Detox Diet to Kick Start Weight Loss

Following a simple detox diet can help rid your body of toxins and kick start you weight loss routine. Detox diets are pain-free and should be used before you start a weight loss programme, as it will rebalance your body and allow it to efficiently absorb nutrients and burn calories. It's also a powerful method to use in conjunction with exercise routines to burn calories fast.

What does the diet consist of?

On a detox diet you don't necessarily limit your food intake - instead, you replace all toxin-rich foods with alternative high fibre foods. Foods that contain allergens are cut out from the diet, allowing your body to detoxify itself.

You can either begin a detox diet a week before a new diet routine, or carry on using parts of the detox diet throughout the day to increase you metabolism and aid weightloss.

To detoxify the body, it's recommended to drink around 2 cups of natural green tea a day to boost your metabolism. Drink during the detox diet and, to keep your body on form to reduce toxins, drink after the detox diet.

Foods to Avoid

Remove wheat and dairy from your diet, the most common foods with allergens in them. They can cause bloating, fatigue and even increase food cravings; pasta, bread, breakfast cereals and cab replaced with rice cakes, rye and corn-based cereals, or porridge oats.

Replace dairy products with soya or rice milks and soya cheese. Remove red meat, which is hard to digest and contains saturated fat. Bacon, ham, pate and sandwich meats should also be avoided and replaced with organic chicken, tofu and fresh fish.

Cut out cakes, biscuits and junk snacks and instead eat fruit, vegetables and steamed vegs instead of snacking. Cut out fats, butter, margarines, fried foods, crisps and mayo when detoxing. Flaxseed and olive oil can be added to some foods.

Suggested Menus

The detox diet sounds hard to follow, but there are a lot of substitutes you can use to replace the foods you can no longer eat. Some suggested menus are:

Breakfast: Porridge oats sweetened with bannana, nuts and soya milk. Poached and boiled eggs, avacado on toast, gluten-free muesli with soya milk or soya yoghurt sweetened with honey.

Lunch: Salad on rye crispbreads or a jacket potato. Non-wheat pasta products can also be added to salads.

Dinner: Steamed or grilled fish, organic vegetables, poached skinless chicken, bean or lentil stews and steamed vegetables. Oriental dishes are popular on the detox diet.

You can subtitute snack foods for fruit, fresh vegs and steamed veg.

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