Detoxification is not just for the movie stars who abuse painkillers anymore. New evidence has shown that just about everyone needs detox not for drug use, but to clean out the colon, blood system, liver, and other organs that have been building up potentially toxic amounts of unhealthy matter over the years. Lots of people are jumping on the detox diet bandwagon, and for good reason, too.

With all the preservatives, hormones, air pollutants, pesticides, and even fat (think fast food) that gets into our bodies every day, it just makes sense to clean the temple from time to time. You wouldnt go without cleaning the house for very long, and you shouldnt go very long without cleaning out the body, either.

Here are three delicious recipes for detox diets. Give them a try if you want to help cleanse your system and/or lose some weight:

1) Veggie Broth

A head of fresh broccoli
A cup of fresh spinach leaves
A of celery
A pot full of distilled water

Simply cut up the vegetables into very small pieces. Put them in the pot of water, cover, and bring them to a full boil. Then, reduce the heat to a simmer and let all those nutrients seep out of those vegetables into the water. After about thirty minutes, drain the mixture. Discard the vegetables, and drink the broth. Yummy and a good colon cleanser!

2) Tomato-based Hearty Detox Soup

A pot of purified water
A head of green cabbage
Two medium green bell peppers (or one large and one small)
An onion
Three stalks of celery
Three carrots
One-third to one-half of a pound of fresh or frozen green beans
One or two cans of diced tomatoes or tomato sauce

Slice the cabbage into strips. Chop the peppers into bite-size pieces or smaller if you prefer. Cut up the onion, celery, and carrots into pieces of the same size. Prepare the green beans.

Some folks will say to ad the ingredients to the water a little at a time, beginning with the hardest vegetables first. I find that unnecessary. Just throw all the vegetables into the pot of water, cover, and bring to a boil. Then, lower the heat and allow the soup to simmer for several hours. Enjoy!

3) Lemon and Citrus Tea Detox Recipes

Lemon is quickly becoming a popular detox ingredient, probably because of its high citric acid content, vitamin C density, and abundance of bioflavonoids. Besides for all these benefits, there is something that is generally pleasing about the lemon, dont you think? Lemon furniture polish still b rings back childhood memories of helping my mom dust the living room furniture, my dishwashing detergent is lemon-scented, and lemonade on a hot day are you kidding? It gets no better than that.

A glass of grapefruit juice
The juice of one large lemon
Two teaspoons of olive oil
One to two teaspoons of flaxseed oil
Optional a clove of crushed garlic
Optional split the juices to half a glass of grapefruit and half glass of orange
A scoop of your favorite protein powder from the nutrition store

Simply combine the above ingredients in your blender and drink. Try to drink it on an empty stomach; perhaps the first thing in the morning, and be prepared to be cleaned out.

Recipes for detox diets are a sure and fast way to help clean your digestive system out as a whole. However, it is important for you to follow the directions carefully and only use for the length of time that is appropriate.

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Everyone you talk to seems to have dozens of tips on losing weight. Some are good common sense tips, but some seem to come out of left field. Even people who cant seem to successfully lose weight and keep it off, seem happy to offer up tips and advice to other people. Thats a pretty good indication that many of us know the best advice and tips on losing weight, but we just dont follow them very well. Here are some tips which, if you use them in your daily journey toward losing weight, can help you.

Use smaller plates. This is one of those tips on losing weight that often makes people roll their eyes. It has nothing to do with eating or exercise, but it really does trick your mind into thinking youre eating more food. A smaller plate will look fuller than a large plate if they have the same amount of food on them. You might even naturally put less food on the smaller plate, to keep it from looking so loaded down. Its a mental trick, but you should try it because it works for many people.

Eat slowly. This is one of the oldest and most popular tips on losing weight. Have you ever watched a speed-eating contest? Imagine someone eating the same amount of food as the winner, but imagine them eating it slowly. The champion may have scarfed down 20 pies in very little time. Could you actually sit down with a fork and slowly eat 20 pies? Its not likely.

The speed eater ate so fast, his body didnt even have time to scream, STOP, IM FULL! And if it had, he was only focused on putting more and more food in, just as we are when were starving and we gulp down our food. Eat slowly and youll reach a pleasant feeling of fullness rather than the one that means youve eaten too much too fast.

Watch your portion sizes. If fried chicken is your favorite, you might start out with 2 or 3 pieces on your plate. Try grabbing one small piece instead, and filling up on salad or green veggies to replace those missing pieces of chicken. Try to keep a portion of food about the size of your fist. Those mashed potatoes that you dont want to give up? Still eat them, but stop after one small portion, instead of piling a mountain on your plate.

Dont clear your plate. Of all the tips on losing weight, this one is often the hardest. As children we were taught not to turn down food because other people were starving. We might have even gotten punished for wasting food and forced to eat it.

Youre not starving, and you cant send that food to those who are, so do yourself a favor and dont eat it. To avoid the guilt of wasting food, use another one of the good tips on losing weight and simply start out with less food on your plate next time.

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The south beach diet is one of the most popular diets in the health industry right now; however there are many people that are looking for information about south beach diet snacks. A lot of people that have been trying this diet dont have the proper information. For those of you that are unaware of how this diet works, allow me to explain. The basic idea of the diet is to replace bad fats and carbohydrates with good ones. The foods that you will consume during the diet consist of chicken, beef, turkey, fish, shellfish, eggs, cheese, nuts, and vegetables.

The basic routine other that the south beach diet snacks includes three meals a day. These meals can be made out of a combination of the above mentioned foods and should be in portions that are recommended for your age, weight, and body type. The diet also says you can consume garden salad with the meals but the salad dressing must only be 100% olive oil. However, on top of the three meals a day the diet also says to consume a snack in between each of the meals. It also says to have dessert after dinner.

A lot of people that have got guides from the internet were ill-informed and didnt know that they should be having snacks on top of the three meals a day. This is really important to the success of the diet and should be followed strictly. This is why there was such a big demand for snack options, suggestions, and just general information about south beach diet snacks.

Due to the fact that there is such a demand for information on south beach diet snacks, we have decided to put together the following tips to help you better understand why these snacks are so important to the diet. We will also show you some options that you have for these snacks.

The reason that these snacks are so crucial to the diet is because, unlike other diets, the south beach diet works by training your body to crave healthy foods instead of unhealthy ones. In order to do this you need to consume a lot of food. This is why the snacks in between meals are so important.

A lot of people are unsure what types of foods they should be eating for their snacks as well as what size portion they should be eating. This is perhaps one of the biggest flaws that a lot of the online guides have; they fail to supply this type of information. South beach diets should be made up of any of the foods that are allowed during phase 1. The portion size of these snacks should roughly be a quarter of the size of your recommended lunch portion, if not less. Its important to remember that snacks shouldnt make you full. If you are finding that you are not able to finish your meals, you should reduce the portion of the snack accordingly.

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To develop a healthy eating program to maintain a healthy weight, its a good idea to do some research on health and nutrition. If youre not trying to lose weight but just want to eat well for good health, then its important to understand how your body uses food. This makes it easier for you to choose healthy food and not be tricked when less-than healthy foods call themselves natural and healthy.

A healthy eating program should offer you much more than just a good balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates. But if that balance isnt in place to start with, the plan probably isnt all that healthy. Any plan that keeps fat at about 30% or less of the diet and stresses good fats over saturated fats probably has a healthy fat balance. There should be plenty of sources of protein other than meat, like lots of fish, healthy dairy sources like yogurt, and beans.

And carbohydrates should be mostly whole grain sources like whole grain bread and oatmeal. Whole grain pastas are better than regular pastas, and basmati rice is better than regular white rice. A healthy eating program that stresses these smart choices over things like instant white rice and instant pre-packaged sweetened and flavored oatmeal is better than one that includes too many convenience items.

A healthy eating program should follow the government food pyramid pretty closely. Whole grain carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables, beans, fish, lean meat and dairy products can all be part of a very healthy diet. But there are other things to look at, no matter what kind of diet you choose to follow.

You want to make sure your healthy eating program has enough diversity so that you dont get bored, and you get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs. Baked chicken breasts, broccoli and a whole grain roll might be a healthy lunch, but no one wants to eat that several times a week. Your plan needs to include a variety of vegetables, not just one or two. There are more lean meats than chicken breasts, and many different ways to prepare these and other dishes.

Youll also want to make sure that unhealthy things arent creeping into your meals. Some diets stress that you use margarine instead of butter, for instance, because its lower fat and not full of saturated fat like butter. But margarine is mostly trans fat, a fat that even the government now agrees is worse for you than saturated fat. Its a fat that should be eliminated, or at the very least severely restricted, from our diets. A healthy eating program that allows certain commercially packaged low-fat cookies and treats might not take into account the amount of trans fats and sugar in those foods, either.

You have to be the detective and examine all the parts of the diet you want to follow. Yes, the balance of foods and nutrition is important, but dont forget to look at all the other parts of your healthy eating program.

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