I read this week that film actress Gwynth Paltrow was saying that the best way to detox and lose weight was to limit your calorie intake take to 300 per day!! Not Possible!! Someone living a normal life, with jobs to do and children to run around after, cannot possibly function properly on 300 calories a day! Not only that, as we all know, when following a diet which restricts calories so hugely, the weight may come piling off quickly, but, it piles back on even quicker!
Actually, one of the best ways to detox AND lose weight is to follow a sugar free diet, which has plenty of fresh vegetables and protein rich foods like beans. Ideally you should Focus on foods like flax seeds, beetroot, walnuts, oily fish, garlic, greens and tomatoes and whilst avoiding alcohol and fizzy drinks. Drink plenty of water and limit tea and coffee. This limits all the stimulants and things that strip your body of nutrients. It also ensures that your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to heal itself and cleanse the tissues.
But as well as this it is absolutely vital to look at the health of your liver. Any detox diet which does not look at cleansing the liver, is not going to work as well as you would want it to. Your liver is your body’s main detoxifying organ – it breaks down all the wastes and eliminates them. It deals with all the chemicals and medications. Therefore, you can detox your tissues with juices, or cocao or lemon juice etc, but unless you clean your liver out, those toxins are not going to leave your body as effectively as you would like.
Your liver is also your main metabolic organ. Signs of a sluggish liver, to a practitioner of natural medicine will include weight gain, bloating, indigestion, skin problems, low energy, bowel problems and sugar cravings. Boosting the liver function then could be really useful – not just in ensuring that your body is detoxing properly but also in helping shift a few excess pounds. The best way to support your liver in my opinion is with Vogels Milk Thistle Complex This combines milk Thistle, which has been reported in clinical trials to help promote the regeneration of liver cells, with artichoke, which helps lubricate the bowel, easing bowel issues. Artichoke also helps with indigestion symptoms and bloating, making it a great addition to this remedy. Milk Thistle Complex also contains dandelion, which again with the breakdown of fats. Taking a course of this whilst following the simple dietary guidelines I have laid down, should help you achieve what you want from a detox, without starvation or feeling awful. We do have a free diet sheet available to support this – if you would like it, please contact us and we will email it to you.
Tag: Detox
Bloating? Sluggish? Lose weight & feel great
Bloating? Sluggish? Struggling with Irritable Bowel? Read on and learn how to banish bloating, ease IBS, lose weight and feel great, with a our New Year, New You, Detox .
In the diet:
Cut out sugars – including fruit and fruit juices – for a couple of weeks. This is because sugar feeds the fermentation process that causes the bloating and wind. It also leads to sugar cravings. So cutting it out of your diet for a few weeks can help flatten your tummy and keep sugar cravings in check.
Also cut out alcohol and limit tea and coffee, whilst increasing herbal teas and water – this will help to flush your system out. Again easing that bloating feeling. For those who would like it we do have a diet sheet available to help with this – if you would like a free copy, please contact us to let us know, we will email it to you.
Additional help:
Make sure your bowels are working daily – this is important because your bowels are the main elimination route for toxins. You are never going to effectively detox if you are not emptying your bowels each day. To help with this if it is a problem try some Coloclear Extra – a capsule which combines great fibres with things which help improve bowel function like Aloe Vera. We have had some great results with this, one lady who was only going to the toilet once a week swore that it was Coloclear that got her going to the toilet normally again!
Kill off ‘bad’ bacteria – it is often thought that it is a build up of the putrefactive, fermentative bacteria which lead to many of the symptoms of IBS, including wind and bloating. Using a supplement like citricidal, which is a natural anti fungal and anti bacterial supplement, over a couple of weeks could help to reduce their numbers and therefore in turn reduce bloating and wind.
Boost up your good bacteria – as well as killing off the fermentative bacteria, you need to make sure you have good levels of your friendly bacteria, which are involved in maintaining a healthy bowel function. This will ensure that the unfriendly bacteria you have killed off with the citricidal have no room to grow back and also that your guts are in the healthiest state possible. One of my favourite good bacteria supplements is Higher Natures Pro-Bio Daily a robust pro biotic which is not killed off by stomach acid and works hard to boost your colonies of good bacteria in the gut.
We have often found that addressing these simple issues has made a big difference to how our customers feel – one girl who had been struggling for years with bloating and IBS told us that she felt better than she had in years after only two weeks of this – so it’s definitely worth a go. To give this a go for yourself, click here.