How to Prepare for Your Cleanse

 
You’ve decided to do a cleanse, congratulations! This can be a life changing experience if you follow these important tips on how to prepare.
I know, I know, preparing is boring, right? You want to jump right in and go!

Here’s the thing; rushing into a cleanse from a processed diet or a diet high in animal proteins, alcohol, and excess caffeine can be really painful, and you could get a migraine, feel sick and totally exhausted, and be miserable as you detox way too fast.

Even if you would define your diet as “pretty good”, you’ll be thankful if you take some time to allow your body to adjust to a cleaner diet, to avoid the bad symptoms I just talked about.

Ideally allow 3 to 5, to even 7 days or more for your preparation.

Here are my best tips for preparing in a graceful, easy way.

1) Remove heavy, complex animal proteins, in favor of lighter ones.
Beef and pork can have a long transit time in your digestion, creating more work for your body. Removing beef and pork days before your cleanse is easy to do and will allow your digestion to begin to lighten up. Go for wild fish or a poultry instead.

2) Ease up on the alcohol and wine
Alcohol is high in sugar and creates inflammation. It also feeds yeast in your gut and creates a puffy appearance, and it can be addictive. If you do drink wine every day, you’ll be grateful to remove this, or dilute your wine as a spritzer as you head into your cleanse.

3) Cut back on caffeine
Quitting coffee cold turkey is tough, and could leave you grumpy, anxious, with a bad headache. Go easy and wean off of the dark stuff the week before your cleanse. Try removing a half cup a day as you go.

4) Cut back on bread and crackers in favor of whole grains
If you’re a bread addict, it could be tough going in the first days of your cleanse. Eliminate the cravings by switching to Ezekial bread now, (a sprouted grain bread that’s sold in the freezer section of your local health food store) and increase your whole grains like brown rice and quinoa in favor of bread with dinner.

5) Switch over to non-dairy milk or creamers
Dairy is addictive, (especially cheese) and this might be tough when you begin. Wean off of dairy the week prior to your cleanse by switching to non-dairy milks like hemp milk, almond milk or coconut milk.

The slower you proceed, and the more time you allow to prepare, the better. Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

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PS. On New Year’s Day, 2014 I’ll open the doors to my signature program, Cleanse with Benefits—a gentle, whole foods based cleanse to reset your system in a healthy way. Guaranteed: no deprivation and guilt allowed! I invite you to join me, in health, to feel fab by February. Click here for more information.

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