Body Detox Diet Tips Beating The Food Demons

A three week detox diet is not a long time to abstain from alcohol, saturated fats, sugars, cakes and chocolates. I don't deny that you may have moments of weakness, but I will show you how to cope with those. The essential point is to make a three-week commitment to adjusting your dietary intake so as to avoid potentially addictive foods.

We are not addicted to lettuce or celery or foods that are good for us but, unfortunately, we do become addicted to foods that are toxic and potentially dangerous. A detox diet sets out the way for you to retrain your body to overcome these addictions. This is not a journey of self-sacrifice and pain. We are going to work together, devoting three weeks to the job. I am not saying that you will never be able to eat pizza and cakes or drink wine ever again, but that a three week detox program will set you on a course that will prepare you for the next stage - the maintenance program - where a greater variety of foods will be reintroduced into your diet.

This maintenance program will help you to deal with the effects of eating a slice of pizza, a slice of cake or drinking a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without it having a detrimental effect on your system.

A 21-day holistic detox reconditions your body so that you can eat the occasional 'naughty' without causing problems. The odd pizza or cake can easily be digested and eliminated without causing stagnation or weight gain. It is not going to clutter up your colon or congeal and adhere to your digestive tract - unless you overdo it, of course.

Fresh Food Is Best

A healthy detox diet will rid your system of the toxins and poisons that it has accumulated over many years. I don't just mean the internal build up of waste matter that is ingested with food, but also the effects of environmental pollution on the body. To this end, you need to be thinking about the nutrient value of the food you are actually putting in your mouth. Too many of us rely on supermarket convenience foods that have little nutritional value and are packaged in plastics that are themselves full of toxins and chemicals.

Intensive farming, nowadays a widespread practice, also poses food problems. It often involves the use of artificial and chemical stimulants, and/or genetic engineering, and while this may result in vast quantities of food being produced more quickly, there is a greater likelihood of that food being devoid of nutritional value and producing a build up of toxins in the body. Furthermore, the fruit, vegetables, chicken etc. that you see on the shelves may have crossed continents and oceans before reaching the store. They are, therefore, not fresh and their nutrient levels are that much lower.

I want to encourage you to eat, as far as possible, freshly prepared meals from food that is either in season and grown locally (which means the vitamin and mineral content will be considerably higher) or food that is grown as organically as possible. However, don't be mistaken by thinking that 'organic' necessarily means 'pure and toxin-free'. The situation is more complex than that.

Organic And Biodynamic

Although vegetables may be grown organically and locally, this does not mean that the farmer has total control over the quality of his animal manure or organic fertilizer. For example, the water consumed by cows in the streams and rivers may be full of heavy metals and other toxins produced by chemical factories. Toxic animal manure may then be used as an organic fertilizer for organic foods. In the UK, the Soil Association monitors organic food using very strict guidelines but the same is not always true for organic associations in other countries. This is why it is essential to wash everything, even organic produce, before eating it.

Biodynamic produce, which is increasing in popularity, is better because it is grown and fed using a holistic system: all the meats, fruits and vegetables produced are a product of the farm itself with no outside additives, manures or pesticides. There are several farms, spread around the country, that have retail outlets on site, and some supermarkets stock produce grown by biodynamic methods.