Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend! Holiday weekends are usually filled with a lot of unhealthy habits, overindulging and not fitting in exercise. Even though you may feel like you weigh ten pounds heavier and just want to go on a juice cleanse you should think twice about this. After you have a weekend of indulging simply going back to your regular routine of eating healthy and working out. This will help your body detox naturally.
There is no need to jump on a 1 or 3 day juice cleanse to rid your body of toxins or start buying detox teas. Ridding your body of toxins is one of the biggest myths when it comes to health and nutrition. Your body is smarter than you think and cleanses itself everyday to get rid of toxins.
Detox teas and juices are only messing up the natural processes of your body. The juices are like a giant sugary vitamin--they spike your blood sugars while giving you a few vitamins. I’m not saying that having a juice a couple times a week is a horrible thing, but no one should only be drinking juice for a day or more. All this is doing is making your blood sugars spike and fall repetitively and this is not healthy.
Instead of juicing your fruits and vegetables you should just throw everything into a blender because then the fiber and some protein from the vegetables is still in the juice you are drinking and these two things help stabilize blood sugars while providing you with the nutrients.
This is a juice I have a few times a week. Blend together:
Half a banana
Half a kiwi
A large handful of kale
Water and ice
Detox teas are also are a huge waste of money. The only thing detox teas do is dehydrate you and some have Senna in them, a laxative, which is not a good thing to be putting in your body twice a day for multiple days. A good way to get rid of the holiday bloat is to just drink water and lots of it.
The average man should be drinking 3.3 liters a day (13 cups) and the average woman should be drinking 2.2 liters a day (9 cups). This amount should increase for people wanting to lose weight and for those exercising. Another natural way to lose water weight is to increase your intake of high water content fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers and melons. Dandelion tea is another natural way to lose the water weight. This tea is a natural diuretic and is really good iced with some lemon.
Everyone over indulges, but feeling like you need to manage your body getting rid of toxins for days afterwards is not healthy. Incorporating these natural things into your diet after holiday weekends will help you naturally lose your water weight and help you overall feel healthier.