With the craziness of our busy schedules, it’s sometimes difficult to prepare a healthy dinner. This is usually when we tend to make poor choices and resort to fast food, and quick convenient pre-made foods. These “foods” are laden with chemicals and fillers. Detoxing can give your body the chance to rid of these toxins, give your body a chance to heal and reboot your system to healthier lifestyle. Preparation is the key to successfully sticking to any cleanse and ensure you don’t cheat on those days when you really just want to quit. Sunday is a great day to do this. Expect to set aside 4-6 hours.
First up: grocery shopping. It’s best to buy all organic products and support your local economy. If you are on a budget, try H-Mart in Gwinette County or the Cobb International Farmers Market (these are cool places if you have never been. Its like taking a field trip to the grocery store because of all the worldly produce that they have. You can even buy an entire frozen goat if you ever find yourself in need of one). You really want to focus on buying twice as many vegetables as fruit and try to “eat the rainbow” of colors. If there are vegetables that you don’t particurally like, you can put those into the 2 shakes allowed each day.
Also, try to buy some produce that is less ripe so that you’re food isn’t rotten by the end of the week. Once you’ve shopped for all of your food, its time to cut it up and ration it out. This is the most important part! I promise you that Thursday Day 4 is the hardest day and if you don’t have something readily accessable, it will increase your chances for cheating. Cut up most of your veggies and package them into individual containers.
Then, each night you can put portions of what you want to take into your “to go” containers for tomorrow’s lunch. Last year, I decided to make a bunch of smoothies two days at a time. If you don’t have a lot of time to eat during the day, smoothies are a great way to get a variety of nutrients. If you need receipes, check out our pinterest page. http://www.pinterest.com/coreychiro/smoothiesdetoxing/
Just remember, that you cannot add anything except fruits and vegetables (and the protein twice per day). Use juicier fruits such as pomegranite, pineapples and oranges to make the shakes more liquefied. I have found that blueberries, strawberries and bananas tend to make the smooties frothy and when they sit in the refridgerator, they tend to get too thick. You usually have to reblend these, so eat these within a few hours.
Ideally, you want to eat as many raw fruits and vegetables as you can. However, you can steam veggies for 4 minutes if need be. This can be your savior on those days when you really just feel like giving up and eating a cheeseburger. When I am feeling this way, I steam mushrooms, asparagus, onions, and broccoli and then lightly toss them in balsamic vinegar. Its amazing how you will realize just how comforting warm food can be and it be just enough to keep you going on.
Detoxing can sometimes render some unpleasant symptoms such as headaches, nausea, dizziness and vomiting. It is imperative to make sure that you are drinking A LOT of water especially the first 3 days and especially if you are used to having your caffeine in the morning or afternoon. Keep going, you will usually feel better the next day