Detox 2016

How smug do I feel after completing a month long detox!!!!!

After a summer of seriously overdoing it with unhealthy food and too much alcohol (blog about it here), I needed to kick start my body back into health.  Being an 'all or nothing' type of person, the best way to achieve this was to give up booze all together.  Even with all the physical challenges I have taken on in my life, this was pretty tough for me to accomplish!

Through committing to avoid alcohol and junk food for a whole month I learned a few big lessons which I'd like to share...

Leading a transient life requires control to be healthy.  

'Leaving drinks' and 'meeting new people drinks' have become a far too regular occurrence in my life.  This is probably not a bad thing if you have one or two drinks each time but I didn't.  I drank everybody's share!
Choosing when to complete my detox, I went for a time with no social events.  But, by the time it came around, I found that I had more and more social occasions within the month I'd chose.  I wasn't prepared to give up on myself so I went to all of these events as a non-drinker.  I literally blurted out that I wasn't drinking on arrival.  I realised that it really is just practice of saying no to drinks.  The more I said I wasn't drinking, the easier it got, and became a habit.  To the point of being pretty happy going out and not drinking.

​Training and fitness is so much better when you aren't drunk!  

Even when I've been drinking regularly, I have still forced myself to get out and run.  A few weeks into the detox, I realised that motivating yourself for training is much easier when you don't have alcohol in your system.  Also, running is easier, much more fun and enjoyable, and your performance improves.  Win win really!  Since completing my detox I've made the decision to drink no more than twice a week.

The biggest lesson I learned...

The power of social media.

​If I hadn't committed to my detox on all the social media platforms that I use, there is no way I would have completed a whole month.  I vividly remember day five, the gears on my bike had broken and I had a 60 mile bike ride ahead of me the next day.  I desperately tried to fix them myself but I just couldn't.  I had a proper adult temper tantrum and all I wanted was to devour a bottle of wine.  If I hadn't of made a commitment to everyone who follows me then I would have caved in there and then.  Not wanting to give in, I took some deep breaths, realised there are way bigger problems in the world and chilled out.

​If you truly want to achieve something that seems hard, I dare you to put it on social media!  You won't fail.

During the detox, I took photos of the food I ate, the activities I did and also of my body.  This was a great way to keep on track and stay motivated.

Like I said before, I always keep fit so I wasn't overweight to start with but if you watch the video below you will see that over the month my body definitely changed.

Healthy lifestyle all the way now!!

​If you have any tips on detoxing or have learned any other lessons along the way, I'd love to hear from you.  Please comment below. x