Looking for the most recommended methods to help you detox as a beginner? Don’t forget to read this post.
It’s no secret that the average human being is exposed to significant levels of toxins daily. These chemicals are found as common ingredients in our everyday foods and pollute our water sources and the air we breathe. Although our bodies do their best to remove these toxins naturally, it never hurts to give them some additional support.
There are several ways to detox, including removing sugars from your diet or processed foods, in addition to other detox methods. As a beginner, this might sound like a daunting task, but the key to success lies in the process of how you go about each method.
In this article, we will go over some basic information regarding what you need to know about detoxing, how often you should detox, and other beginner-friendly tips so you are confident you know enough about the process before getting started. From there, we’ll provide our top five recommended detox methods for beginners to help your body get rid of those pesky toxins safely and naturally!
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I'm a Beginner at Doing a Detox: What Do I Need to Know?
Most beginners might have heard that detoxing is a way to eliminate unwanted and excess toxins within their body, and that’s the extent of their knowledge. But there’s so much more to detoxing. So, before we get into the best detox methods for beginners, there are a few things you need to know first to answer your question about what is detox.
What beginners should know about detoxing is that it is a medicinal process intended to naturally cleanse your body of harmful toxins and waste material in order to make room for more beneficial nutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc. Therefore, it should be used to improve your overall health, bodily functions, and energy; it is not a diet to adopt for weight loss purposes, and it can take a toll on your health if done improperly.
To ensure you know everything you need to about detoxing before moving forward, we’d like to delve a little deeper into the things you should know.
Detox is Not a Diet for Weight Loss
A common misconception about detoxing is that it is a short-term process people can use to help shed a few pounds while eliminating toxins from their system. Although you might lose some weight while using detox methods, this is typically from adopting other healthy habits necessary to the process, such as limiting the intact of toxins and chemicals through processed foods.
Having a healthy diet, in general, is something detox users should strive to have, but the ultimate goal should be removing toxins and rejuvenating the body, not losing weight.
Detox Can Provide Short-term Results But Requires Long-term Dedication
The other harsh truth about detox is it can’t be achieved overnight. Detoxing takes time and commitment in order to be successful. True, there are some quick detox diets intended to cleanse your system in as little as three days. But if you don’t maintain any of the changes you made during that diet, you’ll find yourself in need of another detox spree in mere days.
The best way to find detox success is to find the best methods and use them regularly, so your body stays as healthy as possible without being overrun by excess toxins before your next detox session.
Detox Incorporates Periods of Fasting Which Can Be Dangerous if Done Improperly
One of the crucial elements of detoxing is brief periods of fasting, and as a beginner, this is something you should consider before starting your detox. Not only can fasting be detrimental to your health if done improperly, but it often has physical and mental side-effects such as:
- Fatigue
- Irritability
- Inattentiveness
- Muscle aches
- Headaches
- Dizziness
While fasting can do wonders for your health and help you flush out unwanted toxins faster, it will undoubtedly take a toll on you, which is why people who want to detox, especially beginners, should plan it for a day they don’t have obligations, so you can focus on staying home, resting, and detoxing.
Note: This doesn’t mean all fasting, especially Intermittent Fasting is bad! There are plenty of benefits of Intermittent Fasting. It’s important to do thorough research and talk to a nutritionist to ensure you’re getting the proper amount of nutrients into your diet, especially in contrast with your activity levels.
How Often Do People Usually Detox?
Detoxing is a little different for every individual because they each have different toxin levels as a result of their diet, environment, and how their body systems and organs function to remove toxins naturally.
Experience also plays a key role in the frequency of your detoxing, as you should be knowledgeable about what this process is doing to your body, the best methods to use, and how frequently you can use them safely.
Ultimately, the point we are trying to make is that frequency someone should detox is really a person-to-person basis. People who have more toxins in their bodies will need to detox more often than those with lower toxin levels.
Alternatively, some people choose to take breaks between each detox session while others go through multiple sessions per day until they feel like all their built-up toxins are gone from their system. For the most part, sources recommend having a detox cleanse at least twice a year and no more than twice a week.
As a beginner, performing this process once every other week is a great start. Remember that your body has systems and organs, such as the liver, kidneys, intestines lymphatic systems, that remove these toxins for you naturally, so as long as you eat well and don’t expose yourself to excessive amounts of pollutants, your body will remove most of these harmful toxins on its own, rendering weekly detoxes unnecessary.
It is also important to note that detoxing more than once a week puts your body at risk of losing the valuable nutrients it needs to function at a healthy level because they are being flushed out with the detox. Therefore, you’ll want to be extremely careful of your detox frequency regardless of your experience level.
How Do Beginners detox?
The detox process differs slightly depending on which method you choose and your experience level, but it generally involves drinking a detox beverage and then sticking to foods that are high in fiber.
Beginners will typically opt for the quick and easy detox methods that only last overnight or 1-3 days. This is to help them more gently ease into the detox process and safely learn what they like and dislike about it before moving on to more rigorous detox diets and methods.
Of course, many beginners are surprised by some of the natural and easy methods they can use even in their daily lives to help them detox. These are the methods we will detail below.
5 Ways to Help You detox as a Beginner
Detoxing might sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be a challenging process, even for beginners. In fact, you might be using some of these methods every day without realizing they’re helping your body’s natural organs and system detox harmful toxins in the process. Therefore, here are our top recommendations for ways beginners can detox safely.
Method 1: Swap Out Your Sodas and Coffees for Water
It’s as easy as that, people. The worlds of health and science have been singing water’s praises for eternity, and that praise only increases when it comes to detox.
Water in itself helps your body flush toxins naturally by keeping you hydrated, particularly your kidneys, which will flush the toxins out whenever you urinate. Water also helps suppress your appetite, so you are less likely to snack throughout the day or eat excessively large portions during key meals.
Sure, the frequent bathroom breaks get tedious, but seeing that near clear liquid means you’re effectively flushing your system of toxins that would others build-up or even increase when you consume cups of soda, water, and other sugary or caffeinated beverages.
If water isn’t your preferred drink, we recommend swapping out at least two of your common drinks with the toxin-flushing liquid or increasing your water intake to at least 75-150 ounces a day. You can also add detox-friendly elements such as lemon or green tea for a boost of flavor. They’ll also provide you with necessary enzymes and can assist in smooth digestion.
Method 2: Start Exercising Regularly
If you were hoping that detoxing only meant you’d be drinking fruit smoothies and skipping out on a meal or two, we’re sorry to say that isn’t how the process works. Remember that the ultimate goal of detoxing is to remove harmful toxins from your system and promote an overall healthier diet and lifestyle. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that one of the preferred methods for beginners is regular exercise.
This doesn’t entail going to the gym for an hour every day or running 50 miles a week. Instead, simply try to incorporate some form of exercise in your daily life, whether that’s through running, dancing, biking, sports, or any preferred method.
The goal here is really to promote sweating and reduce inflammation. Sweating is good for detox because it boosts circulation throughout your body, meaning you’re able to eliminate harmful toxins faster.
In terms of inflammation, it’s true that exercise can generate some degree of inflammation in your muscles as you become stronger and increase your level of exercise. However, it ultimately reduces exercise in your body by staving off disease and infection, which, in turn, allows your body’s detoxification system to work properly.
Method 3: Limit Your Intake of Sugars and Processed Foods
The sad truth about the average person’s diet is that a large amount of the chemicals they consume are found in sugary, processed foods. What’s worse is that these foods make up a significant amount of the everyday person’s diet, leading to fatty liver disease, diabetes, heart disease, and other serious health issues.
Not only is it best for your diet overall to limit or even eliminate these foods, but it will help your detoxing significantly. The majority of sugary or processed foods lack any useful nutrients and take longer for your body to break down. Add that to the fact that many have harmful chemicals as essential ingredients, and your body is left with a hefty detox challenge.
So, spare your body the extra work and reduce or eliminate these foods from your daily diet. There’s certainly something to be said about eating things in moderation, but processed foods do very little for your wellbeing, and sugar can be found in more natural, healthy sources like fruits and dairy products.
Method 4: Add Prebiotics and Probiotics to Your System
Some of you beginners might not be familiar with prebiotics or probiotics, but they are entirely safe and healthy sources of good bacteria and food to introduce to your system.
To explain, probiotics, like Lactobacillus acidophilus, are the bacteria that you would introduce to your system, and prebiotics is a form of specialized plant fibers that the bacteria can feed off of while in your system. If you’re questioning why you’d want to add bacteria to your body when you’re detoxing, the answer is simple: gut health.
Your gut’s functionality is crucial to detoxing as it helps keep everything moving along as it should and ensures you receive necessary nutrients from your food while helping eliminate those nasty toxins. Consuming pre-and-probiotics increases your gut’s ability to do all of this, which means more efficient detoxing.
We recommend obtaining your prebiotics from foods like:
- Bananas
- Onions
- Garlic
- Leeks
- Asparagus
- Artichokes
- Beans
- Whole-grain foods
You can either eat these foods as they are, or you can blend some into a smoothie or cook them into a thick soup and eat them as meals throughout your detox.
Method 5: Increase Your Sleep Quantity and Improve Your Sleep Quality
You’d be surprised how much your mental and physical health can improve just by focusing on your sleep schedule and ensuring your body receives sufficient rest every night.
In reality, there are countless reasons why you should increase your sleep quantity and improve its quality, but for the sake of detox, the leading reason is to prevent disease and sufficiently support your body’s natural detoxification system.
By receiving 7-9 hours of quality sleep consistently, your body will be well-rested enough to stave off common diseases, such as the cold, which would otherwise inhibit its ability to detox properly. The healthier and more energized your body is, the quicker and more efficiently it will be able to remove unwanted toxins. Here are some sound machines for sleeping to help you get your beauty sleep.
If you find you are consistently sleep deprived, not only could this cause other health issues, but it often leads to a build-up of toxins, inhibiting your body’s detoxification system.
Therefore, try to alter your sleep schedule to receive the optimal number of hours of sleep every night. If this is a challenge, ask yourself what underlying issues or challenges prevent you from receiving proper sleep and how you can solve them.
While there are many steps you can take to detox your way to a better life, you may need some guidance. There are plenty of detox courses online to help you along your detox journey!
Final Thoughts
Detox is undoubtedly beneficial to your body in that it aids your natural detoxification system in removing harmful toxins and chemicals while also being a springboard to an overall healthy lifestyle by promoting regular exercise, water intake, and quality sleep.
It also shows users how to change their diets for the better by cutting out processed and sugary foods in exchange for those that are high in fiber and overtly healthier, like fruits and vegetables. Most beginners will be astounded to see the difference between five simple methods such as these can make on their health, and once they’ve incorporated these into their daily lives, they can start moving on to more intermediate methods for additional detox benefits.
