Ayurvedic Proverb – When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need
Alcohol Detox: What foods should you be eating while you’re detoxing tutorial?
What’s one of the best ways of helping your body to detox after you have stopped drinking alcohol? How can you speed up your recovery and reduce the amount of negative physical symptoms?
I’m Kevin O’Hara for alcoholmastery.com.
In this video, I’m going to talk about an alcohol detox, not in the sense of going off alcohol for a while to detox your body, although if you’re watching this video for that, then this is a great reason to stop drinking.
I’d suggest that once you feel the benefits of quitting though, how good your body feels and how clear your mind becomes, that you never drink again because all of those toxic feelings are going to return with your renewed alcohol consumption.
What is a typical detox? What does detox mean? Why should you bother? There’s also the question of what to eat and what to avoid eating.
I’ll be covering all that in the next few minutes.
What is a typical detox diet? What does it mean? Why are you doing it?
The typical detox diet is done so you can remove built up toxins from your body.
These toxins are a part of our life, unfortunately. We still live in the natural world, but we’ve created a lot of unnatural toxins that get into our bodies through our breathing, our skin, our food, and so on.
Our detox, the one you’ll be doing to help your body to recover from the alcohol quickly, is designed to lighten the load on your body, freeing up resources to rejuvenating and repairing the damage.
You don’t want to starve yourself. The idea here is not to lose weight, it’s to lose toxins. You are cutting out a lot of the crap food that might have been a part of your diet, all the processed foods, and replacing those with foods that are not going to tax your system, foods that are easy to digest, while still providing you with your basic nutritional needs. Now, as a sidenote, most people are not getting their basic nutritional needs met on a day to day basis anyway.
What typical foods should you eat?
My main two ingredients for a detox [my detox] are fruits and vegetables.
I’m not suggesting that you eat only fruit and veg, but these should make up at least 60 – 70% of your diet. Why?
Let’s take fruit first. Fresh fruit gives your body so many vital nutrients, the nutrients that your body needs to function properly. Fruit is high if fibre and low in calories. So it’s great for your digestion while at the same time you can eat lots of it without packing on any pounds. If you can’t get fresh fruits, the next best thing are tinned or frozen fruits.
Similarly, veg is low in calories and high in fibre. It’s a superb source of essential vitamins and minerals. Most veg breaks down quickly in your body and will keep your hunger at bay. The same with your fruit, if you can’t get a good supply of fresh veg, there’s nothing wrong with hitting the frozen aisle in your local supermarket.
Some other foods you should eat include non-dairy milks like rice or nut milks, which are much more gentle on your system than dairy.
You need protein as well, so choose this wisely.
Avoid heavy red meats and stick to chicken or turkey. Try to get organic because they are less likely to be adding more toxins to your system. If you don’t eat meat like me, go for protein packed peas, beans, lentils, etc.
There is also lots of protein packed into fruit and veg. Nuts and seeds will give you some essential fats and oils. And if you want to have grains, try to stick to the non-gluten variety like brown rice, buckwheat, or millet.
Finally, drink plenty of water to flush your system.
What typical foods should you avoid?
As we’ve learned earlier in this video, the whole point of going on a detox diet during the first few days and maybe weeks of your new alcohol free life is to help your body to heal, get rid of the accumulation of toxins, and provide a path of least resistance for your digestive system.
So the foods you should try to avoid are very heavy or provide a lot of work for your body to do in order to digest and assimilate the nutrients. The basics to avoid are dairy and eggs. That includes products like mayo. Avoid processed foods, oils, sugars, most condiments like ketchup, chutneys, etc.
So an alcohol detox is a modified diet that helps your body to recover from the alcohol toxins you have been taking into your system.
The purpose of the detox is to reduce the friction on your body as a natural part of your day to day digestive processes. This allows your body to have more resources and energy to throw at getting you well again, repairing the damage, and clearing your mind.
The essence of the detox is to eat as many whole food plant based ingredients as possible, while at the same time avoiding junk foods, processed foods, dairy, and eggs.
Oh and make sure you drink plenty of water to help flush out the toxins.
Thanks for watching and I hope you found something you can use in this video. Change your mind and the matter will follow. Without mind change you can’t change your actions.
Let me know what you think about what I’ve said in this video in the comments. I’d love to hear about anyone with experiences with detoxing, what foods you ate or avoided, or any other tips you might have.
If you haven’t signed up for the Alcohol Mastery Newsletter yet, you can do so on the website. Go to the main page at https://alcoholmastery.com and you’ll see the signup form. It’s free. I’ll also send you a couple of books on how you can deal with stress and relax more without alcohol. Reducing stress and increasing relaxation are two more things that will help you to detox. You can also sign up from the sidebar. Click on the link and you’ll find the signup form. Again, it’s absolutely free.
So that’s it for another video. Until next time, I’m Kevin O’Hara for alcoholmastery.com, onwards and upwards.
Don’t ask why healthy food is so expensive… ask why junk food is so cheap!
Until next time…
Onwards and Upwards!
Good video, Kevin. Nutrition is very important for your body to recover well. Avoiding junk foods is of utmost importance as they are usually full of sugar. Thanks! Julie
Thanks Julie… couldn’t agree more.
All good info Kevin, but am confused about avoiding eggs. Have bought several “clean eating” books recently that all advocate eating plenty of poached and boiled organic eggs as a source of protein and “good” fats instead of meat ?
This is one of those issues where some people say do and others say don’t. I don’t. There’s a couple of reasons. First, I never liked the idea of eating an egg. I don’t like where it comes from and what it is… part of a chicken’s menstruation cycle. Second, since I have stopped drinking alcohol, I’ve become acutely aware of the things I am putting in my body. I am always asking questions, what is it? where did it come from? what will it do to my body? Since I can’t answer these questions about any animal product, I have cut them all from my diet.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your inspiration. My journey has begun. By the way chickens don’t menstruate. They don’t have a womb. So there are no menses. And as for where it comes from well, where do potatoes and onions come from – dirt?
You probably will find it hard to avoid eggs. They are used extensively in foodstuffs.
Hi Tarot, Glad you’re getting on your way. It’s a good feeling. I suppose the chicken egg could be seen as both the womb and the egg. I just grosses me out completely. You’re right, chickens eggs are used extensively in processed foods. However, I only eat whole foods so I know I’m not eating them.
lots and lots of b vitamins help, include thiamine, granted much better to get from food naturally, sometimes though the body is so depleted its best to supplement your diet. Ahh this video is making me hungry, erm branflakes!