Body Cleansing Diets

Body cleansing diets and detoxes have been a popular way of kickstarting a healthier eating diet and losing weight for a long time now. However, not all body cleanse diets are created equal. While cleansing your body is an important part of supporting overall health, you want to make sure you are doing so in a healthy way. 

Let’s take a look at why supporting body detox is important and then look at somebody cleansing diets that can help support the body’s naturally built-in detoxification system.

The Importance of Body Cleansing 

When you think about all of the toxins we are exposed to on a daily basis, it makes sense that cleansing and detoxifying the body would be important. From inflammatory foods to environmental toxins that we can’t always avoid, the body is often inundated with toxins that can over time make us sick.

This is where body cleansing comes in, but keep in mind that the body does do a very good job of detoxing daily. It’s one of those body processes that we don’t have to do anything about for it to happen. However, that doesn’t always mean that your body is cleansing properly, or that you are consuming the right foods to promote efficient detoxification which is why many people start detox diets as a way to give their livers a boost.

The good news is that even if your body’s detoxification pathways are suboptimal due to heavy toxin exposure, or consuming too many inflammatory foods, there are things that you can do. Diet is huge, and you can change your diet to help support overall health and help your body cleanse itself more efficiently.

Body Cleansing Diets 

Body cleansing diets are a hot topic and something that so many people want to know more about. Detoxes and cleanses are often portrayed as a quick fix for weight loss, but there’s so much more to them. It’s important to differentiate between a short term body cleanse or juice detox and then a long-term body cleansing diet that can be implemented as part of your regular healthy eating diet and lifestyle.

While things like juice cleanses can be ok very short term, you will deficiently want something more sustainable for the long run, and a diet that will not only help promote daily body cleansing but will also help you feel your absolute best.

With that being said, here are some great body cleansing diet options that can be used as a gentle way to support natural detoxification while also boosting your vitamin, mineral, and nutrient reserves.

• Sugar Detox Diet: Eliminating sugar from your diet can be a great way to support overall health for the long-term. Sugar is incredibly inflammatory, addictive, and is, unfortunately, found in so many foods found in The Standard American Diet. When you cut sugar from your diet, you will naturally be eliminating processed and artificial foods that come packaged in a box. These foods also happen to be full of additives that can add to your inflammatory and toxic load. By eliminating sugar from your diet, you will be doing amazing things for your liver and taking some burden off of the liver to allow your body to properly detoxify other toxins you may come in contact with that you can’t necessarily avoid.
• Whole Foods Diet: One of the best body cleansing diets is one that includes whole foods which are foods that don’t come with food labels. Think dark leafy greens, fresh fruits, nuts, and seeds. These foods don’t contain the harmful additives, or added sugars processed foods do, the body can recognize them and break them down, and they won’t lead to any toxic load you currently have present in your body. This again, allows your body to cleanse more efficiently as your liver isn’t going to be overburdened detoxing the harmful ingredients found in inflammatory foods.
• Hypoallergenic Diet: A hypoallergenic diet may be a great option for anyone who is in an inflammatory state and may not know what foods their bodies are reacting to. This may be someone with chronic eczema, fatigue, or chronic gastrointestinal distress. A hypoallergenic diet would be a great way to take some stress off of your body, allow it to naturally cleanse and detox while reducing some inflammation. When you follow a hypoallergenic diet, you eliminate some of the most allergenic foods like gluten, dairy, soy, corn, and grains for a period of time, and for at least two weeks. You would then reintroduce one at a time and be on the lookout for any symptoms that reappear. If symptoms come back, remove this food from your diet. If you have a diagnosed food allergy, then you will not want to consume that food at all as food allergies and food sensitives are quite different.
• Juice Cleanse: Juice cleanses are very popular, and are commonly used to help promote weight loss and speed up detox. You have to be careful with juice cleanses, as you can wind up feeling even more sick once you stimulate the phase I detox pathway, and you have toxins being released from fat cells but are then floating around your bloodstream with no way to be properly flushed from your body. Your body requires important nutrients, and specifically amino acids for phase II detoxification where those toxins would then be excreted from the body. (1) For this reason, juice cleanses should only be used as a very short-term detox option and immediately followed up with a nutrient-dense diet with lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, clean protein options, and healthy fats.

The Bottom Line

Body cleansing and detoxification diets are very popular, but it’s a common misconception that we need to do a hardcore detox in order for our body to flush out built-up toxins. It’s important to understand that the body is able to detox naturally, you just need to support that detoxification process with a healthy and nourishing diet. Hardcore detox diets can ultimately make us more sick, and may actually do more harm than good.

So, if you are looking to naturally cleanse your body, consider one of these gentler approaches instead. Body cleansing is something that should be happening through a holistic approach to eating and living on a daily basis, so look at it as more of a lifestyle change instead of a drastic and quick-fix diet.

About The Author

Rebecca Jacobs N.C is a Certified Holistic Nutrition Consultant, specializing in digestive and women’s health. She doesn’t believe in dieting but rather making lifestyle changes, and believes that healthy eating must be delicious. Rebecca is also a recipe developer and creates healthier alternatives to traditionally unhealthy foods.