How to Detox Your Body and Lose Weight Naturally

A body detox, sometimes known as a cleanse, is often talked about as if it’s as simple as going to bed at night.

The problem is that is often not the truth, and many people drift into trying a detox out of desperation, and fail because they find it tough and confusing.

If you want to learn how to detox your body to lose weight naturally, you have to educate yourself and have a clear strategy, so that you don’t set yourself up to fail.

A proper body detox doesn’t have to be grueling or damaging. And it’s not just about a dramatic cutting of calories to lose weight either. It’s about kickstarting your body and mind to make a long-term positive change.

Get Yourself Motivated, Prepared and Supported to Detox

The first part of a successful body detox strategy is to make sure that you are motivated to do it and supported through it.

To make sure you are motivated, you need to prepare by:

As well as understanding and preparing, it’s essential that you are supported through your detox.

Undertaking a body detox to lose weight can be grueling, so it’s essential you do everything you can to maximize your chance of success, which means getting a team behind you to motivate you and keep you focused.

Get at least one person to support you. It’s great to talk to a trusted friend in advance, educating them about what you are going to do, why and when. You can then use them to keep motivated, by telling them how it’s going, and asking them to make sure you stick to it with positive encouragement.

If you haven’t got anyone to turn to, then you could try creating a diary, starting from when you are preparing. You can then at least get your problems out of your head each day. An alternative is to look for online forums, or look for groups on social media.

Avoid Extreme Cleanses

When you start looking into body detox options, it can often seem quite scary, with some pretty wacky and extreme detox structures out there.

The other problem is that most of these cleanse strategies have no basis in nutritional science, they are just made up by people who tried them and passed them on, often to just make money.

The thing to remember is that at its heart, detoxing your body is quite simple. You don’t have to undertake an extreme solution to succeed.

For example, there is a popular cleanse out there where you live on lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for 10 days. There is absolutely no need to be so extreme in your own detox. Although you might lose weight rapidly, usually through water weight loss, you are starving your body, putting yourself through hell and setting yourself up for a calorie frenzy at the end of it.

6 Simple Principles to Detox your Body Naturally

Before you dive in and grab an extreme body detox program, it’s important to remember that at the heart of any detox there are several common principles. All you have to do is stick to these principles and you will give yourself a better chance of kickstarting long-term mental and physical change.

Change happens when it becomes embedded in your daily structure. That’s why rather than focusing on extremes, it’s better to focus on getting success through making your detox manageable.

1. Drink a lot of water.

I’m sure you’ve heard this lots of times in your life. You must drink lots of water generally, but it’s essential when you’re on a detox. Water helps to flush your system through and speed up the elimination of toxins. You should get into the great habit of drinking around eight normal sized glasses of water each day.

2. Undertake daily light exercise.

Exercising each day helps to speed up your metabolism, get your blood pumping, and helps you to sweat, which pushes toxins out of your body. On top of that, weight loss is greatly aided by exercise which burns fat.

3. Eat key food types.

A body detox to lose weight should still give you the key calories, vitamins and nutrients you need. This is achieved through eliminating sugars and empty carbohydrates, and replacing them with whole grains, fruit and lots of vegetables.

4. Eliminate bad foods.

Get rid of sugary foods, empty carbohydrates such as white pasta, and fatty foods. On top of that, cut out processed foods and poor quality meat.

5. Get rid of unhealthy additives.

If you want to detox your body you’ve got to stop putting rubbish in it. Especially rubbish which builds up over time and can cause serious issues. I’m talking about things like sugar, caffeine, salt, alcohol, unhealthy fats and tobacco. As well as being unhealthy, a lot of these ingredients slow down your body system and dehydrate you.

6. Look after yourself physically and mentally.

A detox will be much harder if you don’t look after yourself. If you are stressed and anxious you will struggle to keep at it. So look after yourself mentally, and also physically. Take a relaxing bath filled with a natural aromatherapy products for example.

Should You Exercise During a Detox?

Exercise is key to helping you to be successful with detox. On top of that, just for general health exercise is always recommended.

Exercise helps to relieve stress, and promotes relaxation, increased energy and well-being.

You should look to do 30 minutes of light exercise each day generally, and this still applies during a detox. But you should be incredibly careful about the exercise you do while doing a body detox.

Too much exercise will burn calories that you can’t afford to lose, which will lead to fatigue and cravings. It’s best to stick to yoga, walking and very light cardio.

You should also not do exercise that is too heavy either. Going to the gym and doing a one hour heavy weights routine on a detox is asking for trouble and setting yourself up to fail. Not only will increase cravings and decrease energy, but you will get tired much more quickly and put yourself at risk of injury.

What You Should Eat on a Weight Loss Detox

Shopping can become a real challenge when you are on a cleanse. Because you are more hungry and have changed your diet and routine, you are more at risk from grabbing at unhealthy foods in the supermarket.

So a top tip is to get everything you need in advance, and if you really think you will struggle because you have a history of poor shopping habits then it might be an idea to get somebody else to go shopping for you during your detox.

The key principles of what you should eat on a weight loss detox are:

• Lots of fresh or frozen vegetables
• Focus on green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, asparagus, beans and kale
• Eat citrus, melons and berries, but don’t overload as they contain lots of natural sugar
• Stock up on raw nuts and seeds for a healthy snack that provides good fats and proteins
• Cook foods that include beans, lentils and chickpeas
• Top up with brown rice or quinoa

You may decide to not include dairy, such as eggs and cheese. But if you do it’s important that you continue to take in foods that have calcium and are also fortified. Continuing to drink milk is a great way of doing this.

A great alternative to boring yourself with stacks of vegetables every day is to make smoothies. Don’t juice, as this can remove five, just a blend together fruit and vegetables to create great tasting, nutrient-packed drinks.

How Many Calories Should I Eat on a Detox?

When you are learning how to detox your body to lose weight, one of the key things you will need to consider is your calorie intake.

Whether you follow a detailed detox plan, or just create your own using the principles we have talked about, it’s important you don’t get obsessive. The more you obsess over food and weight, the more you will focus on your hunger, and set yourself up to be demoralized by failure.

I would suggest that you undertake a seven-day detox that has two stages, a three-day cleanse where you are more extreme, and then a four day follow-up where you introduce a more varied and normal diet, but sticking to the same principles.

During the seven days don’t weigh yourself. If you weigh yourself every day, you are just setting yourself up to react to minor variations that could be purely about water gain or loss. Weigh yourself at the start of the seven days, and weigh yourself at the end.

In terms of actual calorie counts, it will be your decision based on what you set up through following a prepared plan, or making up your own.

An average female for example should consume 2000 cal per day. During a seven-day detox, reducing this to 1200 cal for the first three days, and then 1500 cal for the next four is a sensible starting point. It is better to start more gently and succeed than to dramatically chop out calories and fail.

Start Long Term Changes to Detox and Lose Weight

However you start, it’s important to realize that when you detox your body to lose weight, you should be doing it as a long-term regime change.

This means learning. It means getting principles in place and setting up long-term habit changes.

Which means you are going to have some trial and error. You are going to learn more about yourself, and about the various ways you can detox your body to lose weight healthily and as quickly as possible.

Learning how to detox to lose weight is a journey, not a quick fix. As soon as you understand that and get your own framework in place, the better your chances of success will be.