No need to starve and suffer to feel better.

There are gentle ways to cleanse the digestive system that won’t test your willpower and leave you hangry (hungry and angry)!

Traditional cleansing methods of restricted calories and liquid diets can be too intense and uncomfortable as the body detoxes too much or too fast.

There is a mellow way of cleansing the digestive system that won’t leave you climbing the walls.

This gentle cleanse doesn’t have the instant gratification and dramatic results of intense programs like the Master cleanse (nothing but water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and maple syrup for 10 days) but over the long run it works just as well.

This cleanse technique works with the body’s natural, gentle cleaning cycle. You don’t have to eat or drink anything special you just have to finish eating early in the evening.

That’s it.

You’ll feel lighter and more energetic if you do this for a couple of weeks or on a regular basis.

How this digestive cleanse works: “The body is a self cleaning machine”

Your body does much of its cleansing while you’re asleep. It does it’s best cleaning work when you are in a fasting state. The body’s natural cleansing cycle is from 6 pm to 7 am. This is when the body concentrates on burning fat, but if you’ve eaten a late meal it will burn sugar instead of fat. (Toxins are stored in your fat cells, and the body detoxifies by burning fat which releases those toxins so they can move out of your body).

The digestive process takes up an enormous amount of the body’s energy, resources and attention. So when we eat or drink late at night the body spends it’s time digesting instead of cleaning. It can take up to 6 hours to digest animal protein so the body is still working long after food’s been eaten.

If you give your body the right conditions to do its cleaning job at night, you won’t be left with a growing mess that requires deeper, more intense cleansing later on.

Breaking the cycle of late night eating

It is ideal to have your last bite of food by 6 pm (water is o.k. after). If 6 pm is too drastic you can push it back to 7pm and compensate by eating a lighter meal.

Your liver is your body’s chief janitor. And according to Chinese medicine, it’s most active  between 1 am and 3 am. If it is not busy making bile to digest fats it can fully devote it’s energy to cleansing,  balancing and metabolizing.

If you don’t eat until 8 or 9 a.m. the next morning your liver and body will have 14 to 15 hours of focused, undistracted time to devote to cleansing and self maintenance.

With this eating schedule you may find yourself feeling less sluggish, sleeping better, in  a better mood and with brighter, clearer skin.

If you want to turn up the cleansing power you can eat a bigger lunch and lighter dinner. The less you eat at night the more time your body has to devote to cleansing.

But…

Eating early may not be that easy if you’re in the habit of late night eating or snacking.

Remember this is a cleanse. You don’t have to do it forever, just use it as a quick, easy fix when you start to feel heavy and run down.

If you have a problem with food allergies, you’ll have to remove the most common triggers from your meals (wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, corn) or else your body will devote its time to putting out immune system fires after it finishes digesting.

If you love the idea of this type of cleanse….

It’s gentle enough to do every day. And you might find that your old habits of night grazing are more psychological (habit, boredom, comfort) than physical (hunger).

To fill the space of old habits you can have a cup of herbal tea with a touch of raw honey (make sure it is raw) to sooth yourself.

This way of cleansing can balance  blood sugar over time, which will prevent late night hunger. And your liver will love you for it. It might even give you a present in the form of glowing skin.

Lastly, to make this cleanse less jarring, slowly move your meal time to earlier and earlier each night until eventually you are done by  6  or 7 pm.

Find ways to feed yourself at night without food. 

You will have more time to watch movies, read  books, talk to friends, play with kids, take a bath, have  an after-dinner stroll or get to bed deliciously early.

I hope you can enjoy this cleansing experience. If you found this article helpful, please share it with someone who’ll also enjoy it. And please let me know your thoughts or experiences below.

Warning: if you have serious blood sugar issues and have been told by your doctor to eat every couple of hours, this cleanse is not for you.

 

Tell me in the comments what your favorite form of cleansing is?