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

The Proverbial Medical Disclaimer

I’d like to start of by stating that this information is just my opinion based on the information I have read from expert authors and from the 10+ years living and eating the way I have on a daily basis. Couple that with my twice a year blood work that reveals no deficiencies, I feel this information is valid and very valuable. Perhaps it works just for me, my genetic makeup and my body type, I can’t say for sure. However, just like cigarette smoke could probably affect each one of us with varying degrees of health negatives, the green smoothie diet, I feel, can affect each one of us with varying degrees of health positives. Try it for yourself, after you speak with your natural, or other, health practitioner first of course.

Cut Your Finger And It Will Usually Be Healed In A Short Time

The body is designed to heal itself right? Then why is it that so many people are sick? Perhaps it is in inaccurate statement that the body is truly designed to heal itself? No! The problem is that we a) do not give it the sufficient amount of tools, by way of diet for the most part, it needs to heal itself and b) we bombard it with things that hinder the functionality of the limited tools that we do provide it.

Living On Mars

Another possibility that may seem a bit far fetched and from another planet is that perhaps our beliefs truly do control our lives. For example if we truly, without a doubt, 100% believe that smoking and eating anything that we want contributes to good health, then it will. That’s the theory anyway and I have seen that hold true on smaller scales, like placebos for example, but it’s a difficult concept for most people to wrap their minds around so to speak, so let’s come back to Earth and finish this up.

You Are What You Eat

Here’s a bold statement. One that a lot of people won’t like to hear, and one that is just MY opinion and not to be construed as advice. I feel, we, as humans, don’t need to consume meat to survive. That’s right, the plant kingdom has everything we need to survive and thrive. What about Vitamin D? Get some sun. Plus there are some algaes I believe that provide a source of Vitamin D. What about Vitamin B12? Sure, B12 is abundant in meat, granted, and besides some forms of algae, there may not be a source of B12 in the plant kingdom. However, it is suggested that one of two things may be going on in our favor. First, it is suggested that B12 will recycle itself in the colon so it does not need to be ingested. And another school of thought is that the body will manufacture B12 on its own using other resources that are provided by diet. Who knows for sure, but I’m not deficient in Vitamin B12 myself and I don’t eat meat anymore.

The Best Diet Going

I’m a big advocate of raw foods. The suggestion that heating food above a certain temperature destroying much needed enzymes that are important for digestion makes sense to me. Further, it is suggested that to get the most out of our food we must chew it until it disappears. Our body has troubles handling big chunks of food. Also, I strongly believe that we can survive and thrive off of a diet of mostly fruits and dark green leafy vegetables, with the occasional healthy fats. Healthy fats in the form of avocados, soaked nuts and seeds is all I consume.

My goal each day is to eat plenty of raw ripened fruits and greens. The best way as far as I’m concerned, in order to consume enough and to help my body with digestion is to drink green smoothies throughout the day. Finally, I am creating a body that has ALL the tools that it needs to heal itself and give me the energy, mental clarity and vitality that I need to get through my day.

One Major Hurdle: Cravings

Some people worry about the green smoothies tasting bad. That’s before they try them. Others worry about losing the “social” aspect of eating. Get over that or be creative or stay sick OK? Another hurdle is cost. Eating unhealthy is cheap that’s for sure. But we’re just talking about produce here for the most part. If you can’t afford to grow your own or to buy organic at first, don’t. Eventually, as you heal and feel better, if you are like me, you will start to become more productive and more energetic which could eventually lead to the desire and motivation to grow a garden or even earn more money to buy organic foods. I’m not kidding!

Another hurdle for some, and a big one for me was fighting unhealthy cravings. Just like a person addicted to drugs or alcohol must go through a detox to heal, we essentially have to do the same thing. Our cells are made up of stuff from the food that we have consumed in the past. The body may crave more of the same unhealthy foods that contribute to the contents of the individual, sick cells in our body. For drug detoxes, often times, sauna therapy is used to sweat the drugs out of the system. That generally helps eliminate the physical drug cravings allowing the individual a better chance of staying sober. For us, improving our eating will trigger the elimination of toxic foods as well which can be naturally removed in stool, sweat and urine. However, we still might crave those foods while some of the toxic elements in our cells are still present.

I, myself, have found that immediately after having the first drink of my green smoothie the cravings for greasy foods, meat, sweets, salt, etc started to subside. After I was done drinking the smoothie, the cravings were gone completely and I’d be content. The problem then was that the cravings would come again as I became hungry. What I did was make sure I was on top of it and have a green smoothie ready and waiting before the cravings would reoccur, or shortly after they reared their ugly heads. The unhealthy cravings eventually subsided for good as I cleaned out my body. Suddenly I began to crave greens instead!

Be Proactive

How many small kitchen appliances do you see collecting dust? People use them once and since they don’t like to clean them, they avoid using them again. Please don’t attach that negative feeling to this process and to your life saving smoothie blender! What works for me is, I make a smoothie, pour it into a mason jar, and then immediately rinse out the lid and the blender and set it on a dish rack to dry. It’s then ready to go for the next time around. Just take it apart to clean at the end of the day, not for each use! Forget that noise! Plus, give your jars a good rinse after drinking to avoid having to scrub them later. You may be eating a lot of smoothies at first as your body heals. Eventually, though, you’ll likely require less and less, but still maintain the same vitality, energy and ideal weight!

photo credit: avlxyz