January is here and it’s time to move on from the large tins of chocolate on the coffee table and the left over Christmas cake and start focusing on self-care again. Let’s look at giving your body a detox. The best person to help us do this is my good friend Melanie Flood of Melanie Flood Nutrition who has some great tips for detoxing in 2023.
Here’s what Melanie has to say:
Happy new year! Thank you again to Milsy Girl for the opportunity of writing another blog post for her site.
Welcome to 2023 and the opportunity to set some new goals and habits for the year ahead should you wish. I say ‘should you wish’ as it isn’t a must. It is totally ok to be content with yourself as you are right now.
A new year is, however, an opportunity to assess whether your habits are best serving you. As a registered nutritionist and health coach specialising in female hormonal health, I often see clients who feel like they have overindulged during the festive periods and need a bit of a reset. Your diet may not be bad, but it is easy over the festive period for bad habits to creep in. Even those who have a pretty good diet could do with a tune-up now and again.
Join my Detox and Thrive Course for a guided detox during the month of January. We start on Monday 16th January, so you have time to eat up all your treats beforehand!
“Surely my body is detoxing anyway?” you might ask.
My answer? Yes, but…
These days, more than at any other time in our history, you are inundated with toxins. As well as environmental pollution, there are lots of toxins in the food you eat, such as pesticides and even hormones in intensively farmed meats. Your body is having to cope with substances which it wasn’t designed for. In addition to that there is the toxic waste your body generates through normal activities like digesting food and producing energy.
How do I know if I need to detox my body?
So unfortunately, toxins are all around us, and they’re probably the reason why we’re feeling bloated, tired, and cranky.
If you find you have allergies or food intolerances, frequent headaches, sensitivity to chemicals and environmental pollutants, chronic digestive problems, muscle aches and inflammatory conditions, it’s possible that you have exceeded your body’s capacity to detoxify.
It would be pretty much impossible to get your exposure to chemicals and environmental toxins down to zero, but reducing your toxic load is the most important step you can take to detoxify your body and reset for a happy and healthy start to 2023.
During the festive season, it is common that we have overworked our body with excess alcohol, caffeine and over-eating of potentially inflammatory foods.
Although detox is a normal process your body does day in, day out, your system can quickly become overburdened. The detoxification machinery is not always able to keep up with demand. Anything that cannot be eliminated and excreted is locked up safely in the fat stores.
Advantages of a detox
When you support your body the right way, you’ll:
- Get your energy back so you can accomplish so much more, whether that’s at work, with the kids or whatever.
- Lose that bloated feeling because you’ll have better digestion – no more looking six months pregnant!
- Rev up your metabolism so you can ditch the extra pounds that have crept on over the last few years.
- Have clearer, more radiant skin – even without a trip to the beauty salon.
- Sleep more soundly so that you can wake up full of energy instead of dragging yourself out of bed.
- Say goodbye to hot flushes or intense PMS symptoms, which in turn creates much more peace at home.
- And so much more.
So, how do we detoxify?
We have five major organs of detoxification:
- Skin
- Liver
- Kidneys
- Gut
- Lungs
Toxins leave your body via your breath (lungs), your sweat (skin), your urine (liver and kidneys) and your stools (liver and gut).
The skin is your biggest organ in the body. Sweating, hot saunas, cold showering and body brushing can support this detoxification organ.
For effective detoxification, you need your liver, kidneys and gut working effectively. If any of these organs are sluggish (often shown with signs of constipation, excess sweat, frequent urination to name a few) then toxins will circulate in your body and will not be detoxified.
You need to increase your breathing rate to get toxins out of your body through your lungs. Different breathing techniques can support this and aid in toxin removal.
For your detox organs to work effectively you need to support them with the right resources. This means you need the right foods to support detoxification.
Body detox foods
Here are some key ones:
- Water is so important for optimal kidney function. Ensure you are drinking at least 2L of filtered water daily and this should be increased with exercise. Herbal teas that are particularly supportive of kidney elimination include nettle, dandelion or parsley.
- Beetroot is a natural detoxifier and great for supporting liver health in general. It contains betaine which helps prevent excess fatty deposits in the liver and breaks down toxins.
- Broccoli is a sulphur containing vegetable and sulphur supports one of the main detoxification pathways.
- Bone broth is a rich source of glycine which is involved in liver detoxification.
- Turmeric is well-known for its anti-inflammatory properties, thanks to its unique compounds called curcuminoids, the most important one of which is curcumin. Scientists now agree that low-level inflammation is lurking behind most modern chronic diseases, and that turmeric might even be so powerful that it can match the effects of some anti-inflammatory drugs – and without the side effects.
- Ginger is a root, and it’s one of the healthiest spices known to man. It’s been used for millennia medicinally and claims of its benefits are now backed by modern science. The magic ingredient is gingerol, which is responsible for ginger’s medicinal properties.
- The humble apple can protect the level of antioxidant enzymes in the liver and reduce DNA damage after toxin exposure.
- Protein is vital to ensure the liver has all the necessary amino acids for detoxification. Good sources include grass fed meats, eggs, beans, legumes and fermented tofu or tempeh.
- A rainbow of fruits and vegetables high in phytonutrients that ensure optimal antioxidant status when dealing with the removal of toxins.
There are many more too!
To find out more join my supportive detox that can be done alongside normal work and family life. My Detox and Thrive Course is a 14-day online course starting on the 16th January with an introductory zoom on Friday 13th January (that will be recorded).
Book onto my Detox and Thrive Course: https://p.bttr.to/3HaJ0Dv
@melaniefloodnutrition
I have also got some delicious recipes on my new Detox and Thrive programme starting on Monday 16th January!
Here is one of them:
Pea and Courgette Soup
(Serves 3)
Ingredients
- 4 large courgettes, chopped into 3cm chunks
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 200g frozen peas
- 1 small lime, zested and juiced
- Large handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- 400ml can coconut milk
- 200ml water
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Place the courgettes onto a baking tray with the garlic and spread over the coconut oil.
- Bake them for 5 mins, then toss and return to the oven for a further 25-30 mins until soft but not overcooked. Steam the peas for 3-4 minutes until soft.
- Add the lime zest and juice, parsley, coconut milk, and water to a blender.
- Add the cooked courgette and blitz the mixture together.
- Add the peas and blitz again until you reach the consistency you want – how smooth you want the soup is up to you.
- Heat the soup and serve.
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