Detox Diets - What are you actually detoxing?

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Spring is prime “detox” season, but what are you actually detoxing?

Your body does a great job detoxing each and everyday so what are you really doing the detox for? Your kidney, liver, and lungs handle a lot of the detoxification for your body.

Some detoxes can have a negative impact on your overall health. Let’s review 3 of the popular detoxes out there.

  1. Juice cleanses

    Drink juice for days, but eat no food. Doing this can make your body think it is starving and you can start breaking down your own muscle. It also eliminates fibre which is quite critical to your body’s own detoxing system of elimination. Consider the high amount of sugar in most juices and you blood sugar and energy will be all over the place.

  2. Fasting

    If you don’t eat your body needs to get energy from somewhere and like a juice cleanse it will start breaking down your muscle for energy. It can also slow down your metabolism as your body tries to conserve energy. This is why some people gain weight post cleanse as their metabolism is slower so when they start eating again they don’t burn off the food the same way.

  3. Elimination Diets

    There is a time and place for this absolutely depending on symptoms and conditions. However, just cutting out all dairy, meat, fat, wheat or any other food group from your diet and not being mindful with what you are replacing it with can cause a host of issues.

So with this knowledge how can we look to support our own detoxification processes;

  1. Drink lots of water

  2. Eliminate processed foods that are full of chemicals and additives

  3. Eat lots of greens

  4. Ensure you are getting enough fibre

  5. Move your body

Simple and sustainable.