There are a lot of weight loss options available. Which one is the right one for you? It is hard to tell without understanding your unique needs. However, there is one thing I know for sure. A detox is one of the best ways to make your body ready to not only lose weight, but actually keep it off.
Importance Of Detoxing For Weight Loss
Removes The Hidden Toxins
Hidden toxins can be the cause of a weight loss plateau, your body wants to protect you from having lots of toxicity. So, what does it do? It stores toxins in your fat cells to keep them out of the way. This works well right until you start to lose weight. As the fat cells are burned, toxins get dumped back into the bloodstream.
For someone with a high level of toxicity, this can lead to extreme levels of inflammation. Inflammatory markers not only slow the metabolism, but also make you less sensitive to the hormones that regulate your appetite. This then can result in a plateau after initial weight loss victory. By lowering your toxic load through detox, you put yourself in a much better place for weight loss success.
Takes Care Of Digestive System
A detox can help heal digestive problems that contribute to weight loss failure. This is not the case in all detoxes, so it is important to pick a good one. Most detoxes omit potentially problematic foods like gluten, eggs or corn. A period of restriction can help you see if your body behaves differently without these foods. This knowledge can be used to reshape your diet after the detox ends, as well as repair your digestive system.
Digestive system imbalances are one of the main contributors to weight problems. Healing these imbalances is an important step for setting yourself up for weight loss success.
Balances Blood Sugar
Detoxes are wonderful for blood sugar balance. Most detoxes are high in foods that support balanced blood sugar levels like, vegetables, proteins, and fiber filled fruits. This is valuable, because high blood sugar levels will lead to out of control fat storage, as well as cravings for bad carbohydrates and sweets. When blood sugar levels are not stable, you will easily regain lost weight.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when dieting is to starve the body, without addressing blood sugar problems. Creating balanced blood sugar may take more than a few weeks, but a detox is a good place to start.
Relieves You From Stress
Detoxing can help you let go of stress and negative emotions that lead to weight gain. Detoxing should not just be a time of rest for your diet. It should be a release both physically and emotionally. This is a great opportunity to take a break from your hectic lifestyle, breathe, and nourish your emotions. Perhaps this means taking time for a relaxing bath, or a yoga, or a meditation class. Journal writing is a wonderful activity for detox.
Find a method of stress reduction that works for you. Stress disrupts weight loss, in more ways than making you emotionally eat. Stress hormones send sugar into the bloodstream, and stop the hormones that balance weight from working correctly. So getting control of your stress is a wonderful thing you can do for your waist line.
You Can Taste Healthy Food
A detox will help you enjoy the taste of healthy food again. There are certain things you definitely would not find in a detox. A detoxification plan eliminates many traps of the modern diet that succeed in dulling your taste buds. This includes foods like sugar, refined carbohydrates, packaged food, rancid oils and so on.
When these items are removed, taste buds awaken to the wonderful flavors of fresh, nourishing foods. Perspective on what you desire to eat changes. This is so valuable, because when you can actually identify the flavor of wholesome food, you do not desire the bad foods in the way you used to.
Things To Remember When Starting A Detox
Your Body Needs Proteins
Juice cleanses are fine for a few days. They are not appropriate for long term detoxification, as your body needs the amino acids from proteins to detoxify the liver. Some of the most important amino acids for liver detoxification are, methionine, cysteine, glutamine, glycine, and taurine.
You can make sure, you are getting them by eating good sources of complete proteins like with chicken, turkey or fish. You can also combine vegetarian proteins to get them.
Do Not Get Trapped By Fad Diets
There are some fad detoxes out there. If a detox has you taking nothing but supplements, or it contains just a handful of foods, it probably would not give you the long term results you are looking for. A good detox will allow you to eat various foods from healthy categories like, vegetables, fruits, and good quality proteins.
So, if you have spent a lot of time going up and down on the scale without true results, maybe it is time to detox. This may help the body overcome some of the issues that have prevented success in the past. But it is important to remember that detox is just the first step. The principals learned during detox must then be carried with you as you continue through your weight loss process.
