Detox • Body detox plus a 2 day plan

A green smoothie with dandelions and pears in the morning, an exotic salad with avocado and oranges at lunchtime, coconut soup with sweet potatoes in the evening – if you try a detox cure, you will forego sugar, coffee and other unhealthy foods for a while.

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What is detox?

Detox comes from Detoxification, the English word for detoxification: Detox cures should work like a cleansing program and support the body’s own detoxification system in eliminating harmful substances. What should it bring? New energy, a good immune system, more calm and stress resistance.

Whether a homeopathic detox cure with sulphurous salts, detox tea made from mate, lemon and lemongrass, drinks with healing clay, detox smoothies, juices and soups delivered by post or even detox plasters to stick on: there are many providers that follow the trend have picked up. And they are often well paid for for their diet plans and detox foods. Detoxing is also easy and cheap – for example with the detox plan for the weekend below. If the body is healthy, it has the ability to detoxify itself without a detox program. But many swear by regular detox cures. This also makes sense for people who live unhealthily – provided they are physically fit.

This is how detox works

The idea of ​​detox is based on the assumption that the body cannot break down all the toxins it has absorbed. This includes not only excessive amounts of alcohol, nicotine or unhealthy things like sweets, but also pesticides and herbicides in food, chemicals from cosmetics, medicines or cleaning agents or mold toxins in nuts. Detox cures should wash out these harmful components for the body – in one, two or more days up to several weeks. The following measures are part of detoxification:

• Healthy eating: It should support the body’s own cleansing processes. Ready-made products, alcohol, coffee, refined sugar, white flour products, saturated fats and salty dishes are avoided. Animal foods such as meat and dairy products should be avoided. Prefer fish instead of meat. Fruit, vegetables and salad should be on the menu as often as possible, along with natural oils and fats such as linseed oil, rapeseed oil, walnut oil, hemp oil, coconut oil or olive oil. Herbs such as basil, parsley, rosemary and mint are also detox foods.

• Reduce stress: The body should come to rest, for example with yoga, qigong and meditation.

• Breaking unhealthy habits: This includes, for example, smoking, chronic lack of sleep or hasty eating. Eat better consciously and slowly, without distracting yourself with smartphone or television.

• Drink a lot

• Personal care and exercise: Brush massages, alternating showers, body scrubs, saunas or steam baths are intended to enhance the detox effect. Sports such as Pilates, hiking, cycling or jogging make you sweat and thus promote detoxification through the skin.

Who are detox cures for?

Three kilos too much on your ribs? Most people lose a few pounds in the short term during a detox because they consume fewer calories than normal eating habits. However, if you do not change your diet permanently and incorporate more exercise into your everyday life, you will quickly gain weight again. Therefore, the cures are not suitable for those who want to lose weight and want to keep their new weight long-term.

Anyone who opts for a detox regimen should definitely be healthy. Bettina Halbach, nutritionist from Wuppertal: “Pregnant women, breastfeeding women, children, very old people and people with chronic diseases should refrain from detox programs.” Cutting down on calories and making drastic changes in diet can put too much stress on and harm your bodies. In healthy people without previous illnesses, nothing speaks against a detoxification cure, “in general, however, our body can detoxify itself well,” says Halbach: “Those who eat healthily and live healthily do not need to support the organism with detox cures to purify.” The Nutrition group of the German Nutrition Society or the vegan food pyramid of the Vegetarian Association serve as a guide.

“Anyone who generally eats too much, eats a lot of fast food, smokes a lot, often consumes alcohol, does not move very much and often feels stressed, detoxing is definitely a way of feeling better in their skin again,” says nutrition expert Halbach. Weight gain or poor skin complexion, for example, are signals of unhealthy habits that put a strain on the body. Some providers of detox plans also see sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating, gastrointestinal problems, allergies or food intolerances as signs that harmful substances have accumulated in the body that need to be eliminated.

The body’s own detox through the intestines and kidneys

Basically, the body is constantly cleaning itself: 24 hours a day, it washes out substances that are useless and harmful to the body, so-called metabolic end products, via the liver, kidneys, intestines, skin and blood. Some breakdown products are not excreted in the urine or sweat, but rather in the lungs because our metabolism converts them into gases such as carbon dioxide. The biorhythm sets the pace. Our body’s own cleansing program is more active during the day than at night.

The cells are responsible for our waste disposal. Vacuoles are active in every cell and transport out useless substances. “That is actually very cute: You can imagine vacuoles as floating garbage bags that migrate to the cell wall and are channeled through and eliminated there,” explains Bettina Halbach. Disturbing elements are removed from the cell.

Autophagy: cell eats up cell

As with a fasting cure, in which food is completely dispensed with and only fluids are taken in, one also tends to consume fewer calories than the body consumes during the detox cure. Eating less and longer breaks between meals are said to have positive effects on health: According to scientists, prolonged periods of sobering promote autophagy. This means the cell’s ability to break down damaged or misdirected constituents. The body’s own recycling should keep the cells and thus the body young. There is even debate as to whether autophagy can prevent the development of diseases such as cancer.

What detox foods are there?

Water is considered the most important detox food because it stimulates digestion. Sufficient drinking (30 milliliters per kilogram of body weight is a guideline) keeps blood and lymph fluid and thus supports the kidneys in breaking down metabolic end products. Unsweetened teas or spritzers are also suitable. Goji berries are also a detox food, they contain phytochemicals and many antioxidants such as vitamin C and beta-carotene. For example, you can put the berries in muesli instead of raisins. The following foods also look good on the detox plan because they are supposed to help the body detoxify:

• Fruit (especially lemons)

• Salads

• Vegetables (dark and tart leafy vegetables such as rocket, radicchio, chicory, endive, spinach and chard contain many digestive bitter substances)

• Natural oils and fats are said to reduce the risk of inflammation (for example in linseed oil, rapeseed oil, walnut oil, hemp oil, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, oil seeds and nuts)

• Knoblauch

• ginger

• Green tea

• Kitchen herbs (basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, mint, coriander, turmeric)

Detox in six steps over two days – that’s how it works!

Not only the body, but also the mind needs a break from time to time. The psychologist Robert Puff gives tips on how to “detoxify” your body and mind in six steps:

1. Emphasize positive feelings: take Love, trust, compassion, forgiveness and joy consciously true. This will reinforce and focus on the good things in your life Positive. This means that there is hardly any room for negative thoughts.

2. Meditate In the morning for 20 minutes. Focusing on yourself makes your mind calm and you can collect your thoughts. So you start the new day strengthened.

3. Work on yours aim. Not only do you pay attention to what you want to achieve, but also make it clear to yourself what you have already achieved. Even small tasks that you have mastered are worth paying attention to.

4. Don’t drink alcohol. Sobriety frees the psyche and lets you perceive everything consciously. Each experience then becomes more intense.

5. Eat lots Fiber and drink plenty of water. This cleanses the intestines and detoxifies the body.

6. Do one every night Dry brush massage by. This not only helps to soften the skin, but also intensively stimulates blood circulation throughout the body.

Make it easy for yourself: choose a weekend for your detox program. Prepare yourself and your household for the state of emergency. If necessary, warn “innocent people” who do not want to fast with you. Then you go shopping so that you have everything you need for the two-day detox cure – because detox does not mean zero diet. The basic idea of ​​the following plan is a two-day alkaline fast, which is supposed to be good for the body that has become acidic due to excessive and unhealthy food. Base-forming foods neutralize acids.

Friday:

• Shopping: still mineral water, dried fruits (plums), muesli (ideal: almond flakes), fruits and salads (leaves, cabbage, cabbage, etc.)

• Start on Friday evening with jacket potatoes and a cup of herbal tea.

• Go to bed early to catch up on sleep.

Saturday:

• Start with fiber: five prunes are ideal.

• Drink plenty of still mineral water.

• Get your circulation going: not with coffee, but with jogging or a short walk – followed by a warm-cold alternating shower according to Kneipp

• Breakfast: fruit and cereal

• Movement is the order of the day. How about cleaning the house or mucking out the basement?

• Lunch: raw vegetable salads. A little olive oil and a dash of lemon juice are sufficient as a dressing, because even if lemon tastes sour, it is an excellent base generator.

• Now out into the fresh air again, then half an hour of power napping is the order of the day.

• Dinner: vegetable soup. After 3 p.m., please do not eat any more raw vegetables.

Sunday:

• The day starts with five prunes, then it’s back to …

• … morning exercise and a short run or walk in the morning air, followed by alternating showers.

• The fruit muesli strengthens you for the rest of the day.

• Use the time for relaxation exercises and let your mind wander.

• Raw food again for lunch? As they want. But it can also be steamed vegetables.

• Warm potatoes for dinner. They bind what the body wants to excrete via the intestines and on Monday morning the spring cleaning of the cells is completed.

Drinking is important, but please do the right thing: Still mineral water, spritzers or teas (fruit tea, herbal tea) can be enjoyed indefinitely, but please do not add sugar. If you get hungry: Tomatoes with pepper and olive oil are a delicious snack for in between.