Back in 2004 I had reached a stage where I was feeling lethargic and numb pretty much all the time. I’d had several visits with my doctor, but the answer was always the same - nothing medically wrong.

Over dinner one evening a herbalist friend of mine suggested I could do with going on a detox diet, and put some effort into learning to detox your body and see how toxins accumulate in my body and impact my wellbeing and energy levels. It seemed a lot of people had a lot of good things to say about it, so figured it was a worthy investment of my time to at least check it out, and try to understand why alternative health therapists say it’s so popular and recommend regular detox dieting and suggest getting started with the 7 day detox diet so avidly.

Another thing she suggested to me was to try a foot detox. I now use a foot spa about twice a week, if you don’t want to invest in a foot spa, the detox patches can work just as well - although your don’t get the relaxing foot massage at the same time

Here’s what I learnt to detox your body.

Herbal teas and water and plenty of both

Making sure you take in plenty of fluids is very important while you are following a detox diet because it will help purge excessive toxins from your body. Drinking plenty of water also has other health benefits like promoting regular bowel movements, stops water retention (believe it or not), and helps reduce the signs of aging by plumping up your skin. Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water each day (about 2 liters), although you will need more in hot weather or on days when you are exercising.

As a rule of thumb, aim to drink an extra half liter of water for every hour you exercise. The best water to drink is home filtered tap water, or boiled water which has cooled, or bottled water. Ideally drink water that is at room temperature. If the thought of drinking that much water is overbearing, try herbal teas as well - loose leaf tea is the better option if it’s available. Green tea, horsetail, camomile and roibosch (or redbush) in particular are great choices as their hidden ingredients assist in the detox process. Roibosch and green tea has other health benefits too as it is very high in OPC antioxidants.

How To Fit It All In

Drinking this much water will soon be second nature to you. Have a glass of water with a little root ginger or some fresh lemon juice instead of (or as well as) your morning coffee - it’s the perfect way to start up your metabolism and bowel then try to drink another glass each time you take a break from your work.

Aim to have a glass whenever you eat, a glass between meals, have another drink mid evening and perhaps a final glass of water last thing at night. As I mentioned above, you can replace some glasses of water with herbal teas.

Fresher Food Is More Nutritious

Try buying farm fresh food and juice or blend them for maximum benefit or just eat them raw, in salads or as snacks or appetizers. Raw fruits and veg are still full of all their natural enzymes, vitamins and minerals. If food is kept too long, or when it is cooked or preserved, it kills the natural enzymes.

Buy locally grown produce if you can, preferably from farm shops and local markets. Food from other countries is generally harvested before it is ripe (so it won’t have created all the nutrition of a fully ripened plant) and will have a longer time to lose nutrients on it’s trip to the supermarkets.

Choose Organic Food Where Possible

When you’re following a detox diet you don’t need to buy everything organic, unless you can afford it, but if you can manage one or two organic foods that would be great.

If you can’t find or afford organic fruits and veggies, it’s not a problem. All you need to worry about is eating enough fresh foods regardless of them being organic or not, than skimp on quantities. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of health benefits to going organic on a healthy detox diet.

Artificial fertilizers and pesticides are banned from production of organic foods, so they contain the lowest possible amounts of artificial, potentially toxic chemicals (such as nitrates). The practice of organic farming is very contentious due to the fact that there’s a lot of evidence that the cumulative impact of toxins from man made chemicals and bug sprays overtime may cause health problems in the future.

Organic foods are subject to a lot less processing. That means they contain no hydrogenated fats, artificial additives, preservatives or genetically modified organisms (GMOs). On top of that, organic foods usually taste better too.