Just after my daughter, our second child was born I was very low and rundown and feeling very tired and lethargic all the time. I’d lost count of how many times I’d been to see the doctor, but each time was told that there was nothing medically wrong with me.

I was visiting a chiropractor one day for an old war wound, and she suggested I should look into doing a detox, and take some time to learn to detox your body with a view to changing my eating habits. It looked like detoxing had a lot of health benefits, so took it upon myself to learn as much about the process as possible, and get to grips with what is really involved and why the natural health industry recommend following a detox diet and recommend starting with the 7 day detox so strongly.

Another thing she suggested to me was to try a detox foot patches. I have a foot spa two or three times a week now, if I have the time, but if you don’t have one of those, those detox pads can work just as well - but doing it this way you miss out on the relaxing foot massage at the same time

This is what I learnt about detoxing your body.

Herbal teas are just as good as water

Making sure you take in plenty of fluids is very important while you are following a detox diet because the water will help your body excrete toxins from your system. It also helps to prevent constipation, stops water retention (believe it or not), and encourage clear skin. You should aim for about 2 to 3 liters a day, but increase that when the weather is hot.

As a rule of thumb, increase your water intake by about half a liter for each hour of exercise. Tap water which has been filtered to remove the chlorine and impurities is the best option. Ideally drink water that is at room temperature. Feel free to substitute herbal teas if you can’t face all that water - loose leaf is better than tea bags as it hasn’t been processed as much. Dandelion root, yarrow, roibosch and green tea are particularly good as their hidden ingredients assist in the detox process. Green tea and redbush has other health benefits too as it is rich in antioxidants.

How Can I Possibly Drink So Much?

Although drinking 8 big glasses of water a day seems hard, here’s a few tips that will help. Start your first glass of water with a little freshly squeezed lemon juice or root ginger when you rise - it’s the perfect way to start up your metabolism and bowel then try to drink another glass each time you take a break from your work.

Have a glass before each meal, try a glass of water and a herbal tea at elevensies, another glass when you get home from work and one more glass when you’re getting ready for bed. Don’t be afraid to “spice up” the water with a little lemon juice.

Fresher Food Is More Nutritious

This means choosing fresh food whenever possible and eating most of your fruit and vegetables raw, for example as snacks, crudites, salads, and juices. When raw, food still has all its enzymes and nutrients intact. Once food has been kept too long, or if it has been cooked or processed in any way, its nutritional value plummets.

If at all possible buy from local farms or producers, preferably at farms and markets in your area. Food from other countries is generally harvested before it is ripe (so it will be short of it’s full vitamin and mineral supply) and will have lost much of its nutritional value during its journey to your supermarket.

Should You Go Organic

When detoxing, there’s no need to go completely organic, as organic produce is normally higher priced than non organic equivalents, but if you can afford to stretch to buying a few organic products it will be a great help.

If you can’t buy many organic foods, don’t worry. Concentrating on eating fresh (and ideally raw) fruit and veg is the main point regardless of them being organic or not, instead of eating too few of them. Having said that, there are some very beneficial health reasons of going organic on a healthy detox diet.

Artificial fertilizers and pesticides are banned from production of organic foods, so they have very little or no potentially toxic man made chemicals. Organic farming is a hotly debated and controversial topic because there’s a lot of evidence that the ‘cocktail’ effect of man made fertilizers and pesticides can cause long term health problems.

Organic foods are subject to a lot less processing. The end result being that organic foods are free from artificial additives and hydrogenated fats. And you may notice that organic foods also taste better and have much deeper flavors.