How to detox your body before the festive season

If you really do want to go on a cleansing diet, do it for the right reasons.

And not because detox or raw food or juice cleanings are the latest fads. Or because someone says that there are too many toxins in your body and you must purge them out. Because please get this right: our body is designed to cleanse itself on its own. All systems are in place. There are specific organs dedicated to the task, and they specialise in throwing out the junk we put in. What makes you think our interventions can improve the job of these specialists!

That said, sometimes we do go on a "let's-mess-with-our-body" kind of a trip and end up messing up the system itself, decreasing its efficiency.

(To find out if you have reached that stage, count the number of yays on this list: unexplained body aches, fatigue, weight gain, too frequent colds and flu, foggy brain, stomach playing up, bad breath, sudden adult acne (yes!), brittle nails/hair... If you get three or more yes, you qualify.)

A mild detox then can be a good way to prime up your body, enhance your systems and make the body a better waste dumper and nutrient absorber. And I say do it well in time for the coming festive season (October-November-December), so that you face the festivities brimming with energy and freshness, and not saddled with a body that resembles an attic overflowing with chemical junk. Think of this as cleaning of your insides before the festivals.

But detox does not mean suffering a ridiculous diet or an unbearably tough regime. And cleansing does not mean days and days of simply juice. That, in fact, is not advisable at all (another story another time!). The right way to do it is to eliminate the wrong stuff AND also add the missing right stuff. Both are equally important.

Do it right!

Follow this elimination programme. For four weeks, ditch refined carbs, dairy, soy, red meat, coffee, aerated drinks, sweets and sugar. Also dump processed, ready-to-eat stuff (anything in a package or a can). Cook at home as much as possible. If going cold turkey does not work for you, then slowly cut these off over the first week and stay completely away for the next three weeks.

Consciously include lots of fruits and vegetables, gluten-free whole grains like ragi, amaranth, quinoa and rice, and fish in your diet. Vegetables, both cooked and raw, are okay.

Increase the body’s supply of antioxidants - vitamins E and C, beta-carotene and trace mineral selenium, as these help the body get rid of the free radicals, which make us feel unhealthy and fatigued, and in the long run also lead to multiple disorders like heart disease, diabetes and so on.

To get your vitamin E level up, keep the chips and fried namkeens away. Snack instead on walnuts, peanuts, and almonds; sprinkle seeds and wheat germ on the morning cereal, add olives to salads every day and enjoy a leafy green vegetable for both lunch and dinner.

To get enough vitamin C begin your day with nimbu pani (lemon juice). Have citrus fruits (like orange, lime), increase the proportion of tomatoes in your salads (try to have two tomatoes every day), have tomato soup three times this week too, and have some amla juice daily.

For beta-carotene, now that mangoes are out of season, focus on papaya. Have at least one serving of either pepper, spinach, pumpkin or sweet potato daily, and snack on dried apricots in the evening.

Get selenium from seafood (tuna, especially), zero in on mushrooms, spinach, cabbage and broccoli, and liberally sprinkle seeds (sunflower, sesame and flax) on your dishes.

Go easy on fat. The fat we eat is processed by our liver, and this process takes energy away from the regular detoxification work that the liver does. Many toxins are fat-soluble and the liver's job is to transform them into water-soluble substances so they can be excreted through the bowel or the kidneys (as the bowel and the kidneys cannot process them out, until they're water-soluble). When there is too much oil in our diet, often the liver is not able to cope up. So to ease off the burden and let the liver work at its optimum, switch to a really low-fat diet. Simply strike off the word "fried" from your food dictionary for these four weeks, and consciously include some good fat in the form of walnuts, olive oil and flax seeds.

Three more rules

Hydrate enough. Target drinking a minimum of two litres of water every day.

Hold the shaker. Try to season with pepper and herbs.

Include sprouted and fermented foods as much as possible in diet.

Finally learn lessons every day. Take these four weeks as a learning ground where you figure out your problem areas. Do you eat too much of cheese? Is excessive sodium (processed, ready-to-eat foods) your problem? Or is your love for sweets your biggest bane? If you learn them right, you probably won’t need a purge or a cleanse ever again. That sounds good, doesn’t it!