Episode #312: What a Natural Detox Looks Like

Intro:

Welcome to The Healthy Catholic moms podcast where we make moving and nourishing our bodies the priority so that we not only fulfill our vocations, but excel in our callings. I’m Brittany Pearson, a Catholic wife, mom, personal trainer, and I’m here to help you build healthy habits that actually fit your life. I am here to teach you how to get the results that you want and maintain the results that you want without spending hours at the gym, or meal prepping all weekend long. I understand I am right here with you getting my workouts done in the nooks and crannies of time, looking up recipes, while nursing babies and trying to prioritize my own health amidst everything else going on. But I have really good news for you, you can get the results you want. In less time without doing hours of cardio and restrictive dieting. I’m going to teach you how to use strength training and eating in a macro balanced way to get you feeling so good and your skin full of energy, and strong to carry out your life. Okay, on this podcast, we’ll delve into how to lose fat in a simple, sustainable way. What your workouts and nutrition should look like during different seasons of life, like during pregnancy and postpartum times. We’ll also discuss healthy quick meals and how to get them on the table make foods that kids will actually want to eat. Mom hacks for making your day run more smoothly and so much more. All the while with continuous encouragement to stay the course and live with discipline. This is a place where we’re striving to steward our bodies well in order to joyfully serve. I am so happy you’re here. Let’s dive in.

Main Episode:

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to today’s episode. I’m so happy you are here with me. Thank you for being here and choosing to spend this valuable time whatever you’re doing probably multitasking with me today on today’s episode. So I’m excited to chat about what a natural detox it looks like. I just want to firstly say if you’re new around here and you’re wondering what I have for you what I can offer you start over to healthy Catholic moms.com. Right on the homepage, I have a free download so that you can figure out your macro targets. If that’s something that you are interested in. You can also get on my email list so you can get recipes and workouts and all that good stuff to your inbox on Thursdays. And if you’re interested in a little more and different workout programs are working with me one on one, all that informations over there. All right. And, okay. As I get into today, there are many of us who might have clicked play on this and have had experience with different detoxes in the past. You are not alone here. I have tried many things before I found about 10 years ago, the beauty of spring training and eating at 20 way and America balance way and I did a lot of dumb things before that. Okay, I bought Kim Kardashian diet pills are probably not even on the market anymore, because that that just never sounded like a good idea in the first place. I tried SlimFast. And I very specifically remember trying some kind of quote unquote, detox that was lemon juice, and cayenne pepper and all this disgusting stuff. I remember making it like 40 hours, I was somewhere on the second day. And I was walking around art gallery with my sister and feeling like I was gonna pass out because I hadn’t eaten food in two hours and drink this disgusting concoction. And that was the end of that we left and probably went to Chipotle or something. We went somewhere and got food that was the end of that. So I get it. I’m not judging anywhere that you’ve been or tried or any of those things, okay. I get also that this is kind of a natural impulse for a lot of us when the weather turns and it’s spring, it’s summer and we do want to get away from those heavier foods we had in winter. We also might be pulling out some spring and summer clothes and be like, Oh man, these shorts are way tighter than they were last year or these shorts don’t fit this year. And I know there’s also a multitude of reasons for this reasons for this you might be newer, postpartum or even like a year postpartum, but your body shifted and things like that. It also could be a little bit of age and it’s normal to be gaining some weight as we age we like to really fight them think we’re not supposed to gain any weight but that’s just not true. Even in the body fat calculators it takes into account age and the body fat what’s a healthy weight and body fat at certain ages? You know it goes up that allows for more as we age. So we’ve talked about that, you know before the podcast about how to combat that and you can to an extent but anyways, I get that it’s natural to think okay, it’s let it’s lighter season we want to feel lighter and be lighter. And I think that there are totally times where this is acceptable to do what I consider like a healthy detox. Where I personally am doing this is usually in the month of June is usually right after the holidays in January.
because I’ve just been overindulging a lot. And then the other time is September after summer, which tends to end up really heavy in the barbecue season. And despite all the tips that I’ve shared and how to navigate barbecues, healthily, I usually drink more than I do in the winter, you know, in the summer, just having beers or margaritas or whatever. It’s just that like, Hey, you want to have Margarita on the deck? Like, of course I do. So those are the natural times I feel like January, June and September for me where I personally want to do this kind of natural detox thing. Also, why I happen to sync that up now with beginner challengers for those who are looking to work with me in those eight week challenges where we just started one yesterday, because this is kind of the timeline. And then in the chasing greenness group is the only place I’m doing advanced fat loss challenges. I’m not doing any separate advanced failure shelters like I have in the past. That’s all within the chasing greenness group that I did, I did that same thing this year, January, May, May and June, both are focused on it. And then September, October will be focused on it because I do think it’s natural and normal to be pretty seasonal with this. Okay, so if you want to go about this, so I’m just overarching thoughts, and I’ll get into some nitty gritty tips origin thoughts are, we’re trying to go as minimally paths minimally processed as possible. Okay.

It’s not, we’re not cutting calories, we’re not reducing calories necessarily. We’re just looking at really up leveling the quality of our food and getting rid of the excess. This is, like I mentioned, those periods of time where maybe extra indulgences did creep in. So maybe it’s trimming back calories a little bit. Because maybe we’ve been overeating, a little bit around the holidays in the summer, that kind of thing. So getting rid of those excess indulgences, like maybe you’re really used to having some chocolate after dinner every night, or you already have that. But now you’ve crept in with other things like a really like sugary iced coffee each day, trimming back some of the excess indulgences, and then trying to go as minimally processed as possible. It’s kind of like getting rid of AI in general recommend living very at 20 80% whole clean foods, 20% treats and indulgences, what I propose doing a kind of natural detox is to do away with that 20% for just three to five days, however long you’re trying to do this for, I wouldn’t go over seven days. And then going back to AD 20 after that. So the problem is if you try to do this for 30 days, 60 days, whatever kind of like more programs that are like 21 Day Fix or longer than three to five or three to seven days. This is what usually ends up in then a kind of restricting and binging pattern where you restrict for a while, then you binge, then you kind of like you’re eating really clean all the time, then you just go totally off the wagon, you eat a whole pizza or chicken for yourself and a pint of ice cream or whatever kind of cheat meals. I don’t subscribe to that I don’t promote that. What I do think is fine is a three to seven days, we’ll extend that a little bit. But I usually say three to five days of mostly really whole clean foods, minimally processed foods, getting rid of the excess things like the alcohol, like the stuff that’s not doing any favors for you, right stuff that we might work in there. Because it can fit our macros because we’re not trying to restrict, but just for a week max getting really as clean as possible, you will get a lot of get rid of a lot of bloat and start feeling better, probably right away, get some distance between you and the sugar like especially if Easter candy has been in the house and you’re really on a high sugar kick lately, just taking these three to seven days of minimizing sugar that’s in a lot of processed foods and fats and everything else.

And just tasting what real food tastes like usually at the end of that five or seven days, we are like wow, we can taste real food already just about a short bit of time, it gives us some space from what our current eating habits were. So I do think it’s nice to kind of hit that reset button. Sometimes before going back to AD 21 We’ve been a little too 6040 We can go like 100% for three to five days, then we even back to 8020 I hope that’ll make sense. Alright, so five little guidelines that I would follow in these three to five or three to seven days. And then I’m just want to make this abundantly clear. And then I recommend going back to a more balanced approach of 8020 eating so this is just for three to five or three to seven days and number one who would abide by hitting 80 to 100 ounces of water daily and keeping it to just water or water and maybe unsweetened tea or coffee. That kind of thing and just watching again what you’re putting in your coffee, what kind of fancy drinks you’re ordering etc. I do take creamer in my coffee and I would probably keep that in here, even on kind of a detox week. But beyond that not adding really getting away from the added sugars is going to be such a benefit for you in the way
You feel. So I would try to stay with unsweetened teas, unsweetened coffee, that kind of thing. And if you don’t typically hit that water content, that’s where you’re going to hit. Now this is something that I would promote continuing obviously, after the three to five or three to seven days, I do always promote that water target.

But in these three to five, three to seven days, I’m tagging on there to just keep it to just water, or water and tea or water and coffee, getting rid of any excess calories going to different drinks. Even if you’re trying to like cheat the system here in the call do zero calorie, I’ll do Diet Coke or Coke Zero are this zero thing. Many of those kinds of drinks are made with chemicals that then make our body think it’s sugar, and our body tries to process it as sugar. Our body doesn’t know what to do with it and ends up bloated, or makes us crave more sugar because we got that kind of
thirst for the sugar in tasting whatever it was. So that’s why there have been studies done which are really interesting to me, where even drinking zero calorie beverages just isolating everything else but cutting them out. Studies have shown people can lose body fat, just from cutting out the zero calorie beverages because of the way it affects their body and affects their appetite and things like that, and their body’s ability to process food. So that is the first thing I recommend doing.

The second thing is to hit your three to five servings of vegetables daily, ideally with leafy greens. So like with this one, you’re like, well, Bernie, you tell us this all the time. So shouldn’t we always do this? Yes, you should always do this. This is just a heightened like honed in, you’re trying to really minimally process so this might be sliding at other times when we’re giving our calories to other foods and other items. Leafy greens are packed with nutrients. That’s why I specify dark leafy greens. So maybe even normally, you’re getting about three servings of vegetables that are not dark leafy greens for these three to five or three to seven days, make that all leafy greens, you’re gonna feel a heck of a lot better, you’re also going to have fiber going on, which will help keep you regular clearing out all that good stuff.

Number three hit 100 plus grams of protein. Now protein is very personal according to how much muscle you have, what your your body weight is right now what your ideal body weight is, for most people, when I’m working with them in setting their targets, I mentioned I think that I do have a how to set your macro targets on my website, you can get that for free, if you’re wondering, but you would set your protein for somewhere between 100 grams and your ideal body weight. So it’s safe for me to say, for most people, you’re going to try to hit at least 100 grams of protein. This might be something you’ve been sliding on where you’re eating healthy ish you’re eating intuitively. But you’re if you really stopped and added it up, you’re like man, I’m actually only coming around 60 grams of protein. All right, well, you’re gonna prioritize protein in these next three to five or three to seven days. So rather than having pancakes for breakfast, and a wrap for lunch, or like cauliflower pizza, that doesn’t give you much protein, you’re gonna swap those things out for Lean meats, eggs, maybe you are using a protein powder, but keeping that you know, as you’re like one higher processed food that day. You can get proteins and a lot of other places to Greek yogurt, all that kind of stuff. So
get that protein up if you don’t already do that and keep that consistent for three to seven or three to five days. All right, last to number four. This one is huge for the reasons I just mentioned in the diet coke, avoid artificial sweeteners, fillers, condiments packed with sugar etc. So a lot of us do not tolerate artificial sweeteners Well, nor are they the best for us. This is something that I think is fine in moderation through the scope of our life in the scope of our years, right, I’m just talking about in these three to five, three to seven days get rid of those it is going to help you banish bloat it is going to get you feeling better. We have so much sugar packed in so many different things. We do this in the eight week challenge we go through the sugar content we flip over things and look at the labels, sauces you might like like pasta sauces, you have no idea have sugar in them bars bars that you’re feeding your kids or that you’re eating yourself or not butter should there’s just so many things with added sugar and condiments and sauces tend to be a really big
area right there to start with. So look at what you can swap out what you can do without you know salad dressing love has a ton of added sugar. Can you just do some olive oil and balsamic vinegar for this week and keep things just really close to their natural state whole clean foods. And you know you’re going to feel so much better without all those added sugars and artificial sweeteners. Okay, it also will help if you’ve never done this that’s gonna help you open your eyes to what you are going to just kick out of your kitchen or what you are going to keep in there. After these
Three to five or three to seven days just in low doses, right? Lastly, now I do not tell you to eat like this 100% of the time some people do. Some people have different eating styles, eating preferences. But just for this three to five or three to seven days, I do recommend avoiding or limiting dairy and gluten. And the reason for that is that they tend to be more inflammatory than other foods. Now, some people handle things fine. I just mentioned Greek yogurt is a good protein source. So you could just limit it, if you don’t want to avoid it. And if you tolerate Greek yogurt, Fine, keep that in there, that’s totally fine. Totally up to you. Some of us don’t realize that these things are aggravating us until we’ve taken them out for a bit. Or even when we just limit them, like some people I know have a problem when they’ve had too much dairy. But if they just have a little bit in there, it’s no big deal. I have people in my immediate family like that I can make something with milk in it. regular milk like pancakes. But if I was to give them like a screen that was full fat, whole milk or anything like that, it would make them sick or if they drank milk or something. So you know, sometimes just in a little bit is fine. But you’ll feel really good. i This is like I said, I do this a couple times a year for myself. Just a couple days, I will stick to more like sweet potatoes, eggs, lean meats, dark leafy greens, rice, if you’re sitting here thinking what the heck am I going to eat? That’s kind of good, rough outline for you there. Okay? If you happen to be in the chasing greatness group, I ran a program 2021 June 2021, called the June intensive, I gave a whole meal plan that was all gluten free, dairy free, high focus on whole clean foods and avoiding highly processed foods.

That whole meal plan is available in the chasing greatness group, which is only 1499 a month, and even has a free two week trial. So you can even sign up for the trial and grab that and get out if you really want to do this is the closest thing that you have to a blueprint of following this. Now I just want to make this so clear, before I wrap this up. This is what I recommend for a short period of time, I don’t recommend doing this until you lose all the weight you want to lose. Because hearing this I get it I would think like that too. Well Brady, can I just do this to accelerate fat loss. And I’ll just do this for like six months or three months or however long I need to until I my desired, you know, body fat and have my desired body composition. I say no to that, because it’s very hard to sustain and maintain. And I’ve never seen that work well, you know, maybe an actress preparing for a role who goes all in and has so much money on the line like that is a motivator or whatever. But for the majority of us, we can’t sustain that we are going to succumb to temptations or whatever emotional eating things like that were most of us do much better with an 8020 balance and getting those foods that we want or crave for that glass of wine or whatever it is in moderation. That’s why my clients have been so successful and continue to be so successful. And they’re shocked when they’re like I felt like I was being so much more strict before but I’m having so much progress. Because when you’re working it in the plan, like you have a plan. It’s not just all or nothing like Kay, you were really working that clean plan but then you went off and had tons like way over ate had way more calories than you needed. So that works over over time at 20 works. But again, when we need that little dial back that really get back to basics, kind of reset your body, get the excess sugar out, get rid of the bloke it feeling really good. Another great time to do this would be after vacation or right before vacation. This is what I want you to do.

So like I said you can hunt down that June intensive plan or you can just kind of go by those guidelines I just mentioned number one, hit your water daily 180 to 100 ounces and keep it to just water or unsweetened beverages like tea and coffee. Number two hit your three to five servings of specifically dark leafy greens. Number three, hit your protein target which is going to be at least 100 For most of us. Number Four Avoid artificial sweeteners, fillers condiments packed with sugar number five limit or avoid dairy and gluten. After those three to five, three to seven days you’re gonna go back to at 20 eating and see what was worth it to you what maybe again, you’ll probably take something away just even from this of oh, you know what, I don’t really need that. You know, catch up on that or whatever because that was just not worth it to me to have that added sugar. So maybe I’m gonna switch to a different kind of brand of ketchup or make my own or just do without those kinds of things. But if nothing else, you’re gonna feel really good at the end of these three to five or three to seven days. Alright ladies, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for being here go check out any of those things I talked about healthy Catholic moms.com If you need anything or have any questions for me you can shoot me an email Brittany and healthy Catholic moms.com Yeah,
sir talking so fast that my brain can catch up. And next episode we’re gonna talk about
With the domino effect of health and how just one healthy decision can start off your day, totally differently and how we really can set ourselves up for success or set ourselves up to continue or start bad cycles that we don’t want to be in. We’re going to kind of delve into that next episode. Alright, so I will talk to you then I hope you have a great rest of your day.

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