Rebooting

As much as we try live healthy lifestyles and stick to a good eating plan it doesn’t always work out. Life happens. Whether it is work stress, traveling, enjoying moments of celebration such as Christmas, navigating the winter months, we all go through periods when we go off course and our weight can slip. This is why I love rebooting.

Rebooting is a way of cleansing your system and getting back on track. I wouldn’t confuse it with detoxing but you would benefit from this as well. Ideally on any given day we should avoid processed foods, carbs, and any other unnatural foods but sadly they can creep into our diet. So I like to go back to our caveman diet for a few days and fill my body with goodness. I juice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and supplement this with nuts to avoid any cravings. I won’t get into the debate about juicing over set meal times for now (we’ll save that for another post) but our minds are programmed to eat three times a day so arguably it may be easier to stick to some sort of routine.

My body reacts immediately to taking in the pure stuff and the excess weight falls off. The nuts provide adequate protein and the variety of juices deliver all the micronutrients that the body craves. It’s amazing to see such a rapid body transformation and it’s noticeable over a few days how the lean muscle reappears and the body fat percentage drops down. Day one and two can be an initial adjustment as your body fights back and begs for sugars, carbs and all other nasties but if you break through this mental barrier you will be well on your way. By day three your mind will clear, your senses will be elevated – especially your smell, your cravings will stabilize, and you’ll just feel better. More importantly your body weight scale will show some favorable results. I can lose up to 2kgs (4.4lbs) a day in the beginning and then it averages it to between 500g (1.1lb) to 1kg (2.2lbs) a day.

Rebooting is not a crash diet and it’s not about starving yourself. It’s about getting the right stuff in and keeping the wrong stuff out. Apart from nuts you can eat some citrus fruit in between meals if needed but do drink a lot of water to cleanse your system. I always choose to start a reboot on a Saturday rather than a week day. I find Monday a tough day because it’s jam packed with meetings and other work stress. If I start on a Saturday I get past the first two tough days and am in the right mental space by Monday.

The length of rebooting depends on your personal goals. For me it is about shaking off 2-3kgs (4.4 – 6.6lbs) normally and once achieved I can start to introduce a chicken salad for lunch, and then a day or two later start having eggs for breakfast, and so on. It’s then about maintaining a healthy diet and doing my best to stay on track, while reminding myself that we’re all only human after all.