Detox Diets For Dummies
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If you’re not enjoying optimal health, or if you’re struggling with obesity, you need to take a good, hard look at the many benefits of a detox diet. Changing what you eat (and how you eat it) so that you’re focusing on wholesome, healthy foods and cutting out toxic ingredients is the first and most important step toward ensuring good health and maintaining a healthy weight.

The principles for detox dieting are relatively simple, but the changes they require can be pretty tough. (They’re not as tough, however, as living an unhealthy and obese life.)

Losing those extra, harmful pounds

Not many people make the connection between toxins and obesity, but clear, proven relationships exist that you need to understand if you want to stay at a healthy weight. Getting on (and sticking with) a detox diet will go a long way toward minimizing your toxicity. And if you can make detox dieting a part of your life for life, you’ll lose the extra, harmful pounds that weigh you down and damage your health.

Body fat is toxic!

You don’t run into many people who are fond of fat, and for good reason. In addition to being unattractive in the eyes of many people, fat is also a storehouse for toxins in your body.

Fat-soluble toxins are tucked away in fat cells to prevent them from harming your organs and other vital tissues, and when the toxins are more concentrated, the fat cells get bigger in an effort to keep them diluted. If you can avoid toxins and detoxify the toxins you’re already carrying around with you, shedding fat becomes much easier.

Body fat stresses your body’s systems

For every pound of fat your body makes, it has to make about 4 miles of blood vessels. Carrying 25 extra pounds of fat means your heart has to pump blood through another 100 miles of vessels. As you can imagine, that’s not good news for the most important muscle in your body, and it’s just the beginning.

Fat wreaks havoc on your joints, contributes to diabetes, and causes too many other conditions to list here. Lose the toxins, lose the unhealthy foods from your diet, and you’ll lose the fat. And then your health will flourish.

Tackling unhealthy habits

Choosing the right toxin-free foods and ensuring that your eating habits are as healthy as possible will do more than just help you to eliminate excess fat. Giving your body the healthy fuel that it needs can also be a critical factor in helping to kick unhealthy habits like drinking and smoking.

What’s more, if you really embrace detox dieting, you can greatly enhance the recovery and healing process that takes place after you’ve put down the bottle and snuffed out your last cigarette. Pair those dietary choices with some more detoxification efforts — saunas, for instance — and you can go from an unhealthy smoker or drinker to a healthy, detoxified person in a fraction of the time.

About This Article

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About the book authors:

Dr. Gerald Don Wootan, DO, M.Ed., is a board-certified osteopathic physician and the medical director of Jenks Health Team, a medical practice that specializes in integrative medicine with an emphasis on natural detoxification and nutritional supplementation. M. Brittain Phillips is a freelance writer.

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