How To Design Your Own Detox Protocol

UnDetox your detox

I don’t do extreme detoxes. It’s not that I am a paragon of health, though overall I think I am doing really well. It’s that most of the detox protocols out there fit the one-size-fits all model, and aren’t customized to our unique needs and lifestyle. They also tend to focus on acute periods of intense and punishing actions, rather than helping us to figure out how to make sustainable and practical changes. Plus, who is more equipped to design a detox protocol for ourselves than ourselves?

Whenever I ask myself the question – Is there something I can start doing that will improve my health? – the resounding answer from my personal gallery of the voice(s) in my head is Yes! And then all those little voices get together and do a human pyramid in my health’s honour.

At times when I feel I need to do so, I put together together a little cleanse/detox/pedal-to-the-health-metal (that I affectionately named The UnDetox) for myself. I totally rock the socks off it when I do – all because I’m not ridiculous about it.

My daily diet is much like most cleanses – free of dairy, gluten, processed sugar and corn derived products. I kick it organic and GMO-free. In the past I have played (read: tortured myself) with a variety of more extreme cleanses, several being completely kakamayme, unsustainable tomfoolery.

Too often these practices that are supposed to make us feel better end up fully kicking our ass and make us feel defeated. Life is way too short to live it that way. Having learned a thing or ten about what self-care really is, and what health really is, it’s become fairly obvious that if you have even the most basic knowledge about health and nutrition (or have read UnDiet) each and every one of us has all we need to design our own personal plan of affection for our health. Let the goal of every health change simply be to help us glow like the glitter-raining-rockstars we are.

When it comes to choosing a detox, or a cleanse, or any healthy habit, your main focus should be one thing only: You.

Along with that comes everything you may need to do your own UnDetox in a way that makes you feel empowered, strengthened, lighter, refreshed and ready for the wildness that life inevitably always hands over just when you think you’ve got your life sorted.  And so, if you are going to do a detox, you might as well do it in the way that supports your health, not anyone else’s.

5 Tips For Designing Your Best Detox Ever (an undetox)

1. The First Question To Ask – And Then Do!

When I do healthy living keynotes, there is one question I often start with: Is there one thing you can do tomorrow that will start improving your health? Always, without fail, every single person in the room puts up their hand. I always raise my hand, too.

And so before you start diving deep in your self-care, start customizing your plan for what you need (not what some nutritionist, ahem, told you to do).


2. Bring On The Stress – The Good Kind

I know it can be tempting to come down with one of those epidemic cases of excuse-itis and decide that you want to choose what’s easy instead of what you’re actually capable of.

If you want change to happen in your life, you need a little stress to make it so. This is the good kind of stress. I’m referring to the stress that invites things to shift and change, not the kind that causes us to bend and break. So look at yourself, your health and your goals and work out where you really need to put your sacred energy, where you need to push yourself, and then commit to it. Don’t expect to heal everything at once, but know that effort in one key area might just have that magical end result.

Your goal cannot be try and heal everything at once, but choosing one area to heal, just might heal everything.


3. Today Is Always The Day

Today can always be the day. Today can be the day to start and today can be the day to quit. There will always be a reason to put off to tomorrow what we are perfectly capable of doing today. Similarly, when it comes to quitting/cheating/giving up – that too can wait until tomorrow, and the next day. Unless the quitting involves that bad habit – everything else is worth starting now.

There will never be a perfect time, unless you decide that right now, in this moment, the time is just right. Dive in. Dive deep. You know you can swim.


4. Set Your Own Rules, But Stick To Them

Part of all health programs always involve bringing in some good habits and letting go of some of the bad, right? Right. So when you decide to cut out gluten “most of the time”, or decide to “pretty much” go off dairy – what you’re actually saying is that if you are tempted, it’s no big deal because you’ve already given yourself permission not to follow through.

At some point you just have to give it your all.  The “or nothing” in “all or nothing” is not an option here.

If you really want to affect change in your health, and subsequently your life, remove the permission to do less than you are capable of. If you don’t, you will always find a reason to give in when things get hard or uncomfortable. It is the challenging moments that invite the greatest opportunity to blow our lives wide open.


5. Write Those Lofty Goals Down!

Get out your pen and paper, or whatever you like to take notes on and go.

  1. Put the date at the top of the page.
  2. What was your answer to the question up above? Is there one thing you can do tomorrow that will start improving your health? Write that down first.
  3. Write out the other guidelines for the things you know for sure you need to do to make this health challenge a good and proper mental, emotional and physical detox. Craft a program that meets your needs, considering where you are at in your
    life today. Some categories you might like to include:
    – Mental detox tasks
    – Emotional detox tasks
    – Food detox
    – Habits to kick
    – Lifestyle detox tasks
    – Movement detox tasks
  4. Write out your set of guidelines for this Super You UnDetox – the day you are starting, the day your are finishing, the daily things you must complete.
  5. Be clear on what you are going to be rocking every single day – maybe make a list with check boxes and copy it for each day of your UnDetox.
  6. And go!

You’ve got this. You need this. You can totally do it!

And if you need a little extra support and guidance, this Awesome Life Detox guide may help!

Today is the day to care for yourself. Today is the day to pay attention to what you need, how you are feeling and what you can do to help you be seriously rock star fantastic.

As I thought you might be curious, below I’m sharing some of the simple things I like to do for my personal Undetox. I aim to do this detox for at least two to four weeks. Do I always follow it exactly – nope. Do I feel bad about that? Nope. What score do I give myself on the Awesomeness Scale for trying? An A+++ of course!

Meghan’s Personal UnDetox

Mental Detox

Food Detox

  • Eliminate all grains
  • Eliminate all sugar (includes honey, coconut sugar, maple syrup or juiced fruits)
  • Increase protein
  • Eliminate alcohol (including the occasional glass of red wine)
  • Take my supplements (liver cleanse, probiotics, fish oil, vitamin C, iodine, vitamin D, digestive bitters)
  • Drink the most gag-worthy blend of 1 Tbsp of psyllium and 1 tsp of bentonite clay in 8 oz water daily

Physical Detox

Lifestyle Detox

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