Are you still crashing from the Halloween sugar high? I for sure felt so exhausted Monday after a long weekend of festivities and my body was craving a reset. We are in the midst of the holiday season which can often mean overindulging on sugar, alcohol, heavier foods, etc. This can can lead to that knee jerk reaction to compensate which I’ve talked about in the past. While I actually dislike the word detox and it is true our liver has detox pathways, we can accelerate and support these detox pathways with some simple lifestyle practices.
If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know I’m against anything extreme when it comes to food and nutrition and try to offer more realistic lifestyle tweaks that are sustainable. We are also exposed to harmful chemicals in our everyday life that our body needs a little extra TLC to remove.
Here are 5 simple daily practices to accelerate detoxification in the body to help clear out toxins.
CRUCIFEROUS VEGETABLES: and other green leafy vegetables, zucchini, and cucumbers. Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and radishes. These have been shown to support multiple detox pathways in the liver, great for gut health, and keeping you regular.
DECREASE HOUSEHOLD TOXINS: I wrote a post here about how I was woking on decreasing household toxins to when I was having fertility issues getting pregnant with Kins. From skin care to food storage containers I have continued with these practices to try and limit my family’s exposure to these harmful environmental chemicals. Am I perfect? NOPE! But, I try my best when possible.
SWEAT: either via exercise, sauna, hot bath with epsom salt, etc. My husband just finished installing an outdoor sauna and I’m truly obsessed! It’s an investment, but we are loving it and there is a lot of research to support the benefits of sauna use for detoxification.
HYDRATION: you know how I feel about water and always motivated for a water challenge to help keep me accountable because it’s SO important to our health. Aim to drink AT LEAST half your body weight in ounces and ideally more.
BOWEL MOVEMENTS: yep I’m talking about poop 😉 You want to have a BM every morning without relying on coffee to trigger it. If you are not achieving 1-2 BMs a day then take a look at your diet. Increasing high fiber vegetables, adding 1-2 tablespoon ground flax seed to your diet,
I hope this helps you think about the word “detox” a little different than how it’s often used in the media.
xx, A
