What is Body Cleansing & Why is it Important?

Body cleansing is something you may or may not be familiar with, or you may be more familiar with the term detox. Detoxification and body cleansing is constantly going on within your body. You don’t have to do anything to have the detoxification process to occur, but there are definitely things you can do to boost the process and promote the removal of built-up waste in your body.

Let’s take a look at what body cleansing really is, why it’s important, and then safe ways you can go about supporting a total body cleanse.

What is Body Cleansing?

A body cleanse or a detox is an approach to speeding up the removal of toxins in your body. A typical body cleanse starts with some form of fasting followed by a very clean diet full of fruits, vegetables and lots of water. (1) Some people also add in dangerous things like long-term fasts, enemas, detox pills, and long term severe calorie restriction. Read on to learn about why many detox programs may actually be causing us more harm than good.

Why is it Important?

It’s important to cleanse the body regularly through a healthy diet full of whole and naturally cleansing foods for a number of reasons. For one, when you reduce the toxic load in your body, you take a big burden off of your liver and your fat cells. Many toxins are stored in fat, so you may even find that you naturally lose some weight when those toxins are flushed out.

Cleansing your body through proper nutrition and lifestyle changes is also an important step in completely transforming how you eat. If you consume real and whole foods on a daily basis and stay away from toxic artificial and processed options, you will be naturally supporting detox, and giving yourself a nice boost when it comes to ridding your body of toxins. This is important for gut health, immune health, energy levels, and pretty much every other aspect of your health.

Safe Ways to Cleanse the Body

The thing about standard body cleanses is that they often do more harm than good. Fasting for long periods of time can speed up that phase I detoxification system in the body which is great, but it doesn’t provide the body with the nutrients it needs to support phase II detoxification to properly eliminate those toxins. Essentially, fasting for long periods of time can lead to too many toxins just floating around in your bloodstream and then potentially even reabsorb back into fat cells as your body will be lacking the amino acids it needs to properly flush them out. This is also a big reason why so many people feel so sick when they do lengthy juice cleanses. While it’s ok to do a juice fast for a few days, you will definitely want to add in clean and nutritious foods quickly to help your body rid itself of the toxins your body has started to release from the juice cleanse.

With that being said, here are some great natural ways to support total body cleanse. These are tips to implement into your daily life to support optimal wellness.

• Exercise regularly
• Drink lots of filtered water
• Boost gut health with probiotic-rich foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, and unsweetened full-fat coconut milk yogurt to help promote regular elimination.
• Eat whole foods
• Choose organic whenever possible
• Avoid processed and artificial foods
• Cut back on sugar
• Add more naturally detoxifying foods to your diet from the list below
• Get enough clean protein in your diet from things like organic chicken, grass-fed lamb, wild-caught salmon, or whole pasture-raised eggs.
• Avoid foods your body reacts to as this can lead to inflammation, leaky gut, and added stress on the body-common food triggers include gluten, dairy, and soy.
• Reduce stress-stress is toxic and can lead to inflammation, so it’s essential to reduce as much stress as possible through daily stress reduction.
• Reduce your alcohol and caffeine intake-instead of your morning cup of coffee, try sipping on a cup of herbal or green tea.
• Eliminate as many harmful environmental toxins as possible. You would be surprised at how many toxins you breathe in or take in through your skin on a daily basis. Strive to choose cleaner and more natural options when it comes to your home cleaning, skincare, and beauty products, and stay away from any artificial fragrance.
• If possible, invest in an air purifier to help remove some of the toxins you breathe in on a daily basis.
• Skip the plastic and choose glass or stainless steel whenever possible- plastic contains BPA and BPS which are endocrine disruptors and can also add to your toxic load.

There are also some other naturally cleansing foods you can consider adding to your diet which include:

• Chlorella
• Spirulina
• Raw garlic
• Raw apple cider vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Green tea
• Dark leafy green vegetables
• Berries
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Beets
• Cruciferous vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage

A Naturally Detoxifying Morning Drink 

As a way to get you started, here is a cleansing lemon drink that you can enjoy first thing in the morning as a way to kickstart your body, get your digestion going, and start flushing out toxins right from the start of the day.

Here’s what you need:

• 1 cup of warm filtered water
• Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper
• 1 drizzle of pure maple syrup or raw honey to sweeten

Directions:

Add all the ingredients to a mug and whisk well. 

Enjoy first thing in the morning

The Bottom Line

Cleansing the body is important, but remember that your body is naturally equipped to do so, you don’t need to start potentially dangerous detox cleanses that may ultimately may you more sick. Instead, focusing on eating a whole foods diet full of naturally cleansing foods, move your body regularly, reduce stress, and keep yourself hydrated. This approach to body cleansing is not only effective, but it will also benefit your health long-term.

About The Author

Rebecca Jacobs N.C is a Certified Holistic Nutrition Consultant, specializing in digestive and women’s health. She doesn’t believe in dieting but rather making lifestyle changes, and believes that healthy eating must be delicious. Rebecca is also a recipe developer and creates healthier alternatives to traditionally unhealthy foods.