation, enemas, and supplements. However, keep in mind to do this on a day when you are at home. Bowel emptying will occur at different rates depending on the method you choose.
2 Methods
For the next few days, completely avoid solid foods and instead drink freshly squeezed fruit and vegetable juices, unsweetened teas, and detox water. The fiber and micronutrients contained to provide the necessary metabolic boost and drive the digestion properly. Massages, baths as well as sauna, yoga, and long walks in the fresh air are to strengthen the detoxifying effect.
The following days serve to slowly reintroduce healthy foods and adjust a balanced diet. Thus you start best with fiber-rich nutrition, which consists exclusively of fruit and vegetables or the juices freshly pressed from it. Solid foods are introduced slowly, as with therapeutic fasting.
Or you can opt for alkaline detoxification. In this case, acid-forming substances are completely eliminated. Classic acid builders are animal foods, dairy, and comfort foods. If you’d like to know what alkaline nutrition is all about, read my post – The 1×1 of Alkaline Nutrition.
The good news is, there are no set guidelines for the duration and frequency of detox cures. The range is from one regular detox day a week to add a week or two annually. If you decide to go on a fasting cure, it is advisable to consult your doctor beforehand in order to rule out the possibility that you already have deficiency symptoms that could cause you problems during this time.
My Detoxification
I divided my Detoxification time into 2 phases, the first part of the week consisted of 4 fasting days and the second part of the week consisted of 3 alkaline days.
My classical fasting day
08.00 hot water with lemon
08.30 relaxation exercise yoga or meditation, so that the lymphatic activity and blood circulation starts.
09.30 am one or two cups of green tea because it is rich in antioxidants that protect the body from free radicals. They destroy cells and weaken our microbiome.
Don’t forget: steadily throughout the day take detox water 3-4 liters/day, because it helps to eliminate water-soluble toxins.
12:00 Homemade vegetable broth (be careful to keep the salt content very low, because it binds the water and thus works against the elimination effect of toxins). We want to get rid of as much water as possible to get rid of the toxins with it.
Try to relax as much as possible throughout the day and only drink fruit and vegetable juices as well as detox teas and detox water.
Since I am not a big coffee drinker, I have no problems getting used to it. For the coffee drinkers the green tea brings in addition to the above-described benefits also a strong invigorating effect, this is due to the caffeine content. The theanine contained in it has a calming effect, unlike coffee, which does not make us nervous or jittery. It is important to choose high-quality tea. The antioxidant effect is neutralized by foods rich in iron (green vegetables, beet, legumes, meat). The effect is similar in the case of iron deficiency because green tea inhibits iron absorption.
My classical alkaline day
08.00 hot water with lemon
08.30 relaxation exercise yoga or meditation, so that the lymphatic activity and blood circulation starts.
09.30 one or two cups of green tea and warm spelled semolina with Sea Moss Gel turmeric, berries, and walnuts (inspiration under my Instagram account @magdasfoodprogramme highlight: Detoxification).
12.00 Lunchtime: quinoa coconut salad (cooked quinoa with sautéed onions, garlic, spinach, chickpeas, beans in coconut milk, turmeric, cumin, salt, pepper, berbere sauce).
Don’t forget: steadily throughout the day take in detox water 3-4 liters/day, as it helps to eliminate water-soluble toxins.
16.30 Dinner: stuffed sweet potato from the oven (inspiration under my Instagram account @magdasfoodprogramme in the reels).
What is the next step?
As already mentioned, you can then continue with an alkaline diet, as this has a particularly anti-inflammatory effect and boosts the immune system. It is particularly useful to carry out a detox cure before your change of diet. On the one hand, it makes it easier to get started with the new eating habits, and, on the other hand, you activate the body’s own defense programs once again. Especially the people who always have a craving for comfort food is helped with a short detox time.
I recommend you to consider detoxing not as an option to get rid of some kilos. It supports you to program your body for new beginnings, that is, to get rid of bad eating patterns and to grasp the importance of healthy eating. Subsequent dietary changes can then help you shed excess pounds and keep your figure sustainable. Write to me, you should need support thereby. personally, I live already for Längeren vegan. Because I felt so incredibly good during my detoxification time, I decided to follow a vegan alkaline diet.
A little tip from me:
I recommend you support your skin (scalp and face) during the cleansing process. This works especially well with a face mask consisting of Rassoul Clay and Sea Moss and for the hair, you can take the same mixture and add some apple cider vinegar. On top of that, I recommend you clean your tongue with a tongue brush in the morning and in the evening. Foot baths and yoga or meditation provide the necessary relaxation and at the same time activation of your metabolism.
In the article Detoxification – Support the detoxification of your intestine, you will learn some more background about the effect of detox on your body.