Spring Cleaning: Your Body

If you’re looking for today’s workout video, it’s down at the bottom of this post!

Now that we’ve learned how to do a little spring cleaning inside the ole cranium, let’s move on and give the rest of our body a little tidy shall we?

Don’t worry, there is nothing drastic here, you won’t be trying to sustain life on nothing but apple cider vinegar and cayenne pepper or something crazy like that! In fact, the first three tips don’t have anything to do with the food you eat (yay!).

When functioning well, our body does a pretty darn good job at cleaning itself out, however many of us eat a lot of well, not so great foods, that over time slow our bodies self-cleaning ability and things can get a little more clogged up than usual. Think of it as your house. We typically keep our houses in a reasonable state of clean, but every once in a while we still find ourselves having to move the furniture and clean the corners and what not. That’s what we are doing here, just moving a bit more of the furniture around to clean that extra dirt out. How do we do that?

1) Drink more water

Do you drink 1/2 of your weight (in ounces) each day? If not, start trying to up your water intake a little bit each day to work your way there. It’s hard for your body to work properly if your organs are all dried up like a prune. 😉 That aside, water acts as your body’s natural solvent, clearing out solutes in your blood. Every time you pee just think of all the junk you are getting rid of 😀

2) Dry Brush

You can do this morning or night before your bath or shower (doing it in the morning is a great way to wake yourself up!), and it only takes a couple minutes. Using a natural bristle brush (a natural loofah sponge can work as well I believe) you start at your feet and using long strokes brush towards your heart. Once your bottom half is done, you go from your arms and neck towards your heart and you’re done! It literally takes less than 5 minutes (I think I do it in about 2), it really wakes up your skin, helps get rid of dry skin and boosts your lymphatic system to get rid of extra “gunk”. It is also suppose to help reduce cellulite and unclog pores. For a full “how to” check out this Step-by-Step Guide.

3) Take an Epsom Salt Bath

Espom salts are made of naturally occurring compound of  magnesium and sulfate. Not only do they help enhance the detoxification of the body by pulling toxins out of your body through the skin and allowing the magnesium and sulfate to enter. Most women today are suffering from low magnesium so simply taking an epsom salt bath can help remedy that deficiency.

There are many other benefits to taking an epsom salt bath, including reducing muscle soreness and inflammation, treating athlete’s foot, sprains, gout and many other health conditions. For more info on how much epsom salt to use, and how long you need to soak (As well as counter indications please read this article).

4) Consume more dark leafy vegetables

When taking my nutrition certification and studying for my final exam one thing I could almost always bet on – if someone is suffering from a vitamin or mineral deficiency, one of the recommendations would be for them to increase their dark leafy vegetable intake. What does that mean? It means that ish is supa healthy for you and we need to be eating it! Put it in a smoothie, put it in a salad, put it in soup – just get it in your mouth!

5) Take it easy on processed foods

While I don’t want you to live on water and kale for a week, cutting out sugar and refined carbohydrates for a week can do a world of good for you. Personally I am planning to do a 21 day Hormone Reset following the guide in Sara Gottfried’s The Hormone Reset Diet (head’s up that’s an affiliate link), but if that seems a bit too extreme for you, simply cutting the crap for a week or two can be enough to help clear some extra junk and get your body and organs performing more optimally.

6) Get some sleep!

We’ve moved right back to day one here. One of the best ways to get your body back in tip top shape is to s-l-e-e-p. My goodness, North Americans pride themselves on being tired and over worked and it is literally killing us. Break the cycle and commit to getting 7-8 hours of sleep/night. You will feel better, and look better for it!

7) Fibre, fibre, fibre

Soluble fibre acts like a Swiffer and picks up the dust and dirt and junk as it works it’s way through your body cleaning everything out. Insoluble fibre is the kind of fibre that adds bulk to your stool and speeds up the time it takes for you to evacuate. You want to get both kinds in your diet, and both will help clean you out, haha, just in different ways. Soluble fibre is found in the flesh of fruits and vegetables and insoluble is in the skins. You’ll also get a combo of the two in nuts and seeds, ground flax (if you take flax whole you’ll only get the insoluble fibre) and whole grains.

When upping your fibre you want to go a little at a time. Figure out where you are now (most people on the typical North American Diet are in the 12-15g/day range) and start adding a few more grams/day until you reach the 25-35 recommended dose. Be sure you are getting a mixture of the two, and that you are also getting enough water (lots of fibre without lots of water = a full-stop traffic jam, 😮 and you don’t want that!).

[Tweet “Help give your body an extra boost to clean out the garbage and feel great this summer!”]

I don’t think that list is too scary is it? Even if you only implement one or two of the items in the list you’re body will thank you for it!

Check back tomorrow for part three – cleaning out your closet!

And since it’s Tuesday, here is a new video for you! I’m sharing a little Zumba Gold today, in the form of part 1 of my 2 part warm-up using the song “Don’t Leave Me This Way” from Zumba Gold Volume 8. I switched it up a little bit from how I normally teach it in class (I don’t usually do the squat and hamstring curl combo), so if it feels like there is a bit of a hiccup there, that’s why. Enjoy!