Did you overeat during the holidays? Or did you eat lots of rich food on vacation? For whatever reason, you may have recently done some binge eating and need to detox. I’m going to show the healthiest ways to detox after vacation or holiday! Also, check out the YouTube video below!
Below is a list of five of the safest, healthiest ways to detoxify your body, plus a bonus tip. Have you, like so many of us, made a resolution to improve your health and either never got to it or quit after two days? These tips should help you complete your resolution successfully this time. I’m going to start with the easiest and work up to the most challenging.
1. Raw Vegan Fast
This one is easier than it sounds. Just pick a length of time to eat only raw, vegan food, plan what you want to eat, and make a grocery list of what you’ll need. I recommend a full day, but you can work up to that if you find that easier.
Just start with a raw breakfast of fruit, a smoothie, a smoothie bowl, a green juice, or a green smoothie. These are all excellent cleansers, especially for first thing in the morning. The next day, do the raw breakfast and add a raw lunch. The lunch can simply be a raw, vegan salad, with a healthy dressing.
Prepare some raw snacks to eat in between meals to also increase your raw portions. The next day, continue to eat a raw breakfast and lunch, but add a raw supper this time and maybe even a raw dessert. Check out more of our recipes if you need ideas. There are many delicious options for raw meals and desserts. My wife, Joann, is a raw vegan chef and un-cooks many healthy comfort foods for me that are just as awesome as the original, sometimes even better!
You can do a raw, vegan fast for any length of time, from one meal to the rest of your life. This is the healthiest food on the planet, so it will vastly improve your health, increase your energy, and strengthen your immunity. It is the easiest way to detox your body and really doesn’t take that much discipline. Check out our free 5-Day Meal Plan and smoothie bowl video to get started.
2. Intermittent Fast
Intermittent fasting is a dietary schedule that cycles between periods of fasting and eating. It’s all the rage in the health space right now. There are a handful of ways to fast this way:
- The 16/8 Method involves fasting every day for 14-16 hours, and restricting your daily “eating window” to 8-10 hours.
- The 5:2 diet involves eating normally 5 days of the week, while restricting calories to 500-600 on two days of the week.
- Eat-Stop-Eat involves a 24-hour fast, either once or twice per week.
- Alternate-day fasting means fasting every other day, either by not eating anything or only eating a few hundred calories.
- The Warrior Diet is about eating only small amounts of vegetables and fruits during the day, then eating one huge meal at night.
- Another option is to simply skip meals from time to time, when you don’t feel hungry or are too busy to cook and eat. So, if you’ve accidentally skipped a meal, you did an intermittent fast and didn’t even know it!
All of these fasting options compared to a simple calorie-restricting diet didn’t necessarily fare any better, unless the time window for eating was earlier in the day. Calories eaten earlier in the day apparently do not pack on weight like the same amount of calories eaten in the evening. Earlier eating also lowered levels of inflammation and gave better blood sugar control (1). That being said, intermittent fasting is a good option. If it sounds like something you would like to try, do some research and see if it’s a good fit for you.
3. Liquid Fast
The liquid fast takes a bit more discipline than the others. It depends on which liquid you choose. I’ve done all of these in the past. You can choose raw vegetable juice with limited fruit juice to avoid blood-sugar spikes, purified water, the Master Cleanse lemonade, smoothies, or a combination of any of these. Again, choose your length of time, whether it’s just a partial day, a full day, a full week, or a full month. I usually do one of these fasts 1-3 days each month or more often if needed.
Juice Fast
If you want to try a juice fast, the healthiest way to obtain juice is to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and juice them with a masticating juicer. A centrifugal juicer is not recommended because most of the nutrients remain in the pulp, which is usually discarded, and the friction heat of the blade kills most of the enzymes. The masticating juicer, which is gentler with a much slower blade, keeps most of the vitamins and enzymes in the juice where they are needed.
If you don’t have that, just use whatever juicer you have now. Another option is to buy fresh-made juice from your local health food store. Just make sure you’re not buying a juice off the shelf. If it has a shelf life longer than 3 days, then it has been pasteurized or cooked. Cooked juices are not cleansing and will not help with your detox. Try to drink raw, fresh juices within 24 hours to fully utilize the rich nutrients that tend to deteriorate over time. Don’t wait more than 3 days max, but the first 24 hours are best.
Master Cleanse
The Master Cleanse is simply purified water, fresh lemon juice, pure maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. This was very popular when I first became vegan back in the 1990s. I did this fast quite often. It tastes very good and, depending on how much cayenne you use, it can show immediate results. It will flat out clear your sinuses!
Water Fast
A water fast is the most difficult by far. It can be beneficial, but I don’t recommend it unless you’re a seasoned faster in excellent health. The detoxification can be pretty intense. And with no nourishment, it tends to make you weak, where you need plenty of rest. The others allow you to carry on with your normal activities. This one does not.
Now, all of these liquid fasts I’ve mentioned so far do not contain fiber. This helps you’re body rest from digestion so that it can concentrate on cleansing your cells. This last liquid fast does contain fiber, so the detox is usually less intense.
Smoothie Fast
That is the smoothie fast. Whether you make green smoothies or fruit smoothies, you’re blending the whole plant-based food, so it has less chance of spiking your blood sugar. Even though it contains fiber, it has been broken down for easier digestion. This one might be a good one to start with if you’ve never done a liquid fast before. Let me know in the comments which of these fasts you might try or that you have done before. See our detox smoothie video below!
These last 2 fasts come from one of my health heroes, Robyn Openshaw, the Green Smoothie Girl. She has done decades of detailed research and experimentation to come up with these programs. Afterwards, I will share a bonus tip that saved me from heavy metal poisoning.
4. Modified Fast
The Flash Fast is a modified fast. Robyn Openshaw, the GreenSmoothieGirl, says, “The clinical research on modified fasting is the most exciting health discovery of this century so far.” A “modified fast” tricks your body into thinking you’re fasting. You consume a specific amount of food and nutrients. And you don’t have to go hungry or give up food altogether. Like intermittent fasting, Flash Fasting has proven benefits and is backed by science (2). 100 Flash Fasters were tested over a 3-day period and they:
- Lost 2 to 7 pounds
- Reduced joint pain
- Improved digestion
- Got Better sleep
- Increased energy
Check out the unboxing video above! When I did it, I lost 4 pounds and felt great mental clarity with increased energy. You get 15 mini-meals shipped to you—5 each day, for 3 days—of organic, plant-based, whole-food protein shakes, bars, and sprouted seeds. Check it out if you’re interested in learning more. Joann and I had fun with it, so see if someone else will go on the Flash Fast with you.
5. Extended (26-Day) Detox
Robyn studied human detoxification with the best holistic doctors, on 4 different continents, for 25 years. And she has helped now over 16,000 people through the process (3). Here are the top 10 different reasons you might want to tackle a significant detox:
- Average 12.5 pound weight loss (some as high as 27 pounds!)
- Higher energy, all day
- Joint pain disappearing
- Better digestion (MORE coming out)
- Disappearing auto-immune symptoms
- Food cravings gone
- Mood stabilizing (calming anxiety and depression)
- Skin clearing
- Blood sugar stabilizing
- Brain fog clearing, mind is sharp again
This 26-day detox is challenging, but Robyn gives you the option to have some cooked food during the process. I kept mine fully raw. I even sprouted the wild rice. She also gives two options, one easier than the other. Since I have fasted and detoxified many times, I took the harder road. She guides you through optimizing your organs of elimination, cleaning them all out, so the challenge is worth the benefit.
My Results
I did it last year and received tons of benefits, even though I ate a healthy diet. I’m exposed to the same toxins in the environment as you are. I have done many raw-juice fasts, raw-food fasts, and even the Master Cleanse a few times. None of them compare to Robyn’s detox program, which also supplies the micro-nutrients, probiotics, enzymes, and fiber to replenish our systems after purging so many toxins.
I was already at a healthy weight, but I still lost 10.8 pounds and I felt fantastic! I highly recommend this detox program to everyone. It is necessary for even the healthiest of us. I am very impressed with all the research and fine tuning that Robyn did to bring us such a comprehensive detoxification regimen!
All of these fasts trigger a process called autophagy. This is cell cleansing process in the body that begins to eat debris and eliminate waste when there is a lack of nutrients brought on by fasting. Dead and toxic matter in the cells are cleaned out and damage is repaired. Fasting is vital part of detoxification.
Bonus: Maintain with Zeolite and Glutathione
Zeolite has a honeycomb structure with a negative charge that attracts positively-charged toxins like lead and mercury, so it is an awesome detoxifier! It also:
- Strengthens immunity
- Alkalizes the body
- Supports a healthy gut
- Supports the neutralization of free radicals
- Sustains the body’s natural detoxification process
- Transports mercury out of the brain
These two supplements took my detox to the next level. Joann and I take it every day. I have been tested for heavy metals and they are gone from my system. I’ll tell you that story in another blog.
Conclusion
Test any or all of these for yourself and see if you feel better. It certainly can’t hurt. Add this healthy activity to your day, along with eating nutritious food, exercising, drinking purified water, breathing clean air, and getting some sunshine. Be sure and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news and posts. Happy detoxing!
References
- The Benefits of Early Time-Restricted Eating. Michael Greger M.D. FACLM. December 9th, 2019, Volume 48.
- Green Smoothie Girl Flash Fast. Experience the health benefits of fasting in a simple and delicious package.
- Green Smoothie Girl 26-Day Detox Program. Thorough cleanse for anyone wishing to give their digestive system a break or lose weight through a guided process.
Note: I am a Green Smoothie Girl affiliate, so I may receive a small payment if you purchase from the links in this blog. They do not cost any more if you do and I don’t recommend anything I haven’t used and love myself. It helps us to continue to give you helpful content to get you to your best health yet. Thanks so much!
Joann Loy
Kenny Loy