Happy New Year! It is snowing outside and after reading Andreas article on Gratitude I am feeling extremely grateful. So grateful in fact that I am actually excited to start my annual January Detox! Each new year comes and I feel the desire to shed a litle extra and find the health within. This year is no different. Starting in late January (I am delaying simply b/c I am doing it with a whole group of people and we all need time to get our ducks in a row) I will be embarking on a 4 week detox. I find it is one of the best ways to get healthy, shed some weight and really reinforce great eating habits. Below you will find some of my top tips for detoxing.
1) Clean out your kitchen. Eliminate the following foods: Wheat, dairy, red meat, meat by-products, bad fats (ie. trans and saturated), alcohol, coffee (yikes!), sugar and white things (such as flour, white rice, potatoes etc).
2) Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Drink 2 litres of water per day and replace your coffee with green tea or herbal teas.
3) Exercise! Since our skin is one of our largest detoxification organs sweating can be really detoxifying. Aim for at least 3 x 30 minute cardio sessions per week. (If you can’t find the time to work up a sweat…how about a nice steam?).
4) Eat less, more frequently. Use the Japanese philosophy of eat until you are 75% full, no more. Giving your digestive system a break can be the best thing you can do for your body. 10% of your energy is spent digesting, save a bit of that and the rest can be used for detoxing! Think 5 mini meals instead of 3 big ones.
5) Fruits and Veggies. 75% of your plate should be filled with high nutrient dense, but low calorie dense fruits and vegetables. The more colourful the better!
If you do the above things for 4 weeks I can almost guarantee you will come away feeling lighter, cleaner and more energetic than you did coming in!!
Happy Detoxing,
Christine
Christine is a nutritionist, yoga instructor and personal trainer who specializes in weight loss and womens health at Four Forty Fitness for Women in Burlington, Ontario. Check out the website at www.fourfortyfitness.ca
Exercising every day and drinking 3 l of water and taking baths with epsom salts is how I detox my body. I also eliminate processed foods and supplement my diet with raw foods and milk thistle.
Hi Christine,
I hear you! Life can get complicated so I like your approach of taking things in ‘bite sized chunks’. You have made some great changes to your diet it seems…next exercise. As you have said, you have many ‘roadblocks’. A couple of tips in that department.
1) Find an exercise video that you like and do it at home. This is easy and convenient and you can do it when your daughter is awake. You may not always get through the whole video but even 20 minutes is better than none. ps-you can get some from your local library and that way you won’t get bored with the same one all the time.
2) Find a Mom and Tot exercise group.
3) Find a way to exercise with your daughter. I personally love yoga and will do it with my kids around. I will downward dog while they run under me. I will do a push up with them underneath me. I will lunge while they run cirles around me.
Also, don’t make it too big of a production. For exercise to be effective it doesn’t have to last one hour and have you huffing and puffing. Start with 10 minutes a day and gradually work your way up and try to find something you enjoy, at least a little bit!
A little food for thought…your ‘roadblocks’ are only as big as you make them out to be. If exercise and eating well are a priority to you I can assure you that there is a way around these roadblocks.
I have a hectic schedule! I teach grade 1 and I have a toddler at home. So, finding time to eat properly and exercise is nearly impossible. This “living by the seat of my pants” kind of attitude was starting to get to me. I was easily stressed, very lethargic and generally in poor spirits. So with this new year, I decided that I needed a change and the first thing that I could easily control was diet. For the past 2 weeks, I have aimed for balanced meals with a huge emphasis on fruits and vegetables (my steamer is my new best friend) and reduced the amount of processed food to almost none. It is remarkable how just a small change in diet can completely change my energy levels and now my mood.
Next is exercise. I just run into so many road blocks, weather (running outside), traffic (exercising before and after work). By the time my daughter is in bed. I’m bushed! Any advice would be great.
One week detoxes are definately helpful and I used to do them all the time. The reason I have changed it to a longer time span is that I felt that 7 days was not long enough to instill and reinforce the good habits I was forming during those 7 days. Does that make sense? FYI: I tend to be really strict during my first 7-14days and then gradually get a bit more flexible adding things back in for the last 14 days so by the end of the 4 weeks I am pretty much back to a healthier than average ‘normal’.
I use to detox in my eary 20’s every spring and fall. I remember feeling soo good. I completed one in sept. 2008 and found it hard. Reading your tips…makes it clearer. I have a question. Are one or two weeks detoxes a waste of time. Are 4 weeks the way to go?
I can’t say cheese is all bad, but it just isn’t really very good. I use cheese as a treat, rather than a staple in my diet. It is high fat (if it is low fat it just doesn’t taste right to me), high salt and really doesn’t offer too much in the way of nutrition. Besides the fact that many people tend to over do it on the cheese. I would rather have yogurt if I were going to do dairy.
I have a weakness for cheese. Is it really that bad ?
It sounds so easy and do-able when you read it, I just hope to find the strength to actually DO it.
Getting rid of all the white stuff will also be a challenge in this household.
Thanks so much for the tips! I will see how much I can incorporate into my daily routine.
Happy 2009!
Hi Sherrimae,
Here is my quick tip for you. Fruits and vegetables. Make them the focus of your day, all other foods should be complements of these. Half of your plate or bowl should be full of these low calorie, high nutrient foods, the other half should be comprised of lean protein and/or healthy whole grains.
Breakfast example: 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/4 cup dry oats (cook into oatmeal), 1/4 cup yogurt.
Snack: 1 fruit with 10 nuts.
Lunch example: large salad with 3/4 can wild salmon plus 1 slice whole grain bread.
Snack 2: 1 cup red peppers with 4 tbsp hummus
Dinner example: Veggie stir fry with 3 oz grilled chicken and 1/2 cup brown rice.
Here I sit after having my 3rd child in 4 years wondering where to start my lifestyle change? Being one of those people who stayed away from everything I was supposed to (alcohol, aspertane, soft cheese) you name it I avoided it….however I never said no to a second scoop of icecream or extra icing on my cake. I now see the sags and bags left over from being pregnant, and after listening to many of my friends say that after the 3rd there is no way to get your body back again, I need some advice. As a breastfeeding mom with two others monkeys to run after, what quick tips can I use NOW, that will not add more to my crazy day….I am looking forward to hearing all of the good advice people are willing to give.
Hooray!!
Thank you for making it so clear and concise.
I fled to a healthier regime after seeing “Fast Food Nation”. My reason for doing so was not for weight loss but simply for ethical reasons.
I lost a surprising amount of fat simply by reducing processed foods, conventional meats of all kinds, and conventional dairy. When removing the hormone treated foods, increasing organic veggies and fruits and de-stressing significantly, my regular routine of physicality of keeping up after active girls was enough. Eating conventional foods, I could not get healthy lasting results no matter what diet/workout I combined in the past.
I lost my carbohydrate addiction which for decades I thought was a fact of life.
It was a mind shift of eating ethically when possible, focusing on the act of eating and enjoying it for what it is and learning to be in the moment to see the best of each day.
For over a year now I experienced lasting freedom from yo-yoing up and down in weight and state of being. Priceless.
No question, at first it seemed daunting but then one day, it all changed for me and I was free of the constant craving of things that just made me guilty and run down.
HAVE FAITH. It is possible to be healthy physically without huge sacrifices of time for dedicated exercise or constant dieting.
Wishing you all a year of wellness.
Idas