Your Post-Holiday, No Torture, Detox Guide

By Kelly Turner on December 29th, 2009

The holidays are almost over, and despite your best effort to eat right, you consumed more cookies and cocktails than you’d care to think about.  Your fingers are swollen, your tummy is bloated, and you can’t even look at the scale without heart palpitations.

In a perfect world, you would have been a good girl and avoided the food comas and morning hangovers, but you didn’t, so stop beating yourself up, and just get back on track.

I hate the word ‘detox’, because it insinuates that your body needs some help to filter out the bad stuff- which it doesn’t.  Your liver (although it may have taken a pounding these past couple of weeks) and kidneys do a fine job of that on their own.  Detox does, however, mean to filter out the junk, which to undo your holiday gorging damage as quickly and easily as possible, you are going to have to do.  In order to bounce back from your holiday dietary indiscretions, you are going to have to start today, eating right and living healthy, and in a week’s time, maybe less, you’ll be feeling better than you did when the holidays actually hit.

Drink water. Salty foods and alcohol both dehydrate the body, so drink tons of water.   Not only will it rehydrate your body, water is also vital in your body’s natural detoxifying system to help carry the gunk out of your system.  Skip the diet soda, which lead to more bloating, and pick up the plain stuff.  You can jazz it up with some lime or lemon wedges, but carry a bottle around with you everywhere you go, and drink 64 oz. a day.

Don’t skip meals. You may be tempted to skip meals when you think of all those little pigs in a blankets and spinach dip you shoveled in, but don’t. You don’t need to restrict, you need to eat the right things the right way. The quickest thing that will get you back to normal is to keep your metabolism going, and the only way to do that is to feed it in regular intervals.  Eat 4-5 small, clean meals a day.

Say no to leftovers. The holidays are over, and so is your chance to eat it’s food.  It may seem like a waste, but the holidays are known for excess, so if you eat those leftovers, those fatty, delicious, instantly gain 5 pounds leftovers, you are going to feel worse.  Give them away or throw them out, but once it is after the holiday, it is back to your regular programming.

Eat like a caveman. This means fruits and veggies, whole grains, and lean protein, with none of the extras.  If it didn’t come from a plant or an animal, let it sit for the week.  You can eat it later, but for right now, your body needs the things it was meant to eat- so if a caveman couldn’t have eaten it back in the day, you shouldn’t either.

Exercise! Get movin’.  Every little bit of exercise will help shed those calories, but more importantly, getting in a good workout is the quickest way to feel healthy and excited about eating healthy and taking care of yourself.  Don’t look at the exercise as a punishment, look at it as a step towards getting back on track.  Go for a walk, a run, turn up the tunes and clean your house to Lady Gaga- anything that will get your moving and appreciate what your body can do.

You don’t have to punish yourself to undo the holidays.  They are the holidays- it happens.  You do, however, have to be more careful with your choices than normal to kickstart your healthy lifestyle again and get back on track.  You’ll feel better, look better, and perhaps be able to make a New Year’s resolution that has nothing to do with your Christmas dinner.