Detoxification or detox for short, is the process which eliminates dangerous toxins from the body. While this term is normally identified with drug or alcohol abuse, you can also detox your body from a bad diet, smoking, over the counter and prescription medication, or environmental toxins, with or without the help of a specialist.
Detox your body, mind and spirit to lead a healthier, happier life. What constitutes a diet detox, and what happens when you detox your body? Here are several facts about why you need to detox, how to do it, and what to expect during the process.
How Do I Know I Need to Detox My Body?
You may want to detox your body if you've been eating too much junk food, drinking too much soda or coffee, smoking or engaging in other unhealthy activities for a long time.
Detoxification, also called cleansing, eliminates toxins that enter the body from several sources. Toxins from junk food, fried food, cigarettes, soda, air pollution and other environmental pollution are just a few of the toxins we encounter in our daily lives.
Some toxins we don't normally think about come from cleaning products we use, mold in our homes and workplaces and insecticides. Even if you are committed to using organic cleaning products or insecticides in your home, you may still come in contact with them when you're outdoors or in other people's homes without knowing it.
Your body develops toxins during the breakdown of protein. Yeast, fungi and bacteria in your digestive system produce substances that create toxins and can lead to poor health or disease if you don't detox through a wheatgrass or water cleanse, exercise and a good diet.
Suffering from Low Energy? Here's How a Body Detox Helps.
When you're constantly tired, gulping coffee and energy drinks will give you a sudden burst of energy followed by the inevitable crash. A moderate amount of caffeine helps your liver to detox your body, but too much may slow liver function. If you take acetaminophen (Tylenol, Panadol, etc.) regularly, drinking too much coffee may cause serious liver damage. And drinking too many energy drinks is harmful to your health.
Don't depend on coffee to boost your energy. Cleanse your body by changing your diet, getting more sleep and taking a wheatgrass supplement. By breaking down carbohydrates into glucose, wheatgrass naturally increases your energy. Powered by chlorophyll, the green pigment that gives plants their color, wheatgrass contains a bounty of nutrients. They include B-complex vitamins, amino acids, magnesium, calcium, zinc, potassium and hundreds of enzymes. Wheatgrass juice or a wheatgrass supplement will help flush out toxins in your body and prevent it from absorbing more poison from food, drink and the environment.
Amino Acids Detox Your Body
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. The tens of thousands of proteins in your body are made from amino acids. A protein may contain a few hundred amino acids or tens of thousands of them.
There are 20 essential amino acids used by our bodies to generate protein and three additional protein-making amino acids that don't have a blueprint for creation with our genes.
There are essential and nonessential amino acids. You must get essential amino acids from your diet or supplements. Your body can't produce them. Non-essential amino acids are produced by your body, but you can also eat food or take supplements that contain more of these nutrients.
Amino acids break down food, repair tissue, help produce energy and perform other biological functions. If you always feel lackluster, you may not be getting enough essential amino acids in your diet. The essential amino acids include leucine, aspartic acid, tryptophan, valine, histidine and methionine.
You get essential amino acids from eating a variety of good food. Eggs, lean red meat, tofu and dairy products are the best source of amino acids. Plant-based sources include turnip greens, sunflower seeds, spinach, buckwheat, rice, cranberries, avocados and peanuts.
Eat a diet of whole, fresh foods to get a sufficient amount of amino acids in your diet. You can take a wheatgrass supplement, which is loaded with essential and nonessential acids, if you feel you don't get enough from food.
{WGL_PRODUCTS title="Healthy supplements that detox your body."}
Cleanse with Water Every Morning
A glass of water every morning—or better yet water with lemon—will hydrate you and start the daily detox session. After sleeping for 7 or 8 hours, you need to break your fast with liquid as well as food. You can drink tea, juice or coffee after you've had your morning glass of water. Water gets your digestive system moving, helping you stay regular and avoid the extra pounds caused by chronic constipation.
Drinking unsweetened green tea, black tea or herbal tea also hydrates you and fills you up. The caffeine in green tea and black tea give you energy bit by bit. You won't experience the rapid buzz and jittery feeling you get when you drink a big cup of coffee.
What Happens During a Body Detox – Side Effects of Wheatgrass and Dietary Changes for Detox
Wheatgrass supplement tablets are powerful tools for cleansing your body. If you're detoxing after years of bad food and unhealthy habits, taking wheatgrass may result in some side effects.
You could experience nausea
They include nausea, which is usually a result of detoxing in the body. The chlorophyll in wheatgrass removes toxins by making tissues release these harmful elements. When you first take wheatgrass tablets or drink wheatgrass juice, you may feel nauseous due to the sudden release of toxins.
What seems like a negative experience is actually a good one—the nausea indicates toxins are leaving your body. After you've taken wheatgrass for awhile, the nausea will go away as more toxins disappear.
You should take wheatgrass tablets on an empty stomach. You'll be more likely to experience nausea if you take wheatgrass tablets with food.
You could get diarrhea
If you get diarrhea after taking wheatgrass, you're taking too much. Always start by taking one wheatgrass tablet per day and build up to more as side effects disappear. If you have a sensitive stomach, you may want to take half a wheatgrass tablet at the beginning of body detox.
What if I have a cold or the flu?
If you have a cold or the flu, you should wait until you feel better to take wheatgrass. The side effects of body detox through wheatgrass are similar to cold symptoms. You may experience coughing, nasal congestion, headaches or even mild fever.
If you're allergic to wheat, don't worry, wheatgrass is a sprout it doesn't contain the same allergic properties wheat does.
Although nausea and other side effects subside once you take wheatgrass on a daily basis, its taste will remain less than pleasing.
Health-conscious people who exercise and eat a healthy diet will have fewer problems with wheatgrass side effects than individuals detoxing from a poor diet, smoking or other bad habits.
Drink plenty of water
You should drink eight or more glasses of water daily when you begin taking a wheatgrass supplement, if you aren't doing so already. Water aids the detox process by ridding your body of toxins through urine, bowel movements and sweat.
If you suffer from constipation, your body builds up toxins, causing weight gain, sluggishness and ill health. Add more fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet and exercise daily to detox your body.
You also need to eat healthy
Even after you feel better, you still need to eat right and continue all the healthy habits you started during detox. Renewing unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits with the idea that you can detox your body anytime you want to is a mistake.
Ongoing health and energy is the ultimate goal. Sure, even the most health-conscious among us may eat too much at a holiday dinner or give into friends on an outing and eat cotton candy or greasy burgers.
You can detox your body within a day or two after small slip-ups, and most of us will binge on bad foods once in awhile. You want to avoid using detox as an excuse for regular “bad food” binges. This “back and forth” type of lifestyle will damage your body in the long run.
Even if you don't take wheatgrass tablets or pills, you may experience some of the side effects mentioned above during your initial diet detox. When you transition from an unhealthy diet to a clean one, headaches, hunger pangs and fatigue are common.
Since your body is ridding itself of toxins, you may experience frequent urination, more bowel movements and flatulence. This means the detox is working! You may want to avoid social outings during the first few days of your detox, when this cleansing process is most likely to occur.
Detoxification is an Ongoing Habit
Even if you eat well and exercise, you're still subjected to toxins in the air, water and products you use everyday. This makes it important to pay attention to what your body (and mood changes) are telling you. Environmental toxins can cause depression, nausea, chills, fever, weakness, skin rash and other symptoms.
If you suffer from these ailments it may be due to pesticides, air pollutants, pharmaceuticals, phthalates, or PCBs. Phthalates, chemicals used in many common products, may be toxic. Studies have shown this chemical excreted in the urine of women of child-bearing age and infants. PCBs, banned in 1979, were once used in electrical equipment and plasticizers.
You may be exposed to toxins daily even if you eat good food and abstain from smoking and alcohol. That's why a detox diet should be permanent. You'll feel better, look better and be less likely to develop heart disease, cancer or other life-threatening conditions.
A detox diet isn't about eating fewer calories – it's about eating better food and drinking more water and cleansing beverages. According to a 2002 study at the University of San Francisco, “we are many times (even unknowingly) protected by the foods we eat. A judicious choice of food will counteract noxious agents.”
Change Your Eating Habits
If you've eaten processed foods, junk food and indulged in soda and beer daily for years, this is easier said than done. Instead of going “cold turkey”, you could introduce fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, wheatgrass, nuts and seeds into your diet over a few weeks.
Maintain a Alkaline pH Balance to Detox Your Body
The pH balance of your blood is a good indicator of your overall health. The best blood pH balance is between 7.35 and 7.45. Any pH level below 7.0 is acidic, and will reduce energy produced in cells and limit the body's ability to detoxify heavy metals. The body will be unable to absorb vitamins and minerals. Fatigue and illness set in and tumor cells appear when the diet is high in acidic foods.
Acidosis and obesity are common due to the average American diet of acid-producing red meat, fried foods, sweets and processed foods. Introducing alkaline-producing vegetables, fruits and spices into your diet will balance your pH. Monitor your eating habits. Write down what you eat, how much and when. Determine which foods are acidic and replace them with neutral or alkaline foods.
Most processed or junk foods are acidic. They include soft drinks, beer, coffee, candy, artificial sweeteners, cakes and pastry made from white flour, sugar, salt, sweetened yogurt and fried foods. Consuming toxins through bad food, tobacco and alcohol will keep you fat and tired. Over time, it may cause cancer or other diseases.
Choose from vegetables, fruits, almonds, sesame seeds, raw honey and other alkaline foods to detox your body. Add cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, cayenne pepper and other spices to meals. Spices and herbs are alkaline, and they make most foods taste better. You'll still need to eat some slightly or moderately acidic foods, including bananas, cranberries, walnuts, cashews, blueberries and oatmeal, to maintain a proper blood pH.
A Wheatgrass Supplement Will Detox Your Body
Wheatgrass Love offers three wheatgrass supplements to help you detox more easily. Eating a good diet may be difficult at first if you've spent years grabbing meals on the go, and the hundreds of nutrients in wheatgrass will provide detoxifying elements to help bring your body back to optimal health.
Zeal O2
{WGL_CTA_ZEAL}
Many people in need of body detox are overweight, and Zeal O2 Natural Weight Loss Supplement combines high-value wheatgrass and a herbal blend of cayenne pepper, gingko biloba, green tea extract, ginseng, and Citrus Aurantium to help you burn fat more efficiently while you detox. Rid your body of toxins and lose weight with Zeal O2.
Happy Girl
{WGL_CTA_HAPPYGIRL}
HappyGirl Natural Mood Enhancing Supplement combines wheatgrass and a proprietary blend of green tea extract, fo-ti, white willow, gotu kola, damiana and other herbs to improve your mood while it detoxes your system. The nutrients in HappyGirl are formulated to neutralize mood swings and give you energy to detox mind and body.
Revv
{WGL_CTA_REVV}
REVV Natural Energy Supplement has the same high-grade wheatgrass as our other products, along with periwinkle herb, L-Taurine and Choline Bitartrate, to give you energy while you detox - or anytime. These chocolate mint wafers contain 100% natural ingredients to increase endurance for sports, exercise or other activities.
We're so confident you'll love Zeal O2, REVV and HappyGirl, we offer a money-back guarantee. If you're not happy with any Wheatgrass Love product, you can send the unused portion back for a 100% refund. Always talk to your doctor before taking any dietary supplement.
