With a short detox diet, you can get a quick boost to your overall health. Though the point of this detox is not really to lose weight, it is certainly possible to drop around 5 pounds while doing this.

A smoothie detox diet is a simple way for anyone to flush out toxins, and amp up their body’s health. This is perfect for those who have tried diet after diet after diet, all of which left them feeling flat or burned out quickly. Instead, this short detox will give them a boost that they can use to continue on to a health eating lifestyle.

How To Do The 5 Day Smoothie Detox Diet

This detox is absolutely simple to do. There is no counting or measuring your food, no mixing weird concoctions, and no eating weird foods. Simple stick to 5 basic rules each day for the five day period.

1. Drink green smoothies for each meal. Drink as much as you want to feel full and satisfied, but only green smoothies. You can find many recipes to try under the Smoothie Recipes category!
2. Snack on fresh fruits and vegetables between meals. No dips, dressings, or oils. Just pure, whole, fresh fruits and vegetables.
3. Drink water. Lots of water. No soda, coffee, tea, juice, nothing. Just big, tall glasses of the water your body needs.
4. Rest up. During a detox period, most people feel worse then they did before. This is because your body is both ridding itself of toxins and fighting against additions to negative foods (like sugars). Get plenty of rest to combat these cruddy feelings.
5. Take it one day at a time. Five days seems short now, but often by the second or third day of a detox people begin to feel it will never end. Instead of thinking about how much time you have left, focus on the right now. This will make it easier to get though.

Of course, for every detox there are going to be exceptions to the rules. Athletes and those with extremely active lifestyles may need to add protein powder, wheat germ or flax seeds to their smoothies to keep up with their higher caloric needs. Those with already weakened bodies sometimes add vitamins or supplements to the mix also. To be safe, it is probably best to talk with your doctor first before beginning any detox to make sure it can fit with your unique health needs.

A 5 day smoothie detox diet can be the perfect thing for flushing out toxins, for giving your health a boost, and sometimes for losing weight in a short period of time.

photo credit: leoncillo sabino

Drinking green smoothies each morning not only makes a delicious breakfast treat, it also provides invaluable health benefits. The morning boost of energy that comes from drinking a green smoothie in the AM lasts all day long.

Instead of heavy carbs or meat weighing your down that a typical breakfast might do, your morning green smoothie will lift you up and get you going. And since they are made from fruits, the flavor is a breakfast treat that anyone will enjoy. Try a delicious strawberry orange smoothie or a soothing banana pear one for breakfast and see how great you feel. The essential vitamins and minerals that you get from each drink will keep your body running strong longer than a plate of eggs and bacon ever will. There are so many benefits from drinking green smoothies.

If you only drink one a day it will feel like an elixir of health each day. You can get many of the nutrients your body needs from the one drink. And since smoothies are blended, they are easier for your stomach to digest down. Your body can absorb more from smoothies than a plate of cooked greens. Plants are notoriously difficult for our stomachs to break down. We have to help by processing the plant material down. Chewing is one way to do that. A better way is to blend the greens down to a liquid pulp. Blended greens are easier for your body to work with than the ones you have to chew.

And for many, a green smoothie tastes better than eating a salad.

One smoothie a day is enough to begin to feel amazing improvements to your health. But you know what they say. If a little is good, a lot must be great. In only a few minutes, you can whip up a delicious and health green smoothie. Why not try drinking two or three each day.

photo credit: ms.Tea

Ounce for ounce, spinach is one of the most nutrient packed vegetables you can eat, yet many people avoid spinach as much as possible. Adding a few leaves of this crisp green to your vegan smoothies will help you get all of the benefits, while avoiding the slimy, cooked spinach taste.

Spinach leaves are packed with Vitamins A, C, E, K, B1, B6. There are also a ton of minerals, such as potassium, iron, calcium, and zinc. All of this comes with only 40 calories per cup raw and with twice the fiber of regular lettuce. Eating foods rich in Vitamins A and C can help prevent fat from sticking to the arteries and increase blood flow throughout your body. The riboflavin found in spinach is also thought to reduce migraines. Spinach truly is a super food.

Studies have shown that adding just 3 servings of green, leafy vegetables to your diet every day can reduce the risk of memory loss and mental decline with age. Spinach, kale, collards, Swiss chard, turnip greens and bok choy are all healthy vegetables that you can add into any smoothie to give them a boost. And because of the high fiber, vegan smoothies made with spinach will fill you up faster and help you feel full longer. A perfect boost to anyone trying to lose weight.

Vegan green smoothies made with spinach are a perfect addition to a healthy daily diet. Even if you only add in one each day, that extra dose of green vegetables will make your body feel healthier and happier.

Drink up!

photo credit: Clearly Ambiguous

Vegans choose to give up eating and using animal products, including milk. Yet in our modern culture, milk is advertised as one of the necessary parts of a healthy diet. Are there benefits of giving up milk?

Milk is no longer what it used to be. The age old image of a cow, peacefully grassing on a grassy knoll no longer exists. Milk cows today are smashed together in giant factory farms, kept alive and producing with an assortment of hormones and antibiotics. All of which make their way into your body through the milk. Yuck!

We are also not designed to be drinking milk, at least not the way we do. Once we wean from breastmilk as infants a human should be existing on water and real fruit juice. For many, milk is nearly indigestible. Stomach pain, headaches, weight gain, and lethargy have all been linked by some to an inability to breakdown the milk proteins properly. Dairy just isn’t something we should be drinking on a regular basis. Going dairy-free can mean leaving behind all the negative symptoms from undigested milk proteins.

Milk substitutes

One of the things we are encouraged most to drink milk for is the calcium, yet there are many other sources of calcium that you can choose instead. Leafy green vegetables, like the ones in your smoothies, can provide an abundance of calcium in your diet. Broccoli, kale, and collards will all add calcium into your diet, and bring along a host of other vitamins and nutrients as well. (Spinach is the exception, as it can actually prevent calcium absorption.) Black-eyed peas and almonds can also provide calcium in small doses.

If you are up to it, why not try the Dairy Free Challenge? Download and print the free journal and record yourself going without milk, and milk products, for 10 days. At the end see how you feel. You may find life without milk is much better!

photo credit: fdecomite

Not everyone gets excited at the thought of drinking a green smoothie. Yet there are many great reasons to reach for one of these drinks every day. If you are still on the fence about drinking your vegetables, here are 5 reasons you should make the jump towards vegan green smoothies every day.

1. Get fresh produce in your diet – The average diet today consists of a lot of boxed and packaged foods. Even vegetables are more likely to come from a can than the garden. Drinking vegan smoothies, however, is a great way to get plenty of fresh foods in your diet. The fresher the food, the more nutritious it is.
2. A pure source of vitamins and minerals – How many people take vitamin pills each day to make up for what they lack? And of that, not everything in those pills will be absorbed into the body. Drinking green smoothies means you are getting everything your body needs, in a delicious drink rather than a huge pill. It’s the easy way to be healthy!
3. Antioxidants – It’s a big word that we hear tossed around a lot today, but exactly are antioxidants? They are those special vitamins and minerals in food that helps clear out the toxins that build up in our bodies. Vitamins E and C, Beta-Carotene, selenium, and more gather up the harmful toxins we absorb and helps filter them out our digestive track. And the best source of antioxidants? Fresh fruits and vegetables, of course!
4. Alkaline – Most people probably do nt have a clue what the pH of their body is. Many probably do not even know how important it is. The problem is, eating meat raising the acid levels in your body significantly. And higher acid levels leads to decreased health. Plants, especially raw plants, work to lower that acid level down to an acceptable range.
5. Increased sex drive – OK, let’s get personal here. When we’re unhealthy and feeling sluggish, sex is the last thing on our minds. Many green smoothie drinkers swear by the claim that drinking smoothies every day not only makes them feel more energized and alert during the day, but that good feelings lasts well into the night also. Consider it your secret powerhouse in a glass.

Are you still uncertain about getting on the vegan green smoothie bandwagon? The only way to really know if they will work for you is to just try it! Add one green smoothie to your diet each day and see how you feel. If, after a few weeks you feel great, add more. You never know how you’ll feel unless you try!

Not sure where to begin? Check out some of the great recipes listed here. Or check out the books I have selected on the side. Go green and get healthy!

photo credit: tiffanywashko

Can organic fruits and vegetables make your vegan green smoothies healthier?

Most of the food you buy today is grown or raised with fertilizers, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. All of which make their way into you with every bite you take. These toxins can build up in your body making you tired, moody, and gripping tight to the fat you are trying to lose. Choosing organic instead, can help.

The body has to process and break down everything that goes into it. When it cannot break down and expel these toxins fast enough, they become stored in your body. Over years these toxins build up in your vital organs, causing damage. Many of the pesticides and fertilizers used to grow fruits and vegetables have been found to be carcinogens, meaning they can cause cancer. Think about how many meals you have eaten in your lifetime and it starts to get scary.

When people start on a vegan smoothie diet they are often significantly increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables they are eating. And with that, the risks. Choosing organic foods is a simple way to reduce those risks greatly. Foods grown organically do not have these toxic chemicals in them. Your smoothies can be even healthier with organic produce mixed into them.

photo credit: ginnerobot