Fall is one of the key times to detox and Dr Sohère Roked has come up with the best body cleanse for an energy boost, ideal to get you through the upcoming holiday season and winter.
Dr Sohère, who claims to be one of the UK’s top holistic doctors specializing in tiredness, says she has taken the best of the many detox and weight loss programs and has has tried to create the easiest and best body cleanse to conquer exhaustion. It’s called The Tiredness Cure.
The causes of tiredness she says are:
1. High levels of toxins.
These come from our environment, our food and what we put on our skins.
2. Too much acidity.
This comes from eating too many things that create acid in the body such as sugar, grains, processed foods, coffee, tea, alcohol and not enough alkalizing foods like vegetables and fruit.
3. Roller coaster blood sugar levels.
Consuming sugar and refined foods that are released quickly into the blood stream play havoc with the blood glucose control system causing massive crashes with the inevitable tiredness.
4. Gut bacteria imbalance.
Dr Sohère believes, as many other health orientated doctors do now, that the majority of people have problems with wheat and dairy products. Improving gut health she says is the first step in improving energy levels.
5. Stress.
Too much physical, environmental and emotional stress places stress on our adrenal glands which causes tiredness. Low adrenal function is not a condition recognized by conventional doctors.
Dr Sohère, who practices Integrative Medicine and has studied with experts from the UK, USA and Australia, says that her three week body cleanse and emotional detox is the way to restore your energy and feel ready to take on the world.
According to her website Dr Sohère spent 3 years working as a psychiatrist before becoming a GP so it’s hardly surprising that she places quite a lot of emphasis on mind cleansing.
She says that it’s important to do a body cleanse at least twice a year to give the digestive system a rest so that it works better to produce the good mood chemicals like serotonin.
Did you know that although they are called brain chemicals, neurotransmitters are largely produced in the gut? Over 95% of the body’s serotonin is found in the gastrointestinal tract, which is why it’s often referred to as the “second brain”.
Let’s have a look at her energy boosting body cleanse:
Week 1: Clean up your diet
During week one you banish bad habits and avoid all the foods that zap your energy. These are essentially all the foods that any good detox diet recommends.
The foods that you should avoid are:
- Dairy products – milk, cream, cheese and yogurt.
- Sugar and all foods containing it
- Wheat
- Coffee and tea
- White potatoes
- Processed foods, including white rice, white flour products
- Alcohol
- Chocolate
She says that this first week is to gently wean you off an unhealthy diet.
Getting off all these foods is what most people find the hardest part of a detox. I always recommend taking two weeks to do this if you are used to having a lot of sugar and coffee in your diet.
Dr Sohère says that if you are struggling to come off coffee you can make it with half your usual amount and cut down by one cup a day but it’s better to go cold turkey.
I don’t agree with going cold turkey. If you are coming off sugar as well you will crash badly and are likely to get a bad headache. I wrote a post about coming off coffee here and about how to detox sugar here.
The key to not feeling hungry, she says, is to have a high protein breakfast yet she gives juice or a smoothie with some nuts as one choice for breakfast. Hardly high protein!
To make a smoothie higher in protein add some protein powder like a mixed plant based protein powder, hemp seed powder, pea protein powder, sunflower seed protein powder, almond butter, gluten free oats, coconut milk or a couple of tablespoons of flax seeds.
One of the better breakfast suggestions she gives is eggs with some meat. My suggestion is eggs with vegetables or some organic chicken or free range turkey with vegetables.
For lunch and dinner she advised that you half fill your plate with vegetables, one quarter protein and one quarter complex carbohydrate such as couscous, brown rice or sweet potato. Couscous is wheat so my advice is to give that a miss. Try quinoa or millet instead.
Week 2. Juice Blast 
Instead of doing a 2 or 3 day juice cleanse that often forms part of a body detox she suggests a juice, a smoothie, or soup for breakfast and dinner with a meal at lunchtime.
The idea behind this is to give your digestive system a rest overnight. If you get hungry her plan allows you to have snacks of fruit, vegetables, hummus, nuts or seeds.
Make sure the nuts are not roasted or have anything added. Soaking nuts or seeds overnight before eating reduces phytic acid and neutralizes the enzyme inhibitors.
It may not be so easy to get a main meal at lunchtime if you are working but she suggests making something that you could heat in a microwave. I could hardly believe she said that! Microwaving destroys antioxidants and alters fatty acids in food. Dr Mercola gives many reasons why you should not microwave your food.
In cold weather take a chunky meat and vegetable soup in a wide neck flask or a substantial salad made with a brown rice or quinoa base.
Week 3. Emotional Detox
During Week 3 you continue to follow the Week 2 body cleanse plan. By now, she says, your energy levels should have rocketed so you can increase exercise.
Time to reflect on what you want from life and get in tune with yourself. Dr Sohère suggest writing a plan of how you are going to achieve your goals.
One suggestion I have for this is to create a vision board. You can even do this online now. You simply cut out pictures of how you want to look or what you want to achieve and put them on a board in a place when you can look at them every day.
Set down the intention of making a change by writing a start date in your diary. It’s a good idea to make a start date for when you are going to do this body cleanse. It then becomes official. It’s no different from making an appointment. If it’s written in your diary then it’s happening. You have taken that first step in making a commitment and in making it real.
After the detox
When you have finished the 3 week detox cleanse you should wean yourself back on to “clean” meals. This means eating foods in their natural state – not processed or refined in any way.
One of the best diets, if you can call it that, to follow after a detox diet is the Mediterranean diet – fresh vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, healthy proteins like organic chicken, eggs and turkey and some grass fed red meat, wild fish, and healthy fats like olive oil, coconut oil, hemp oil or avocado oil.
After following the 3 week body cleanse Dr Sohère says you should be brimming with vitality and enthusiasm. I would love to hear how it goes for you. I recovered from chronic fatigue with a good detox plan so that is why I am so passionate about it. Try it!
