OVERDONE it this Easter? Help is at hand. You'll be ready for anything with our two-week detox diet that will leave you at least half a stone lighter and boost your lust for life.
All you have to do is choose one of the breakfasts, lunches and dinners listed below - plus two snacks - each day for a fortnight. Piece of cake, so to speak!
Try also to drink at least eight glasses of water, water and lemon, herbal tea or green tea daily.
You can have normal tea and coffee too - just keep it down to three cups of tea and two of coffee a day to limit your caffeine intake.
And, if you normally take sugar, leave it out. It'll taste weird at first but it only takes 10 days to turn your tastebuds off the sweet stuff.
And when this plan is over you may never go back.
You should also try to stay off booze for the next couple of weeks. You're aiming to really rev up your liver on this plan and if it's dealing with alcohol it will be too busy for regeneration and repair.
BREAKFASTS
START with a glass of hot water with the juice of half a lemon squeezed into it. If you drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week, add three or four drops of milk thistle tincture (available from health stores). Follow that with one of the following...
Half a grapefruit, one boiled egg, one slice of wholemeal toast.
Juice of five carrots, one apple, two stalks of celery and half a beetroot. Plus two oatcakes topped with 1tsp peanut butter.
40g medium-sized bowl of porridge - topped with 1tbsp of sultanas or tinned prunes and chopped pear.
100g of tinned prunes in their natural juice. 1tbsp low-fat Greek yogurt. A slice of wholemeal toast.
1 pot of low-fat yogurt mixed with a handful of pumpkin seeds or 2tsp hemp seeds. Plus a piece of fruit.
One apple, cored and filled with four dried apricots, chopped up. Bake in the oven at gas mark 6 until soft.
Fruit salad of any two fruits and half a banana, chopped and mixed with a little grapefruit juice. Add one handful of almonds or hemp seeds.
Half a grapefruit, one boiled egg, one slice of wholemeal toast.
LUNCHES
YOU'LL notice these lunches are low in animal products and heavy on fruit and veg. While animal protein is an important part of a healthy diet it's also the food group your body finds hardest to digest so take a break from it for one meal a day to help rest your stomach.
Medium (about 200g) jacket potato topped with 2tbsp ratatouille, either canned or homemade with tinned tomatoes, mushrooms, red peppers and aubergine all simmered until the veg is soft.
Half a carton of any fresh vegetable or lentil soup served with a side salad of grated carrot, sliced beetroot and a handful of walnuts, pumpkin seeds or hemp seeds.
Salad of unlimited celery, cucumber and lettuce mixed with 1tbsp of low-fat ranch dressing. Add a handful of walnuts, one of sultanas and one sliced pear. One wholemeal pitta bread.
One pot (roughly 200g) of any supermarket salad based on couscous, tabbouleh or lentils. Serve with two handfuls of cherry tomatoes.
A small wholegrain pitta bread spread with 1tbsp hummus and filled with cress/alfalfa, sliced red peppers and artichoke hearts (fresh or tinned). Serve with half a carton of vegetable or lentil soup.
Unlimited crudites (say celery, baby carrots, cherry tomato and green pepper) served with a small pot of low-fat hummus or guacamole and two to three oatcakes or Ryvita crispbreads.
Salad of cress/alfalfa, cucumber, celery and sliced tomato topped with half a sliced avocado. Serve with three or four oatcakes.
DINNERS
THESE portions might look smaller than you're used to but they are the recommended serving sizes for meat, fish and carbs like as rice or pasta.
When you come off the plan focus on always filling half your plate with vegetables and splitting the other half equally between lean proteins and carbs such as the ones listed here to help you keep the weight off.
125g of any white fish grilled or baked. Serve with roasted/grilled red peppers and mushrooms mixed with four tinned artichoke hearts.
Stir-fry 100g of tofu or Quorn with broccoli, carrots and beansprouts. Top with 1tsp sweet chilli sauce.
100g grilled salmon, tuna or trout, Quorn steak or chicken breast with 3tbsp of low-fat coleslaw, two sliced beetroot, and two new potatoes.
50g of couscous, rice, pasta or quinoa with lots of roasted red peppers, mushrooms and aubergine and half an avocado or 1tbsp of guacamole.
Caesar salad from the supermarket with low-fat dressing topped with 100g of grilled chicken, lean steak or prawns and four tinned artichoke hearts.
Half an aubergine roasted in the oven until soft. Top it with 50g low-fat feta and a handful of pumpkin seeds and grill for a few more minutes. Serve with 25g (dry weight) rice.
Lettuce, tomato and cucumber topped with 100g of tinned tuna, salmon, sardines, prawns, crab, smoked oysters or 50g of smoked salmon.
SNACKS
SNACKING twice a day helps balance blood sugar levels, boosting your energy. It also gives you another opportunity to increase your nutrient intake. If you're finding the diet a bit tough choose the smoothie or yogurt option, for a break from all the fruit and vegetables you're eating.
Baked apple (as breakfast).
Smoothie made from 150ml glass of soy milk and 4 handfuls of frozen berries.
One small handful of any nuts or seeds.
Handful of broccoli florets with 1tbsp of hummus or guacamole.
Any two pieces of fruit, or one piece of fruit and half a punnet of berries.
Low-fat yogurt with half a teaspoon of hemp seeds.
Four-five pieces of dried fruit - prunes, pear, apricot etc.
You're aiming to really rev up your liver, so stay off the booze
6 SIGNS YOU NEED TO DETOX
NATURAL health experts believe our body needs a regular break from all the high fat, high sugar, low nutrients foods thrown at it. And it regularly gives out signals to warn us it's under pressure. How many of these do you have? The more you tick, the more you need to carry out our cleansing plan.
Spots between your eyebrows.
Indents in your skin that don't fade quickly when you take off your socks or undies at night.
A line down the middle of your tongue.
A tender area if you rub between your breasts.
Low energy and mood swings.
A stomach that regularly swells more than 2ins during the day.
8 GREAT DETOX FOODS
ARTICHOKES: A known hangover fighter. These aid liver function and increase toxin turnover by boosting levels of bile in the body.
BEETROOT: Used for years as a natural blood cleaner, also helps the liver break down fats.
GRAPEFRUIT: Speeds up the processing power of the liver. It's so powerful that people on certain drugs are told to avoid grapefruit juice as it can interfere with their dosage.
HEMP SEEDS: The healthiest source of essential fats. Hemp helps detox as it lubricates the colon making it easier for your body to excrete wastes and toxins. You'll find them in health stores and some supermarkets.
PEARS: Contain high levels of pectins that actually bind to toxins carrying them out of the body. Pears are also high in iodine, which boosts energy.
PRUNES: As if you didn't know, prunes contain tartaric acid, a natural laxative
SPROUTS: No not Brussels, but alfalfa, mustard, cress and so on. These are packed with nutrients and also high in fibres which bind to toxins in the body.
OVERDONE it this Easter? Help is at hand. You'll be ready for anything with our two-week detox diet that will leave you at least half a stone lighter and boost your lust for life.
