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Health & Fitness

Should You Do a Cleanse in 2014?

Whole Food Cleanse or Juice Cleanse?  Both are very different, yet have similar goals in mind:  To feel better, remove toxins, release waste and ‘clean the slate’.  

Imagine if you lived in a very small space.  What would it be like if you could only remove 20% of the trash you brought in?  What would it feel like to be in that space after a month?  Now imagine a year!  This is how your cells feel when they cannot release enough waste.

Cleansing your cells will improve your ability to absorb nutrients and eliminate waste, that taxes the liver (thus zapping your energy), and reduce disease, weight gain and cravings.  It will also stabilize and improve your energy allowing more time for the things you want or need to do without struggle. Can you imagine living without afternoon caffeine?  Yep, it’s possible :)

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When your body cannot eliminate waste properly, it becomes acidic and toxic. When it becomes acidic and toxic, your blood and your cell rejuvenation slow down.  When this happens, your body starts to slow down and break down.

There are three reasons why toxins build up in your body.

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1.  You take in more than you can eliminate either with food or lifestyle.  This inhibits your body from being able to fully recover.

2.  Toxins in our food, our environment, and our thoughts create waste that our body cannot use.

3.  An overly acidic diet that allows micro-organisms (yeasts, molds, funguses, etc.) to produce mycotoxins in our body which make more toxins.

Toxins are stored in your cells.  The quality of your life comes down to the quality of your cells.

Body cleansing and detoxification is something we all want to do from time to time. Every few months it’s a great idea to spend a whole week focused on giving the body a really good detox to clean out the system. It helps to improve health, rebalance hormones, enhance gut health, boost energy, promote weight loss , reduce cravings, get a skin glow and best of all, create healthier food and mindset habits.

Top 10 detox tips to help you get more out of the process.

1. Minimize exposure to food toxins

If you’re going to do a Detox, it’s  important to eat organic foods because there are so many chemicals and pesticides in conventional produce. I know eating organic isn’t always easy to do all the time, but during a detox buy organic veggies and grass fed organic meat and chicken and observe the difference it makes.

2. Drink filtered water

Water is the most important thing to drink during your Detox, and you want to be drinking about 2 liters a day. But you definitely don’t want to be drinking tap water full of chlorine and other chemicals and metals. Get yourself a water filter and drink good quality water.  It’s very important because toxic water will only add toxic load to the body, when the purpose of it is to cleanse.

3. Sweat and skin brushing

The skin is an organ that has the ability to help us eliminate toxins. Hosting thousands of pores we can promote this detox ability by doing 2 things, dry skin brushing and sweating.

Dry skin brushing removes dead skin cells, promotes circulation, and increases elimination of toxins. Use a natural bristle brush before getting into the shower and rub your skin gently in circular motions with the brush. The pores are then open so when you sweat, more toxins can be released. To sweat more you can take a sauna or a few hot baths in the week you are cleansing.

4. Eat detoxifying foods

Focus on the type of foods that will aid detoxification. Try to eat a largely plant based diet during your detox, so that means increasing your veggie intake. Some great vegetables that aid detox are cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, kale, Brussels  sprouts, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, watercress, radish, turnip and bok choy. Green tea, cilantro/coriander, and dandelion greens are also great detoxifying foods. Veggies are alkaline based foods and in general most of us can get slightly acidic, which is not a good thing. So by eating more veggies you are promoting your body to get back to a correct acid/alkaline ph balance.

5. Take detoxifying herbs

You don’t have to take herbs but it sure does help. Milk thistle is a liver supporting herb and during a detox the liver is going to be working overtime to rid the body of toxins. We also want to stimulate the liver to function better and support kidney elimination too, and that’s exactly what milk thistle does.

6. Support the detox with supplements

Although doing a detox is a good thing, it does place additional stress on the body during the process. It’s important to protect organs and glands. Supplements can easily help you do that, so here are a few good ones to take during your detox.

Vitamin C- Our vitamin C stores are harboured by the adrenal glands (our stress glands) so when under stress they get depleted quite easily. Increasing vitamin C helps to avoid common detox effects such as headaches and tiredness. It even helps avoid headaches while giving up coffee.

Magnesium – helps boost over 300 enzyme functions (a co-enzyme) in the body to support metabolism and it’s also a great relaxer.

Probiotics – help to replace the bad guys in the gut with the good guys so that digestive function is supported and stimulated.

I also recommend several other products that support the detox process as part of the cleanse.

7. Exercise Daily

Gentle exercise is a great way to get the pathways of elimination moving, sweating through the skin, motions in the bowels, and organs stimulated through increased circulation. You don’t want to overdo it on a detox but a daily walk, yoga or foam rolling can really help support the process and boost your results too.

8. Drink detoxifying and energizing teas

Herbal teas are great because not only do we have so many to choose from, but they also provide additional health benefits because they contain healing properties. During a detox you can aid the liver by drinking roasted dandelion root tea a great substitute for coffee. Dandelion is definitely one of my top recommendations for all things detox. You can also include ginseng, cinnamon, and ginger, these are all energizing and can often be found in an herbal Yogi tea blend. You can also specifically buy detox blends, so take a look around and dose up on the herbal tea while detoxing.

9. Rest and relax

A detox can place additional load on the body during the process so the last thing you want to do is be stressing and going non-stop. It’s very important to give the body time to rest and relax to allow the body to go about its work in aiding the detox. Spend more time during your detox week doing relaxing and restful activities such as nature walks, reading uplifting books, taking baths, watching a funny movie, drawing, playing music, laughing. This rest and relaxation part of the process.

10. Stick to the program

Whichever program you choose for your detox, you have to stick to the program.  Otherwise your efforts will be for nothing. Many people struggle with a fasting or juicing detox, which is why I often recommend a clean food detox like my 7-Day Whole Food Cleanse. I find this is an achievable goal for everyone and really sets the stage to keep it clean moving forward. The most important thing regardless, is just to stick to the plan.  I have had several clients get great results by continuing on beyond the actual 7-Day Whole Food Cleanse and reap big rewards for themselves!

If you have read this far, you are probably very interested in learning more.  I am running a Winter Whole Food Cleanse in Late January with details coming out soon.  If you are interested please click here to join my newsletter list so you don’t miss the details or email Karen@vianutritionandhealth.com.

If you are simply interested in 1, 3 or 5-Day Juice Cleanse I offer the SUJA Juice cleanses to local clients with no shipping charges (that’s huge).

Karen Phillips http://www.vianutritionandhealth.com

 

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