THE GREAT DETOX DILEMMA

Is there ever any need to detox? What’s the best way to give your diet a healthy kick-start sta for the new year? Answering these questions and more it’s over to Renee McGregor...

New Year, new you! That tends to be the prominent headline on most magazines and newspaper at the start of January. Alongside this, there’s also the suggestion of a detox, a purification of all the self-indulgence we took part in over the festive period. So what is a detox? What does it really involve? And is it truly necessary?

Many of us who take our sport seriously, regardless of our level, tend to be fairly structured and disciplined. How else can you ensure that you train over three events while also trying to balance work, friends and family commitments? Over the festive period, this structure can get rail roaded. Training sessions are swapped for Christmas shopping and social occasions, while your nutritional intake is made up of sausage rolls and mini pork pies rather than actual training food.

While a welcome change to start with, after a few weeks this lack of structure and change to your normal practices can leave you feeling a little ‘out of sync’. You’ll no doubt now be wanting to regain some form of ‘control’. But it’s this desire to get back on track with your training and progress that can lead you to thinking that a detox is the best place to start.

NATURAL DETOX

Some of you may have previously tried the more typical methods of detox promoted in the media, such as juicing g or fasting. But before you embark down this path, it’s worth knowing that our bodies are very resilient and pretty good at achieving balance.

Our livers are very efficient at naturally ‘detoxing’ the over indulgences of alcohol. And while our waistbands may feel slightly tighter, with a few weeks of fairly normal eating and light training, this’ll also be reversed.

In fact, the worse thing you could do is go on a severely restrictive ‘detox’ programme. After a few weeks of eating slightly more than normal, your body will actually have raised your metabolism to cope with the additional food intake. If you then drastically cut this down, you’ll shock the body to think it’s ‘starving’ so the body will actually work against you, not with you. When the body feels ‘the threat of starvation’ it tends to go into ‘preservation mode’, which means it holds onto extra body fat, making it more difficult for you to lose those few extra pounds.

So what can you do to give your diet a kick-start? My advice is to slowly start to make changes over several weeks. Set yourself realistic targets. So, instead of thinking ‘I’ll lose 2kg in two weeks’, tell yourself that over the course of January, you’ll aim to lose this extra 2kg. This is far more achievable and means you won’t be putting your body under huge amounts of pressure and, in the long run, are more likely to succeed.

LIMIT, DON’T DEPRIVE

Start with looking at what’s become ‘surplus’ to your normal diet. Is it alcohol and can you start by reducing this to a few times a week rather than daily? Or maybe it’s just the extra snacking, a handful of nuts every time you walk past the coffee table; a slice of Christmas cake with every cup of tea or coffee; or trying to finish up the cheese and biscuits as a late-night snack?

Deprivation is definitely not the answer so why not try to limit your choice to one of these a day? You’ll soon reduce your overall calories in a week, without really feeling like you’ve had to make drastic change.

As well as looking at your nutrition, the New Year is also a good time to kick-start your training; if you haven’t already, this is a good time to look at signing up to some races. These don’t have to be major A-races, they can simply be a commitment to do the parkrun every Saturday during January. [Head to p118 to check out the year’s offerings.]

Put it on the calendar so that it feels like an appointment you can’t miss. Tick them off each week so you feel that sense of satisfaction, while also re-establishing some structure.

RECORDRE YOUR PROGRESS

Monitoring and recording your progress can also be a rea ally useful aid to keep you focused. Don’t just write do own training times and distances, though, also think ab out how you felt.

If you were running, did you engage your glutes – if no ot, can you think about this the next time you go out? If you’re swimming, is there anything you can do to improvei your technique? Can you ask a friend to video you while you train so you can see for yourself whether changes need to be made to your posture or positioning? Collecting all this information will help you stay engaged in your programme and, while these may not be the key outcome goal, they’ll help in the process of achieving it.

By February you should be back to your fighting self, ready to hit training hard and achieve all those springtime personal bests.

Renee McGregor’s latest book, Fast Fuel: Food for Triathlon Success, is available at www.nourishbooks.com.

The worst thing you could do at this time of year is to go on a severely restrictive ‘detox’ programme