First, lighten up your toxin load. Eliminate alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, refined sugars, and saturated fats, all of which act as toxins in the body and are obstacles to your healing process. Also, minimise the use of chemical-based household cleaners and personal health care products (cleansers, shampoos, deodorants and toothpastes), and substitute natural alternatives.
Eat plenty of fibre, including brown rice and organically grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Fibre is essential in detoxing as it helps to bind to toxins and excrete them. The last thing you want while detoxing is to be constipated as this allows for toxins to recirculate around the body. Fibre will help to prevent this. If you do suffer with constipation, or get constipated whilst cleansing/fasting, book yourself in for a colon hydrotherapy treatment. If you want a recommendation, drop us an email at: feelgood@justfortummies.co.uk.
Beets, radishes, artichokes, cabbage, broccoli, spirulina, chlorella, and seaweed are excellent detoxifying foods. In particular, the cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts) have excellent detoxifying benefits. Another great addition is coriander, which acts as a chelating agent, dragging heavy metals out of the body.
Take a vitamin C supplement, which helps the body produce glutathione, a liver compound that drives away toxins. Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant and detoxifier of every cell in your body.
Cleanse and protect the liver by taking herbs such as my Just For Tummies Milk Thistle tablets, and drinking green tea. Another good supplement to take to help bind to toxins and help the bowel to eliminate them is my activated Charcoal capsules.
Dry-brush your skin every day, this helps to get the lymphatic system moving and stops it becoming stagnant and sluggish which helps to remove toxins.
Boost your vitamin D levels to improve your immune system and mood; you can take a supplement, eat foods that are richest in vitamin D such as eggs and mushrooms, and expose your skin to any sunlight you can during the winter (often hard when we wrap ourselves up in scarves, hats and gloves) but at least try and obtain some on your face by not wearing an SPF moisturiser or makeup.
Intermittent fasting –try to rest your digestive system by finishing eating at 7pm in the evening and not having anything to eat until 9 or 10am the following day; this means that the digestive system has 14+ hours of rest to do its housekeeping. When you do eat the next day, start off by drinking warm lemon and ginger water 30 minutes before you eat solid food or alternatively a cup of my Tummy Tea, which is full of cleansing herbs and spices. If you can manage on a juice first thing until lunch time then this would be a great way of cleansing the system further, and flooding it with nutrients and vitamins to aid the liver in processing toxins with minimal work required by the digestive system. If you feel too hungry to manage with just a juice in the morning, that’s OK, it doesn’t suit everyone. In this case, you can fit your juice in as a snack later in the day, and start your day with a cleansing vegetable broth, a smoothie, or some quinoa porridge.
Decrease your intake of large amounts of animal protein as this is hard for the body to break down and process. Instead include vegetable sources of protein and invest in a vegan protein powder in order to consume enough protein. Protein is important in liver detoxification, however it is important to consume the right type of protein and not bombard the digestive system with red meat that is acidic and difficult to break down.
Bathe in Epsom salts. The magnesium in the salts is taken up trans-dermally and it helps the liver to work optimally. It is also responsible for the muscle action of the bowels, preventing constipation. The sulphur element of the salts draws toxins out from the body.
