What does it mean to detox? It is simply the practice of cleansing the body of toxins. When you hear the word detox, you may think of an extreme nutritional detox, such as a juice cleanse. Contrary to popular belief, nutrition detoxes can be enjoyable without the need for restrictive diets. The best way to approach a nutritional detox meets your needs.

There are two simple holistic strategies that can be helpful for nutritional detox:

1) Crowding out unhealthy food with healthier meals.

When most people think about starting a detox, they naturally begin removing food from their diet. Removing unhealthy food feels restrictive and ultimately makes progress more challenging. Detoxing isn’t just about eliminating “bad foods”. It’s more about “crowding out” them, which means adding into our diet and lifestyle, healthier elements, which naturally create space for healthier ones.

2) Sustainable shifts that can help your ongoing journey and be consistent.

Making sustainable shifts means experimenting with one new thing at a time and choosing to make changes that feel small but doable; things you can do long-term and not just for a month.

Our body is a perfect machine that can detoxify itself through organs: gut, liver, kidneys, lungs, and skin; with the right nutrients we can help our beautiful body to do its perfect job to make us healthy & energetic every day.

Nutrients that help with nutritional detoxification:

Bitter greens: Kale, arugula, cavolo nero, spinach, watercress, chard, chicory, collard green, and endive; they are rich in vitamins and antioxidants and therefore they can support your body’s natural ability to cleanse and detoxify itself from unwanted toxins.

Lemon: It’s rich in vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, and copper; it helps with iron absorption.

TIP: A glass of water and lemon in the morning helps the liver & kidneys to flush toxins.

Ancient herbs: milk thistle, and dandelion root; they help with liver detoxification and water retention.

Matcha green tea: there is a compound in matcha called ‘epigallocatechin’ that transforms fat into fuel in the bloodstream; Matcha green helps to support healthy weight loss.

Beetroot: it contains nitric acid which increases blood flow throughout the body; Beetroot is rich in vitamin E, carotenes, phenolic acids, and betalains. It helps with detoxification and blood circulation.

Seaweed: high in antioxidants; types of seaweed are dulse, wakame, mori, and kombu. Seaweed helps with blood detoxification and has diuretic properties helping your body with its nutritional detox.

Turmeric: it contains curcumin, which is a powerful anti-inflammatory that helps with liver detoxification.

Avocado: it contains glutathione; an antioxidant that helps with liver detoxification.

Artichokes: they are loaded with vitamins K, and C, antioxidants, and fiber. They also have diuretic properties.

Pineapple: it’s rich in vitamin C (more than orange). It contains bromelain, a powerful anti-inflammatory that helps with muscle strain and digestion.

Fennel: it has anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties; it’s rich in vitamin C, fiber, and amino acid; it helps with decreasing bloating and with water retention.

3 simple ways to minimize toxins:

The common toxins are pesticides, added sugar, and trans fat that leads to inflammation and then weight gain.

We can start to implement these simple steps to minimize toxins in our body and therefore prevent inflammation:

  1. Avoid processed food: wrap, plastic containers, non-natural, long lists of ingredients, and canned food that contains sugar.
  2. Avoid overcooked food: grilled, baked, or fried. When the food becomes too brown, with crisp edges, it means that it has been cooked at a high temperature, causing a loss in nutrients and an increase in toxins, that can lead to inflammation.
  3. Avoid pesticides: Buy organically when you can and wash your vegetables well with warm water and biodegradable soap.

TIP: shop at the perimeter of the supermarket where you can find more whole food and fewer pre-packaged products. 

Which kind of sustainable shifts you can do today?

Red meat: opt for organic grass-fed, hormone-free meat.

Refined bread: opt for whole grain or sprouted grain bread.

Granola, protein bar: opt for fruit with nuts or nut butter.

Avoid food that has a long list of ingredients.

Juice fruit: opt for a fresh smoothie.

Soft drink: opt for kombucha or carbonated water.

Flavored coffee: opt for dairy-free milk with no added sugar and avoid syrups and cream.

To flavor your coffee you can use pure cacao powder, cinnamon, nut butter, and stevia.

Health Coach exercise for you: try to take a moment to reply to these questions:

What resonated with you?

What are simple swaps you’d like to try?

5 minutes exercise: take a picture of your fridge; have a look at this picture and spend a few minutes writing down what you see: what’s one food you’d like to add that supports your detoxification? And one food you’d like to remove completely?

With a simple strategy and realistic action steps, you can start to implement more nutrients dense food into your diet to help your body to get rid of toxins naturally, to crowd out unhealthy habits, without feeling you are making huge sacrifices.

You’ll still go out for dinners and enjoy social events, don’t worry!

Enjoy and embrace this healthy journey that can only bring more positivity and energy into all aspects of your life.

To book a 1:1 Nutrition Health Coach consultation, please write to: hello@paolalangella.co.uk

For more information about my Health Coach Nutrition program, please click here.