Cleansing Foods to Help You Lose

Whether it is weight or fat you want to lose, cleansing foods can help you do it. But first let's get something straight...

The wrong foods will harm you, cause you to gain weight, gain fat and get sick. I'm not saying that you have to be a nut about it, but when you do eat "fun foods," do so only on special occasions. If you eat junk food and processed foods every day then no amount of cleansing foods, weight loss or fat loss programs will help.

The easiest way to make a change is to replace the wrong foods with the right ones. This way, not only do you fill in a munchie gap, but you will feed your body important nutrients.

The right cleansing foods are easy for your body to digest. In case you didn't know, good digestion leads to a stronger metabolism. Simple, whole, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains (rice, quinoa, couscous, etc.), nuts, beans, legumes and unprocessed animal meats in right size portions.

Fruits and vegetables make the top of the list of cleansing foods because they aid in digestion and provide natural fiber. For example, if you eat fruits alone in the morning, your body's natural cleansing process kicks in since this is your normal time to "clear out waste."

Eat a fresh green salad before the rest of your lunch. This will help stimulate digestive enzymes and get your body ready to digest the heavier food soon to come.

The more fruits and vegetables you eat in their whole, raw form, the less you will need to eat junk foods. Also, the more you eat, the more you stimulate your digestion.

Some people have weaker digestion. If this fits your description, eat smaller portions of fruits and veggies at first. Don't mix too many in one dish or with other foods and keep fruits separate from all other foods. Let your body adjust slowly as nature intended.

Grains are considered a cleansing food because they also contain various fibers to sweep your digestive tract. But don't eat too large a portion at one meal and watch your portions throughout the day.

A lot of get addicted to breads very easily. This is because most are not whole grains, in spite of the claims the packaging may make. They may contain some grain along with high fructose corn syrup and bleached, white flour to make it more appealing, since many of us grew up on soft, white bread. Watch out for this trick.

Meat may or may not be considered a cleansing food. This is because on one hand, if you eat organic, unprocessed meat you benefit from healthy fats (such as conjugated linoleic acid, an Omega 3) and this type of protein seems to help your liver detoxify. This is important one of your liver's jobs is to burn fat. But over-eating meat will have an adverse effect on your health.

A raw food diet is excellent since all of your meals will use cleansing foods. This type of diet takes practice to ensure you get complete nutrition, so you have to do your homework. In addition, it may require re-learning skills in the kitchen. A good raw food cookbook can help with that.

I just put together a new page on how cleansing can help you lose weight at my other website. There's a great video on there called "Invisible Killers" that was featured on the news. It's only a couple minutes so go take a look and check out my new books. You'll find all this at Body Detox