Foodspa's Blog

Dear Readers,

I hope that you had a very good Christmas and New year and that you made plenty of resolutions to get fitter and healthier this year.

It is best to start early but not too drastically or you may not keep it up.

Below is a simple and very easy guide to starting off the New Year with a gentle approach to dietary changes, later nearer to spring I recommend that you you do a much more rigorous deep cleanse.

The key to successful dietary changes are:

1. Preparation

2. Knowledge of why you are doing and what the benefits are

3. Practical solutions

4. Committment

The following is a very basic guide and if you want further advise, dietary guidance, recipes or even a full health assessment contact a good nutritional therapist or my details for consultations are below.

Making a New Year’s resolution to be more healthy is great, but when you actually come to do it, it can be daunting as most people are not sure how to start, or even if they do they may not really know what is good for their bodies.

For most people doing a drastic detox straight after Christmas is NOT the healthy thing to do.  The body is put under a great strain if too many toxins are released all at once, and it is advisable to work with a professional if you want to do a proper detox so that you know how to support your body properly.

Detoxifying too much too quickly can trigger disease and illness and can actually make you feel very sick.

It is far better to take it slowly and build up to a proper detoxification in the spring.

Here is a very simple guide to start you off, do it for a month and see how you feel hopefully you will feel so much better that you retain some of the guide as a new dietary habit:

Remove / Reduce:

1. Reduce all sugars including fruit sugars, especially dried fruit, remove sugar drinks, desserts, candy, chocolate – you can eat a small square of dark chocolate a day
2. Reduce or remove white refined products – white bread, white pasta, white rice, white pastries etc
3. Reduce or remove Dairy – all cheese, milk and cream – a little butter and yoghurt is okay as long as the yoghurt is plain, organic and contains live cultures.
4. Remove ALL alcohol and caffeine drinks
5. Remove coffee and reduce tea or replace with very weak tea or herbal tea
6. Remove or reduce wheat products
7. Poor fats – deep fried foods, cakes, pastries, junk foods
8. Processed meats
9. Burnt or very browned foods
10. Salt – we all consume too much sodium chloride, it stops our cells from being able to properly detoxify we only need max 1 gram per day, check ingredients on packs.

Add / increase:

1. Water
2. Herbal tea – 3 cups of green tea a day speeds up liver detox
3. Vegetable juice
4. Vegetables
5. Raw vegetables – especially red cabbage
6. Alternative wholegrains – spelt wheat, millet, kamut, rye
7. Artichokes – increase livers ability to dump toxins
8. Bitter foods – chicory, fresh walnuts, rocket, radish, and radiccio – increases liver’s ability to detoxify.
9. Pulse fibres – Chickpeas, butter /Lima beans, Harricot beans
10. Oats – but not sugary oat products
11. Antioxidants – you can but special sugar free antioxidant drinks and saches that you add to water and you can take antioxidant supplements
12. Cardiovascular exercise to get circulation going and clear out toxins