With the holiday season just ending, overindulging at festive parties and get-togethers may have easily derailed your diet, and quickly. One treat can lead to many, while appetizers, drinks and carbohydrate-rich sides can have you eating your full amount of daily calories in one serving! If you’re ready to get back on track post-holiday, try these six detox diet tips to help you reset after a season of too many indulgences!
Try A Juice Cleanse
Juicing is a great way to get a whole lot of good-for-you phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals all in one cup. Although some maybe hesitant to try juicing, it is quite possible to get all the nutrition you need to function with just juice. Try juicing for three to a maximum of five days post food binge. If you have been eating plenty of the food you shouldn’t have been eating over the holidays, a juice cleanse can help revitalize your body. Juicing has been shown to help increase antioxidant status in the body, which means you can recover faster and fight off infection easier. Juice with green vegetables such as spinach and kale, along with vegetables and fruit that have higher water content such as cucumber, beet, oranges, lemons and grapefruits. Not sure you want to juice all day? Introduce one or two juices into your regular diet plan.
Drink More Water
Water is important for keeping our digestion system moving, keeping us hydrated and our metabolism functioning optimally. Drinking water helps flush out toxins in the gut that can cause inflammation, or even hormonal imbalances. Drinking more water can also keep us feeling energized, and can help reduce hunger between meals.
Have a hard time drinking water? Try making simple water infusions using slices of cucumber, chopped mint, lemon, orange, grapefruit and strawberries. Water infusions don’t add calories, but instead add a hint of flavor that can make it easier to drink water. Drink at least three to four liters of water daily.
Eat Fewer Carbs
If you have been eating a few too many delicious and carby side dishes or desserts this holiday season, you have no doubt eaten more carbs than you can burn off. Excess carbs get stored as fat, but when we eat fewer carbs the body accesses that stored fat as fuel.
Eating a lower carb and higher protein diet can contribute to faster weight loss and a better body composition. Instead of going no carb, lower your carb intake to 20 percent to a maximum of 30 percent of your daily calories. This is enough to ensure your body gets what it needs to fuel workouts and daily activity while still being enough to lose weight. Choose high fiber carbs including green vegetables like broccoli and kale, non-starchy root vegetables like squashes, and whole grains such as oatmeal and brown rice.
Drink More Tea
Tea is full of antioxidant compounds, including catechins, which have been shown to have multiple health benefits, including contributing to increases in metabolic rate. Catechins found in green, white and black tea blocks the COMT enzyme and increase the release of the fat burning hormone norepinephrine. When NE is active it stimulates fat-burning pathways, particularly when combined with the second ingredient found in tea— caffeine. The result increased 24-hour energy expenditure, which means your metabolism remains elevated and burning calories even while at rest! Instead of drinking coffee, try a cup of green tea with lemon. You can even drink it cold, brew a pot, chill and drink throughout the day.
Have Soup
Just like juice, having soup can provide you with a whole lot of good-for-you nutrients in one serving. Make your own vegetable base soup and avoid canned soup that is high in sodium. Add plenty of fresh vegetables like broccoli, mushrooms, pepper and onion, and even slow-digesting carbs such as squashes, sweet potato, black beans, white kidney beans or lentils. Add spices such as turmeric or cayenne pepper that can help boost your metabolism. Soup can provide not only a lighter meal, but also the fiber of the vegetables can help fill you up, reduce appetite and help detox the gut.
Eat More Greens
Greens are an important part of a healthy diet, and eating more can help increase specific phytonutrient compounds that can help cleanse the gut and remove toxins including estrogenic metabolites. High levels of estrogen can result from eating a low fiber and low veggie diet. If you have been skipping the greens in favor of more stuffing, now’s the time to start filling your plate with the good stuff. Kale, and other cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, contain anti-estrogenic phytonutrients and fiber that can help reduce and remove toxic levels of estrogen in the body. When hormones are balanced, inflammation and bloating reduces, and your metabolism and fat burning increases! Make an effort to eat a green salad with green veggies with every meal.
