Completing a cleanse is no easy feat and each finisher deserves a medal, in our opinion. After 20 days of eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, it’s natural to look forward to foods that you couldn’t eat while cleansing. Rather than going off the rails and reaching for all of the processed, sugary, gluten-rich foods you can get your hands on, it is wise to continue eating some foods you ate during your cleanse.
Think of the time you spent cleansing as a resting period. Your body is essentially waking up from a deep, healthy slumber, so the first foods you eat should be easy on the digestive system. This means that plant-based foods should be your focus during the first couple days after your cleanse. You can try incorporating steamed or sautéed veggies, brown rice, quinoa, lentils, or other legumes to provide the body with warmth and more sustenance. A few other quick post-cleanse tips include:
Skipping Happy Hour
Alcohol is loaded with sugar and calories, so skip happy hour for a while. Your liver just had a break, so there’s no reason to put harmful substances, which the liver has to process, back in the body immediately. The liver is a powerful detoxifying organ, but you’ll feel the maximum benefits of the cleanse if you give your body a longer break from alcohol and other substances.
Get Moving
If you lost weight during your cleanse without exercising, that’s excellent! Since you will most likely consume heavier foods that are higher in calories after your cleanse, you need a way to efficiently burn them. This will help you keep the weight off. Another way to encourage you movement is to download fitness apps that you can use with your friends. Map My Fitness can help you stay motivated to achieve your goals, and it can keep people accountable if they are supposed to meet daily targets. If you and several friends have FitBits, you can engage in weekly step challenges. You can also download PumpUp or Nike Training club to engage with an online fitness community.
Don’t Overeat
When entering life after cleansing, this is probably the best advice that a person can receive. It’s easy to eat a giant bowl of salad without racking up a ton of calories, but a big plate of pasta with processed sauce can amount to more calories than two cleansing meals combined. Eat slowly, and eat smaller portions as you incorporate other foods back into your diet. Click here if you want to learn more about managing your portions.
Keep The Veggies Flowing
There’s no reason to eliminate vegetables from your diet once you finish cleansing. Most nutritionists advise people to consume a minimum of five servings of raw or lightly steamed vegetables per day. Not only do veggies help to keep things moving through the digestive tract, but they also offer diverse nutrients that the body needs to function optimally. If you want to take a break from raw vegetables and still have them retain nutrients, the best cooking method is lightly steaming. Once you steam them for a few minutes, you can eat them that way or puree them into a soup.
Sweat It Out
Sweating and exercising are not the same, even though people sweat when they exercise. While movement is essential after your cleanse, it can be beneficial to regularly visit a sauna or steam room to encourage a lot of sweating. The skin is a large detoxifying organ that is constantly exposed to toxins, microbes, and environmental pollutants. Utilize sweating as a way to naturally rid these toxins from the body and skin.
We hope that you find these tips helpful during your post-cleanse life. Always remember that you can cleanse whenever you feel like you want to clean out the body or get healthy. Never forget that cleansing is not just about losing weight.
